The trip follows a visit to Brazil by US Vice-President Joe Biden, which raised concerns that China and the US are competing for influence in the region.

But mainland experts said Beijing was well aware that Washington perceived Latin America as its “backyard” and would proceed cautiously.

Dong Jingsheng , an expert on Latin American affairs expert at Peking University, said: “China will not let Sino-US ties be affected by Latin America.”

Xi is expected to focus on economic issues and boosting China’s image in the region.

It is estimated that China committed more than US$86 billion in loans to Latin American countries between 2005 and last year, exceeding amounts from the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. [Source]

As commentators note a “pink tide” in Latin America—with 14 Latin American states now represented by left-wing presidents— the Global Times emphasizes that Xi’s trip to the region has nothing to do with political ideology:

“As more left-wing parties have come to power in the region, Latin American countries are tending to distance themselves from the US. They now pursue diversity in foreign relations and exhibit their independence,” [He Shuangrong, CASS researcher] said.

US Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent reference to Latin America as Washington’s “backyard” evoked strong emotions in the region, with Bolivia expelling a US development agency in protest.

“China’s expanding ties with Latin America are purely about the economy and trade, not political reasons,” said Xu. [Source]

Kerry’s “backyard” comment, mentioned in both articles above, did indeed stir emotions in Latin America. An opinion piece from the Global Times notes the Cold War connotations of the term and its inadequacy to describe the modern world, and the benefits that healthy competition between China and the U.S. could have in both country’s “backyards”:

Recently two “backyards” have been constantly mentioned by the media. One is China’s backyard, Myanmar and the other is that of the US, Latin America. While the US gets into China’s backyard, China does the same to the US.

[...]The concept of backyard comes with strong Cold War connotations. The world can hardly be divided by regions of big powers’ influence any more. The group competition of the Cold War era has lost its foundation. An integrated world is inevitable.

[...]Latin American and Southeast Asian countries have been undergoing rapid development. They need investment as well as expanding exports and promoting basic infrastructures. As China becomes more powerful, it can do more to seek a win-win situation. Meanwhile, the increasing investment of the US will be bound to be welcomed. Both regions are expecting more investment and more open markets from the US.

In the past two years, Americans have often stressed rebalancing. The best rebalancing could be that the competition between China and the US will result in their increasing investment in Latin America and Myanmar, which will boost trade relations.

[Source]

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For China, the arrest was a substantial victory, said Paul Chambers, director of research at the Institute of South East Asian Affairs at Chiang Mai University in Thailand, and an author of the book “Cashing In Across the Golden Triangle.”

“The capture of Naw Kham sends a message that no group or state is going to be allowed to mess around with China on the Mekong River,” Mr. Chambers said. “Everyone now knows the top dog on the Mekong is China.”

In some ways, China’s operation to scoop up the drug lord echoed Gen. John J. Pershing’s endeavor to capture Pancho Villa, the Mexican revolutionary leader who in 1916 killed 18 Americans in New Mexico, Mr. Chambers said.

[…] But there were two distinctions.

“No. 1, the Chinese caught Naw Kham,” Mr. Chambers said, alluding to Pancho Villa’s skill in dodging General Pershing’s army. “And No. 2, for smart diplomacy, they gave the credit to Laos.”

The article also notes the suspected involvement of elite Thai soldiers in the Mekong killings, and explains China’s decision not to use a drone strike against Naw Kham, which anti-narcotics chief Liu Yuejin says boiled down to legal restraints and sovereignty issues. At The Guardian, Glenn Greenwald sarcastically blasted Chinese “softness” in bending to these concerns, and criticized the tone of the Times’ coverage:

What kind of weak, soft, overly legalistic government worries about trivial concerns like international law and “sovereignty issues” when it comes to drone-killing heinous murderers for whom capture is difficult? Why not just shoot Hellfire missiles wherever you think he might be hiding in weaker countries and kill him and anyone who happens to be near him? Or if you are able to find him, at least just riddle his skull with bullets, dump his corpse into the ocean, and then chant nationalistic slogans in the street and at your political conventions. Who would ever want to give a trial to such a heinous and savage foreign killer of your citizens, particularly if it means risking the lives of your soldiers to apprehend him?

