[China, Myanmar’s chief
patron for decades, wants to maintain a relationship that will allow unfettered
access to Myanmar’s energy resources. But the Chinese, accustomed to unwavering
loyalty from Myanmar at the United Nations and other diplomatic forums, are
faced with a new government led by President Thein Sein that has shown signs of
wanting to be less dependent on its old friend and more responsive to the
concerns of its citizens.]
By Jane Perlez
 |
China’s Influence at
Stake as Myanmar Eyes Democracy
|
HSIPAW, Myanmar — As
Chinese workers in hard hats and red overalls bulldoze deep trenches into the
orange soil across northern Myanmar for gas and oil pipelines to China, China’s largest
energy conglomerate is paying cash for land and trees in the pipelines’ path,
and building schools and health clinics for some of the poorest people on
earth.
The compensation offered
by the China National Petroleum Corporation reflects a bitter lesson China
learned about doing business in the new, more democratic Myanmar when
construction on a major Chinese hydroelectric dam there was suspended last year after a
groundswell of outrage erupted over what was seen as China’s imperious attitude
toward Myanmar’s people and its environment.
The gentler approach
also reflects hard calculations in an escalating battle with the United States
for regional influence. As Myanmar loosens the grip of decades of military
dictatorship and improves ties with the United States, China fears a threat to
a strategic partnership that offers access to the Indian Ocean and a
long-sought shortcut for oil deliveries from the Middle East.
With the United States
reasserting itself in Asia, and an emboldened China projecting military and
economic power as never before, each side is doing whatever it can to gain the
favor of economically struggling, strategically placed Myanmar.
The Obama administration
would like a swift foreign policy success in an election year. Having another
country move from dictatorship toward democracy on Mr. Obama’s watch would be a
political achievement; having a friendly country on China’s border would be a
strategic one.
But the United States is
handicapped in delivering meaningful assistance by economic sanctions that
Congress is reluctant to lift. Myanmar must conduct fair parliamentary
elections on Sunday, settle conflicts with ethnic minorities and release more
political prisoners before more than two decades of harsh sanctions can be
removed, administration officials say.
China, Myanmar’s chief
patron for decades, wants to maintain a relationship that will allow unfettered
access to Myanmar’s energy resources. But the Chinese, accustomed to unwavering
loyalty from Myanmar at the United Nations and other diplomatic forums, are
faced with a new government led by President Thein Sein that has shown signs of
wanting to be less dependent on its old friend and more responsive to the
concerns of its citizens.
In perhaps the most
visible symbol of Myanmar’s new openness to the West, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited in
December, the first secretary of state to do so in more than 50
years. Photographs of her shaking hands with the revered opposition leader, Daw
Aung San Suu Kyi, women of similar age in white jackets, their hair drawn back
in ponytails, radiant smiles on their faces, now hang in cafes and homes, an
impossibility six months ago.
Mrs. Clinton tempered
her visit with warnings that economic sanctions would not be lifted as fast as
Myanmar would like. Even so, the United States restored full diplomatic relations,
a reward for Myanmar’s political and economic changes so far.
In a counterpunch,
Chinese officials blamed American meddling for the suspension of the $3.6
billion dam project last September, and said the American diplomatic foray was
a direct challenge in its backyard.
“It is hard for the
Chinese to see the United States push into Myanmar as not about China,” said
Yun Sun, a Chinese foreign policy expert based in Washington. “The United
States is a global power. It’s natural it would want a relationship with
Myanmar. But China had a monopoly, and if you have to share it, it makes it
difficult to swallow. That’s why the Chinese are angry.”
A prominent Chinese
historian, Qin Hui of Tsinghua University in Beijing, warned his government
that blaming the West meddling for the dam rebuff missed the point. The people
of Myanmar had expressed “exceedingly broad-based opposition” to building a dam
at the headwaters of the Irrawaddy River, the nation’s biggest waterway, he
wrote.
China still enjoys a
strong position in Myanmar.
