News Analysis

With Aung San Suu Kyi’s Rise, China and Myanmar Face New Relationship

International New York Times | 12 November 2015

BEIJING — Even though China has long supported the generals who have wielded most of the power in Myanmar, the government in Beijing prepared this year for the possible election victory of the opposition leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, by inviting her to the capital to meet with President Xi Jinping.

In the June visit, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi was polite, paid deference to China as an important country and did not live up to fears that she might refer to democratic principles or her fellow Nobel Peace laureate, Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese writer who is serving 11 years in prison.

But whether China, which deftly read the pre-election tea leaves, can arrange a new relationship with Myanmar under the newly elected government is another matter.

Among ordinary people in Myanmar, China is seen as a heavy-handed northern neighbor largely interested in extracting valuable natural resources like timber and jade — and prone to plundering the land to build pipelines and a vast hydroelectric dam at Myitsone on the Irrawaddy River.

Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese opposition leader, during a meeting with President Xi Jinping of China in Beijing in June. Credit Liu Weibing/Xinhua, via Associated Press

Even Myanmar’s military-dominated government has not done China many favors. It canceled the building of the partly constructed dam, and to the annoyance of Beijing, it has in the past four years turned increasingly toward the United States.

As of Thursday, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, had won 291 seats of the 491 contested in the election, with results still trickling in. The governing party has won 33.

After the election’s results were clear, the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, apparently seeking to put the best face on the outcome, said on Wednesday that Beijing was pleased the election had gone smoothly and that China would continue to support Myanmar. China is Myanmar’s largest trading partner, by far.

In response, Myanmar’s foreign minister, U Wunna Maung Lwin, who met with Mr. Wang in southern China on Wednesday, said that Myanmar would maintain its friendly stance toward China.

Beneath the diplomatic courtesies of the two foreign ministers lies an awkward situation for China.

Myanmar, also known as Burma, has traditionally hewed to a neutral, nonaligned foreign policy. That changed under the brunt of more than two decades of economic sanctions from the United States and other Western countries, forcing Myanmar to tilt closer to Beijing.

However, since 2011, the military-dominated government has turned toward the United States, although falling far short of embracing Washington’s demands on improving human rights and ending war against ethnic rebels.

The shift away from China came after some particularly heavy-handed tactics from Beijing — including the unpopular plans for the dam — and the contrasting appeal of the West. Myanmar indicated it did not want business as usual with Beijing.

President Obama has visited Myanmar twice; Mr. Xi, perhaps China’s best-traveled leader, has not been there since assuming office in 2012, a telling sign of the cool relations.

“China may feel that Myanmar has not shown the kind of respect it deserves, and that the current government has become too close to the West,” said Thant Myint-U, author of “Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia.”

The new government, he said, would most likely seek improved relations all around, including with the United States, and especially with China, its large and wealthy neighbor.

 

In the last year, China has been disappointed that Myanmar has not shown more enthusiasm for its new infrastructure initiative, called “One Belt, One Road,” which encompasses the financing of railroads, roads and pipelines that would connect China with most of the globe via Southeast Asia and Central Asia.

Instead of viewing the program as a boost for its underdeveloped economy, Mr. Thant said, Myanmar has viewed the Chinese overtures as infringements on its northern border with China.

“There has been a longstanding reluctance by Myanmar to open up its borders — there are a mix of security concerns, inertia and more excitement about developing relations with the rest of the world,” he said.

Most recently, China proved to be unhelpful to Myanmar’s government by derailing a nationwide cease-fire among a mix of ethnic rebel groups. Leaders in the nominally civilian but military-dominated leadership of Myanmar had backed the deal in an effort to end decades of conflict in the north of the country and to improve its prospects in the recent elections.

China has long supported two of the rebel groups, the United Wa State Army and the Kachin Independence Organization, as a way of retaining influence in the northern part of Myanmar and keeping illicit timber and jade flowing across the border into the southern province of Yunnan. Militia and criminal networks move freely between the two countries while trafficking in narcotics, minerals and animals.

Last month, the Wa and Kachin fighters refused to sign a cease-fire agreement involving a range of rebel groups. Western diplomats in Myanmar said that China had pushed the two groups to stay out of the deal as a way to keep leverage over whoever gained power in the elections. China’s Foreign Ministry denied that the two rebel groups had acted on instructions from Beijing.

During the election campaigning in Myanmar, foreign affairs were rarely mentioned, and China was not an issue.

Although Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi was diplomatic during her June visit, she is not popular or trusted among the Chinese leadership, one Chinese expert on Myanmar said.

“China does not like her, and there are reasons,” said Lin Xixing, a professor at Jinan University in Guangdong Province in southern China. “Her father helped the Japanese fight the Chinese military in World War II. She has been close to the West, grew up in India and married a foreigner in Europe.”

Even so, the Chinese leadership may be inclined to take a pragmatic view of the relationship. More than anything else, Myanmar needs economic growth, and China is best positioned to provide it, Mr. Lin said. Moreover, he added, she had become more of a politician and less of an idealist.

“She has to fix ties with China because she needs the economy to work,” Mr. Lin said. “Those who voted for her are poor people, and they won’t have any patience with her if she screws up the economy.”