[…] In contrast to the strong and just US – which not only boldly drone-kills whomever and wherever it wants without regard to irritating trivialities like sovereignty but even tried (unsuccessfully) to pressure the Afghan government to execute its accused “drug lords” with no trials – the weak and soft Chinese are actually celebrating their own impotence. As the New York Times put it in February: “‘We didn’t use China’s military, and we didn’t harm a single foreign citizen,’ Mr. Liu bragged after the arrest in April 2012.” Note the word “brag”: the Times has to infuse something negative into the success of the Chinese in avoiding killing foreign civilians and relying on law enforcement processes rather than military strikes to apprehend an elusive killer.

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In reality, though, anti-China sentiment had been building for years, say foreign academics, Yangon businessmen and former military officials. That apprehension grew even within the nation’s armed forces, where officers believed Myanmar, also known as Burma, was being exploited by its giant neighbor.

As Myanmar becomes increasingly open, public protests have heightened over China’s role in its affairs. “The Chinese are still in a state of shock,” said Thuta Aung, head of Hamsa Hub, a business development firm in Yangon, also known as Rangoon. “In the past, they’d partner with the [Myanmar] military and do whatever they wanted as long as they put money under the table. Now villagers have more voice.”

Yet even as Myanmar rebalances its foreign policy, it’s unlikely to fully snub Beijing given China’s proximity, growing international clout and the nations’ historical relationship, analysts said. Though the Myitsone development was suspended, for instance, it wasn’t canceled, and numerous other Chinese oil, gas, pipeline and resource projects continue apace.

“The Burmese are very keen to get out of the embrace of the Chinese,” said Morten Pedersen, a senior lecturer with the Australian Defense Force Academy. “Myanmar was angry with the sanctions, but it was never anti-Western. They have a traditional view of autonomy and saw they were losing that.”

Read more about China’s relationship with Myanmar, via CDT.

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Naw Kham’s wry smile belied his macabre circumstances. “I haven’t been able to sleep for two days. I have been thinking too much. I miss my mum. I don’t want my children to be like me,” the 44-year-old Burmese druglord, chained to a chair, told a Chinese TV interviewer.

On Friday – two days after the interview – the Burmese freshwater pirate was executed for allegedly murdering a crew of Chinese sailors on the Mekong river in October, 2011. His last moments were aired on state television.

In the two-hour live broadcast, black-clad police officers hauled Naw Kham from a detention centre in southern China, bound him with ropes and chains, and bundled him on to a bus bound for the execution site. Three of his alleged henchmen followed in similar fashion. They were each killed – off camera – by lethal injection.

Though a rumored live broadcast of the actual executions failed to materialize, the TV coverage attracted heavy criticism. “It’s hard to see how that spectacle doesn’t violate [the] prohibition on parading condemned in the streets,” tweeted human rights researcher Joshua Rosenzweig, referring to a 1984 ban introduced to avoid unfavorable foreign media coverage. Human Rights Watch’s Nicholas Bequelin commented that China had “just wiped away any perception that it was making progress on the death penalty issue.” Within China, reactions to the broadcast were deeply polarized. From Andrew Jacobs at The New York Times:

“Rather than showcasing rule of law, the program displayed state control over human life in a manner designed to attract gawkers,” Han Youyi, a criminal law professor, wrote via microblog. “State-administered violence is no loftier than criminal violence.”

[…] In one segment, Liu Yuejin, director general of the central government’s Narcotics Control Bureau, cast the executions as a pivotal moment for a newly confident China and for ethnic Chinese across the globe. “In the past, overseas Chinese dared not say they were of Chinese origin,” said Mr. Liu, who led the task force that spent six months hunting the culprits. “Now they can hold their heads high and be themselves.”

Supporters of the program were many, and enthusiastic. One blogger suggested that death by lethal injection was too lenient, adding “These beasts should be pulled apart by vehicles.”

Some critics said the broadcast, and the subsequent public gloating, displayed an ugly side of China and would hurt its image abroad. To Murong Xuecun, a well-known Chinese author, the program revealed a national psyche, fed by decades of Communist Party propaganda, that craves vengeance for the years of humiliation by foreigners. “It proves that hatred-education still has a market in China,” he said in an interview.