The two authoritarian
governments have known how to do business in closed-door deals on arms sales
and megaprojects that critics say are laced with corruption. While Myanmar was
isolated by international sanctions, China was its main foreign investor, and
has the advantage of proximity over a long border. Beijing has plowed billions
of dollars into the country, and the United States cannot compete with that,
American officials say.
Washington is limited
under the sanctions to offering about $30 million a year in humanitarian aid,
an American official said, even as the United States Agency for International
Development seeks to establish a presence.
Sandwiched between the
United States and China are some Myanmar businessmen who see American-backed
reforms as the best solution to the chronically weak economy and fear that the
slow easing of American sanctions could work in China’s favor.
One businessman, who
declined to be quoted by name because free speech can still be an uncertain
proposition in Myanmar, said that if the United States insisted on maintaining
sanctions and the economy failed to take off, China would come to the rescue
with the old-style cronyism of big loans and huge infrastructure projects. The
new gas pipeline alone, scheduled to open next year, will bring billions of
dollars in royalties and transit fees. The oil pipeline to be completed after
that will also offer sizable revenue.
For that reason,
Washington needs to take a more pragmatic approach, said Aung Naing Oo, the
Burmese deputy director of the Vahu Development Institute, a Thailand-based
organization set up by Burmese refugees. “They should do more than talking,” he
said of the Obama administration. “By continuing the sanctions, the United
States is inadvertently helping those who want to take us back to the old
ways.”
For now, China feels
burned by Myanmar on the dam project.
The dam had provoked an
outpouring of nationwide opposition, backed by Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, and
brought into the open a nascent antipathy to China, as well as to the ethnic
Chinese population.
The dam on the Irrawaddy
River, which has near mythic significance in Burmese culture, was being built
by one of China’s biggest state-run power companies, China Power Investment.
About 90 percent of the dam’s power was destined for Yunnan Province in China
although, according to the World Bank, less than 20 percent of households in
Myanmar have electricity.
Thousands of villagers
were forcibly resettled by the military. They were given some compensation, including
21-inch television sets.
Opposition to the dam
remains strong near the site at Myitsone. Some residents of the nearby village
of Tanghpre tried to return home this month from a relocation camp. At the
red-brick Roman Catholic Church of the Columbine Mission, Sister Lydia sobbed
as she told how the police had detained her when she helped some of her
congregation return.
On March 17, Sister
Lydia lost her battle. The villagers she had assisted were bundled up by the
military and taken back to their Chinese-built homes in the relocation camp. A
sign planted in Tanghpre said: government property.
In a sign that the
company has not given up, Lu Qizhou, the head of China Power Investment, said
at a news conference in Beijing this month that mistakes had been made and that
the company would try to take better care of the local population. Whether the
Myanmar government succumbs to Chinese displeasure and allows the dam
construction to resume remains unclear.
Meanwhile, the pipeline
project — which starts at a deep-sea port on the Bay of Bengal and is being
built by China National Petroleum, operators of projects in nearly a dozen
countries — proceeds at an urgent pace. Trucks laden with pipes trundle through
villages around the clock. Bulldozers dig trenches 12 hours a day.
The company is making
relatively generous payments to cash-starved farmers to move off the rich soil
that grew luxuriant crops of watermelons, castor beans and mangoes.
A quarter-acre farm
fetches about $10,000, a large mango tree about $400, according to local
businessmen in Hsipaw. In a flash of the kind of corporate responsibility
increasingly practiced by Western natural resource companies, the Chinese
corporation recently built a health clinic in one of the villages close to the
pipeline, a sturdy concrete structure that contrasts with the flimsy bamboo
houses.
About six miles north
east of Mandalay, the second biggest city, the company donated a new school.
“They built a pipeline
near here for their own economy,” said Daw Swe Oo, a math teacher. “They take a
lot of our resources and donate back a little here and there. But I am just
happy and excited to have a nice new school to teach in.”
Bree Feng contributed reporting.
