COVER STORY
The Great Game
Over Myanmar As the former pariah state shakes off pawn status, the playing field transforms—and world powers make moves for influence By AUNG ZAW
Myanmar President U Thein Sein, left, stands next to then Chinese President Hu Jintao during a signing ceremony in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on May 27, 2011. The two countries upgraded their relationship to a strategic partnership and inked economic agreements during the visit—U Thein Sein’s first trip abroad after becoming president two months earlier—but by October, relations suffered a setback when the president ordered the suspension of the controversial Chinesebacked Myitsone dam project. PHOTO: REUTERS
May 2013
T
he recent political opening in Myanmar surprised many neighboring c o u n t r i e s , including China. The government’s reforms have received welcome applause, but for Myanmar’s traditional friends and foes, they have also created room for new competition in the country. The rules of the game have changed quickly in Myanmar, and the world is watching to see how international relations, particularly with China, shift in turn. Since Myanmar regained independence from the British in 1948, leaders and diplomats at the Foreign Affairs Ministry have devoted most of their time, energy and resources to improving ties with China. We have seen rocky relations as well as honeymoon periods between the two countries. In the past, China has openly supported Myanmar’s banned Communist Party. At points, the East Asian superpower even dispatched
troops to the northern territory of Kachin State—forcing Myanmar to set rounds of border demarcation meetings in the 1950s and 1960s. Myanmar also saw anti-China riots in 1967, as Beijing stirred up disturbances by encouraging Chinese agents to support Communist cells in the country during the Cultural Revolution period. Although both countries signed a treaty of friendship and mutual nonaggression based on five principles of peaceful coexistence, China has sometimes breached these core principles to test the paukphaw, or fraternal, relationship, while Myanmar has avoided antagonizing its northern neighbor. Though many Myanmar political observers dislike Gen Ne Win, who came to power through a coup in 1962 and ruled Myanmar with an iron fist until his regime was ousted in 1988, some give him credit for playing a “neutral” foreign policy during the Cold War, which they say saved Myanmar from becoming the puppet of any giant power in the region or the West. For the Chinese Communist Party, Myanmar
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