At Bloomberg World View, Adam Minter described the spectacle as a “graphic extension” of a broader political strategy:

[…] Over the last two years the Chinese government has found itself embroiled in increasingly dangerous sovereignty disputes with its Southeast Asian and Japanese neighbors. So far, diplomacy has been the preferred course of action. Yet on China’s decidedly nationalistic and highly influential microblogging platforms, diplomacy — especially on sovereignty issues — is unpopular and viewed as a sign of weakness.

In response, the Chinese government and its official media tribunals have carefully ratcheted up the aggressive rhetoric, especially toward Japan, since the fall of 2012, reminding Chinese that they will not be bullied by outside forces. Rather, if there will be any bullying, China will be doing it.

A 2012 Reuters investigation into the Mekong murders described the web of trafficking in drugs, humans and endangered animals in Southeast Asia’s “Golden Triangle”, and Naw Kham’s legendary or perhaps mythical place in it. The report also highlighted the possible involvement of an elite Thai anti-drugs unit in the killings.

China’s Global Times recently revealed that authorities had considered killing Naw Kham with a drone strike instead of capturing him. See more on China’s drone programs, and more on the death penalty in China, via CDT.

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The training has been taking place in the hills of Yunnan Province. It borders Kachin State in northern Myanmar, where a civil war between an ethnic Kachin rebel army and the Burmese Army has been unfolding. The fighting intensified in late December, and Chinese officials and news organizations reported that shells had landed in China and that Kachin refugees had begun living in hotels and the homes of family and friends in Yunnan.

[…] The current round of fighting in Kachin State has centered on the town of Laiza, from which the Kachin army controls an autonomous area of the state. This winter, the Burmese Army has been pressing an offensive to capture Laiza or crucial military positions around it. The army has deployed fighter jets and heavy artillery, and residents have said civilians were killed.

[…] Chinese officials have expressed concern this winter over the violence, especially artillery shells falling within Yunnan; at least four have landed since Dec. 30. There are also worries about a potential flood of refugees.

Human Rights Watch reported in June last year that at least 7-10,000 Kachin refugees had crossed the border in the previous twelve months, and had not received adequate aid or protection from China. Two months later, they were reportedly forced to return, though state media claimed that those who went back had done so of their own accord.

The Wall Street Journal’s Deborah Kan and south-east Asia bureau chief Patrick McDowell discussed the conflict and China’s stake in it earlier this month, as the peace talks began:

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Naw Kham was the ring leader of a large drug trafficking outfit based in the Golden Triangle – a mountainous drug-producing region in Southeast Asia covering areas of Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

“One plan was to use an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to carry 20kg of TNT to bomb the area, but the plan was rejected because we were ordered to catch him alive,” Liu told the Global Times.

It is a noteworthy revelation as senior Chinese officials rarely make public acknowledgents about the country’s ability to project power overseas.

The disclosure also highlights the level of technological sophistication in terms of China’s ability to surveil targets in Southeast Asia. This will likely draw concern from the Asean neighbours wary of China’s military capabilities.

A report last year by the U.S. Defense Science Board described the pace of China’s drone development as “worrisome” and “alarming”, and suggested that Beijing might “easily match or outpace U.S. spending on unmanned systems, rapidly close the technology gaps and become a formidable global competitor in unmanned systems.” China’s drone programmes to date have focused on surveillance, however, particularly of its long coastline. A small Chinese UAV, or unmanned aerial vehicle, was spotted in the East China Sea by a Japanese destroyer in June 2011, and both China and Japan have indicated plans to deploy drones over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands.

The Obama administration’s opaque drone campaign in the Middle East, on the other hand, may have claimed as many as 4,700 lives, fuelling anger in the region and some opposition within the United States. Observers have long anticipated that other countries would eventually join in: in an October op-ed at The Washington Post, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker warned that America was setting important precedents, and urged the adoption of clear standards and practices for drone warfare.

