Good science has been used to support sloppy thinking. The studies showing HIV transmission along heroin trafficking routes are well performed and have clear conclusions. But now journalists write that HIV pours across the border. Huh? HIV doesn't pour anywhere. And people with HIV don't pour across this border. Myanmar people come and go just like the Chinese tourists.
[him] moderator
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Q+A - China's complex relationship with Myanmar
Ben Blanchard
Fri Aug 14, 2009 10:58am IST
BEIJING (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council voiced "serious concern" on Thursday about a sentence passed on Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, in a watered-down statement designed to win the consent of China and Russia.
Here are some questions and answers on China's complex relationship with its troublesome southern neighbour to explain why China comes to the rescue every time Myanmar is subjected to pressure from Western governments.
WHY IS CHINA UNWILLING TO CRITICISE MYANMAR?
China has a longstanding policy of non-interference in other countries' affairs, especially over human rights issues, in part because it does not want the United States and Europe criticising Beijing's own record.
Beyond that, China's overriding concern is a stable Myanmar. Drugs and HIV/AIDS pour across the border into the southwestern province of Yunnan and China is desperate to control that flow.
Any action that might place unbearable pressure on the generals and force a government collapse could have dire consequences for China. Ethnic minorities in Myanmar, which have in some cases waged long-running insurgencies, could then set up de facto states along the Chinese border and their primary income would likely come from drugs.
China also argues that Myanmar is no threat to international peace and warrants no U.N. Security Council involvement, unlike North Korea and its nuclear programme.
WHAT ABOUT CHINA'S ENERGY AND ECONOMIC TIES WITH MYANMAR?
Energy-hungry China is keen to import gas from Myanmar. A pipeline with annual capacity of 12 billion cubic metres, is expected from 2012 to ship gas to Kunming, capital of Yunnan province.
China will also start building an oil pipeline next month through Myanmar to enable it to facilitate crude imports from the Middle East and Africa. The link would allow Chinese oil tankers to avoid a 1,200 km detour through the congested and strategically vulnerable Malacca Strait.
Overall, China has invested more than $1 billion in Myanmar, primarily in the mining sector, and is the country's fourth largest foreign investor, state media say. Bilateral trade grew more than one-quarter last year to around $2.63 billion.
WHAT ARE CHINA'S BROADER STRATEGIC GOALS?
China has long worried about hostile neighbours, including India, or Japan and South Korea with their U.S. military bases. Having a friendly government in Myanmar is therefore important.
Myanmar gives China important access to the Indian Ocean, not only for exports from landlocked southwestern Chinese provinces, but also potentially for military bases or listening posts.
There are no guarantees a democratically-elected civilian government would be as keen for close ties with a China which had previously supported the junta.
And China, with its own history of suppressing home-grown demands for democracy, is hardly going to push Myanmar to grant the kinds of freedoms it regularly denies its own citizens.
The sanctions already imposed on Myanmar by the United States and European Union have in any case had little effect. The government also defied expectations it would implode during violent pro-democracy protests two years ago.
ARE THERE SIGNS CHINA'S PATIENCE IS WEARING THIN?
Very small ones. At a May meeting in Hanoi, Asian and European foreign ministers urged Myanmar to free detainees and lift political restrictions, in a statement unexpected signed by China.
In 2007, China's Foreign Ministry published an unflattering account of Myanmar's new jungle capital Naypyidaw, expressing surprise that this poor country would consider such an expensive move and not even tell supposed friend Beijing first.
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-41754620090814?sp=true