Others, from European allies to Russia, China and Iran, are acquiring and beginning to use drones for surveillance — eventually, they will use them for killing as well. What would we say if others used drones to take out their opponents — whether within their own territory or internationally? Imagine China killing Tibetan separatists that it deemed terrorists or Russia launching drone strikes on Chechens. What would we say? What rules would we urge them to abide by?

The drone strike plan also demonstrates the progress of China’s Beidou satellite navigation system, whose availability expanded in December to commercial users across the Asia-Pacific. From Jane Perlez at The New York Times:

China’s global navigation system, Beidou, would have been used to guide the drones to the target, Mr. Liu said. China’s goal is for the Beidou system to compete with the United States’ Global Positioning System, Russia’s Glonass and the European Union’s Galileo, Chinese experts say.

Mr. Liu’s comments on the use of the Beidou system with the drones reflects the rapid advancement in that navigation system from its humble beginnings more than a decade ago.

The experimental navigation system was started in 2000 and has since expanded to 16 navigation satellites over Asia and the Pacific Ocean, according to an article in Wednesday’s China Daily, an English-language state-run newspaper. The Chinese military, particularly the navy, is now conducting patrols and training exercises using Beidou, the newspaper said.

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China financed more than 80 percent of the $248 million development cost of the port on the Arabian Sea, as part of a plan to open up an energy and trade corridor from the Gulf, across Pakistan to western China.

When complete, the port could be used by the Chinese Navy, analysts say, and Indian Defence Minister A.K. Antony told reporters on February 6 that Chinese control of the port was “a matter of concern.”

Indian policy-makers are wary of a string of strategically located ports being built by Chinese companies in its neighborhood, as India beefs up its military clout to compete.

China has also funded ports in Hambantota, Sri Lanka, and Chittagong in Bangladesh, both India’s neighbors.

China has repeatedly denied harboring any military intentions, however. A Global Times editorial, ‘Gwadar move renews ‘China Threat’ cliché‘, argued on Monday that such fears were simply the latest expressions of a more general insecurity.

Gwadar port is located in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province. As it’s close to the Strait of Hormuz and Pakistan’s border with Iran, it is considered strategically important. The West believes that the port is the starting point of an energy corridor that will connect China to the Arabian Sea and the Strait of Hormuz and also a strategic branch for China to influence the situation in the Persian Gulf. Some even see it is part of a Chinese “string of pearls” strategy aimed at encircling India.

Behind these analyses are worries and reservations over China’s rise. Energy security plays a fundamental role in this rise. The West is alert to any overseas move by China related to energy.

Any port has potential military value. There are growing suspicions that China will station fleets of warships in the Indian Ocean or other waters and establish naval bases worldwide. However, few Chinese support this. There are no benefits for China in encircling India, and strategists in both countries don’t want to play such a game.

[…] Enclosing and colonizing land overseas and expanding powers are all strange concepts to Chinese. Chinese merchant ships can be seen all over the world nowadays, but we have no interest in “pirate civilization.” China alone cannot convince the outside world, but regional prosperity promoted by China’s operations at Gwadar port in the future will be strong evidence of this.

Some outside China are also skeptical of the encirclement theory. From Daniel W. Drezner at Foreign Policy early this month:

For the past few years, a low level theme that occasionally pops into my news feed is the idea of greater Sino-Pakistani cooperation. Now this has a certain amount of realpolitik sense to it. The United States and Pakistan are not exactly on the best of terms, China is a rising power, they share a comon interest in containing India, yadda, yadda yadda. As a result, there has been the occasional press story about closer ties, which begets the inevitable U.S.-based blog posts about China expanding its “string of pearls” strategy of more deepwater ports in the Asia/Pacific region.

There’s just one thing. The more closely one reads these stories, the less clear it is that China wants a string of pearls. Most of these stories talk about great Pakistani enthusiasm for more Chinese involvement. That enthusiasm is not really reciprocated by China, however. […]

[… T]o sum up: despite Pakistan prostrating itself before China, Beijing has been extremely leery of getting too enmeshed in that country. It has rejected repeated requests for military basing, and only now has a commercial Chinese company agreed to manage a port that appears to be the Pakistani exemplar of “white elephant.”

So please, no “strong of pearls” posts from the national security blogosphere […]. These pearls are about as fake as you can get.

Another strategic explanation for the Gwadar takeover is the prospect of a ‘Chinese California’: a borrowed west coast on the Indian Ocean, linked to China by a railway and oil pipeline to Xinjiang. This might lessen China’s reliance on oil imports carried through the potentially vulnerable Strait of Malacca, from the Indian Ocean into the South China Sea. Similar plans have been mooted in the past for Myanmar, and though plans for the Gwadar railway predate Yangon’s drift away from Beijing, that development may increase the appeal of the Pakistani route. But Gwadar’s utility in energy security terms has also been disputed. From Xu Tianran at Global Times:

The operation of the strategic port is also widely regarded as a key move by China to seek an alternative to the Strait of Malacca, through which over 80 percent of the country’s imported oil passes.

[…] Under its 12th Five-Year Plan, China has vowed to accelerate the construction of railways and highways linking Gwadar Port and Kashi in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

[…] Zhou Dadi, former director-general of the Energy Research Institute under the National Development and Reform Commission, told the Global Times that the port’s role in securing China’s energy supply is being overstated, adding that the costs for building an oil pipeline and transporting oil via railways would be high.

“The idea of using the route from Pakistan to China as an alternative energy line can be seen as a last resort at most,” he said, adding that a situation in which the Strait of Malacca is blocked would result in a worldwide conflict, which is highly unlikely.

The deal may be less about Gwadar’s location than part of a broader pattern of Chinese port investments around the globe, as growth in China slows and struggling operators elsewhere sell cheaply. From Joanne Chiu at The Wall Street Journal:

China Merchants, a unit of the China Merchants Group conglomerate, last month agreed to pay €400 million ($543 million) to buy a 49% stake in port operator Terminal Link SAS from French container-shipping company CMA CGM, which was reducing debt.

Weeks earlier, China Merchants, the country’s biggest port operator by container shipping volume, acquired a 23.5% stake in the Port of Djibouti. China Merchants in 2011 took control of a container port development in Colombo, Sri Lanka, and raised its stake to 85% last year.

[…] For China Merchants, the CMA CGM deal gives access to a diversified port portfolio of 15 terminals in eight countries, including Morocco, Belgium and the U.S. The deal also strengthens the Chinese company’s relationship with the French shipping line. The companies signed a 12-year agreement in which CMA CGM’s container ships will increase calls at China Merchants’ ports.

[…] Growth in emerging markets is partly the result of a shift of some factory activity away from China. “Many manufacturers that produce low-end products, such as shoes and clothes, have been relocating their production bases from [China] to places like Cambodia, because of cheaper labor costs.…The trend is irreversible,” says Lawrence Li, a regional shipping and ports analyst at brokerage firm UOB KayHian.

Although featured on the back of Pakistan’s five rupee note, Gwadar has not been a commercial success so far. From Declan Walsh at The New York Times:

Commissioned by General Musharraf, the Gwadar port project initially set off a flurry of excited property speculation in what was once a quiet fishing village. Developers presented flashy plans for luxury apartment blocks amid talk the port could rival Dubai.

[…] But Pakistan has failed to build the port or transportation infrastructure needed to develop the port, the property bubble has burst and, according to the port management Web site, the last ship to dock there arrived in November. “The government never built the infrastructure that the port needed — roads, rail or storage depots,” said Khurram Husain, a freelance business journalist. “Why would any shipping company come to the port if it has no service to offer?”

According to reports in the Pakistani news media, the Port of Singapore Authority sought to withdraw from the management contract after the Pakistani government failed to hand over land needed to develop the facility.

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Khon Ja, an activist with the Kachin Peace Network, said the army fired four artillery shells at one rebel post a few kilometers (miles) west of Laiza on Sunday. A day earlier, they attacked a rebel post at Lawa Yang, just to the southwest.

Government forces are “trying to harass us,” said Sgt. Brang Shawng, who is deployed at Lawa Yang. “They are trying to draw us into a fight, but we are under strict orders not to fire back.”

Referring to Monday’s talks, Brang Shawng said: “We hope there will be a truce so peace will come, but nobody thinks this is going to end soon.”

Monday’s meeting was confirmed by a Kachin Independence Army officer and a civilian official working with the government’s negotiation team. The officials declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject.

This comes after China sent Kachin refugees trying to escape from the violence back to Myanmar. In the upcoming talks, China will mediate the meeting, according to Reuters:

The KIA said in a statement the Chinese government “will take a role as a witness and mediate during the meeting” adding that it urged “the Kachin community, our friends and supporters around the world to pray for our leaders.”

The talks could reduce tensions in a conflict that has displaced tens of thousands of civilians and seen an unprecedented use of fighter jets and helicopter gunships, an escalation that has worried China, which borders Myanmar.

A lasting truce could be hard to reach, however, and would require at least one party to soften its stance. The government first wants a ceasefire deal signed, which the KIA has refused to do until concrete terms of a political deal are offered.

Since late 2011, Myanmar has agreed ceasefires with 10 rebel groups, including the Karen National Union (KNU), which had fought the central government since 1949 in what was the world’s longest-running separatist insurgency. The conflict with the KIA is the only one yet to be halted.

Read more about China’s relation with Myanmar, via CDT.

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Riot police used water cannons, tear gas and smoke bombs to break up the 11-day occupation of the Letpadaung copper mine, wounding dozens of villagers and Buddhist monks early Thursday. The move risks becoming a public relations and political fiasco for Thein Sein’s government, which has touted Myanmar’s transition to democracy after almost five decades of repressive military rule.

In a visit scheduled before the crackdown, Suu Kyi met Thursday with company officials and protesters and was scheduled to meet with local officials and others Friday.

The mine is jointly operated by a Chinese company and a holding company controlled by Myanmar’s military, and activists say as the project expands, villagers have been forced from their land with little compensation.

Through state television, the government initially acknowledged using the riot-control measures but denied using excessive force against the protesters. In an unusual move, it later retracted the statement without explanation.

Protests against the expansion have been ongoing since June. Irrawaddy reports that the government has persisted with plans for the mine out of fear of China. The mine is jointly owned by China’s Wangbao Mining Copper Ltd. and the military-owned Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd:

During discussions with Thwe Thwe Win, a protester who has demanded the complete shutdown of the project, Aung Min [Minister of the President's Office] said the deal was signed between the former military government and a Chinese company and so ceasing operations would entail a fortune in compensation.

“If China asks for compensation, even the Myitsone Dam shutdown would cost US $3 billion,” he said. “But China still hasn’t said a word about it. We are afraid of China.”

Aung Min added that Burma should be grateful to China for its aid in 1988 when the Southeast Asian nation faced a food crisis due to nationwide unrest. He added that in the 1980s the former Chinese President Deng Xiaoping cut off support to the Communist Party of Burma that weakened the Marxist insurgency against the central government.

“So we don’t dare to have a row with China!” said Aung Min. “If they feel annoyed with the shutdown of their projects and resume their support to the communists, the economy in border areas would backslide. So you’d better think seriously.”

For its part, Global Times said in an editorial that the protests were instigated by foreign forces, while also blaming Myanmar’s democratic reforms:

It will be a lose-lose situation for China and Myanmar if the project is halted. Only third parties, including some Western forces, will be glad to see this result.

Protesters first asked for more compensation, but now want to stop this project and are demanding that the Chinese company leave. There are definitely some Westerners and NGOs instigating these protesters. More importantly, however, Myanmar’s political climate has changed and the government cannot control public opinion.

Similarly, some big projects have been halted due to public protests in Shifang, Qidong, and Ningbo in China. Companies cannot get their initial investment back. However, in Myanmar, people have much less ability to identify information than Chinese people.
[...]
Democracy promises to give everyone in the world equal rights, but this is only an illusion. Development is the last word, as Deng Xiaoping asserted more than 20 years ago. It is a value that applies to everyone in the world.

The Chinese embassy in Yangon issued a statement which said:

Issues such as relocation, compensation, environmental protection and profit sharing regarding this project were jointly settled through negotiations by the two sides and meet Myanmar’s laws and regulations.

Democratic Voice of Burma has footage of the protests:

Read more about the shifting dynamics of the Myanmar-China relationship as the former launches substantial political reforms.

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Chen shocked the world in April when he made a daring, next-to-impossible escape, climbing over the wall surrounding his house (breaking his foot in the process) and catching a ride some 350 miles to Beijing, where he took refuge in the U.S. Embassy. After a tense, days-long diplomatic standoff closely involving Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (No. 3), a deal was struck under which Chen would be allowed to travel to the United States to study. Now at New York University, Chen has embraced his new role as an evangelist for human rights, making the case that incremental change — one village or even one person at a time — can eventually transform a superpower. Against all odds, he remains optimistic, believing that China, taking a cue from Japan and South Korea, must “learn Eastern democracy.” He even thinks it’s inevitable: “Nobody can stop the progress of history,” he says.

An interview with Chen Guangcheng by Isaac Stone Fish accompanies the list. In it, Chen discusses how the central government allows abuses by local authorities—see Guizhou journalist Li Yuanlong’s detention last week for a recent example—and the chances of change or even revolution in China’s near future.

The central government definitely knew I was illegally detained at home. As for how the local authorities invented lies to frame me to put me in prison, as for how they persecuted my entire family, [the central government] didn’t necessarily know about the details. Yet now, six months later, I still haven’t seen the central government follow the country’s laws and keep its promise and investigate and deal with those officials who recklessly and illegally committed crimes.

Throughout Chinese history, has any emperor said they want to hand over power? Every emperor wants his power to last generation after generation. But can they? The Communist Party cannot monopolize all of the power in the country forever. This is a reality they must accept.

The possibility of China facing a revolution in 2013 is pretty big. This is something that the powers that be in China understand more than anyone else. It’s a pity that international society still does not understand this and has still not prepared. America should immediately start moving from dealing with China’s powers that be to dealing with the Chinese people. It definitely won’t be like 1989.

Chen does not appear to view the possibility of revolution with any great relish: when asked what the worst idea of the year is, he answered “violence”.

Controversial artist Ai Weiwei, still unable to leave China over a year after his 81-day detention in 2011, is ranked 26th:

[…] Ai has found ways to occupy his time. When one of his Twitter followers asked in May whether he was working on any new artwork, Ai tweeted back, “I am the artwork.” In April, he set up cameras throughout his house, providing a live feed on his website and to his 170,000 followers. (“Twitter is my city, my favorite city,” he told FP this year.) The authorities soon pressured him into removing the cameras, evidently preferring that they be the only ones to watch the rotund 55-year-old work on his computer and play with his cats.

But make no mistake — this performance art is deeply political. Throughout his career Ai has insisted that artists have a duty to humanity that outweighs the obligations of nationalism. Even declaring one’s opposition to “trafficking children, selling HIV-infected blood, [and] operating slave labor coal pits” is enough to get branded as “anti-China” in today’s political climate, Ai once noted on his blog, asking, “If we aren’t anti-China, are we still human?”

Foreign Policy also published a slideshow from Ai’s first North American retrospective at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., noting that “the artist was not in attendance.”

British singer Elton John added a concert dedication to Ai’s list of recent accolades on Sunday. While dismissing this “disrespectful” gesture, Global Times took the opportunity to critique Chen and Ai’s inclusion in the Foreign Policy list:

Western society is seriously biased against China. When US magazine Foreign Policy compiled a list of 100 global thinkers from around the world, the first Chinese on that list was blind activist Chen Guangcheng, and the second was Ai Weiwei. Even to Chinese people who have sympathy for these two people, this list may seem ridiculous.

In a diverse era, we don’t hold that the existence of people like Chen and Ai is unexpected in China. Also, we don’t believe that the impact they have brought should be denied completely.

The selection of Chen and Ai makes people wonder whether the word “thinker” in Chinese and English have different meanings. We can just say that some Westerners are increasingly unable to contain themselves over China’s rise. They cannot control China through normal means and they are more likely to rush their fences.

A more nuanced piece of Aiconoclasm came last week from Paul Gladston at Randian:

There are […] significant dangers in the upholding of Ai as our sole representative/mediator of artistic resistance to authority within China. While Ai’s bluntly confrontational and often bombastic stance can be readily digested within Western liberal-democratic contexts where romantic notions of heroic dissent in the face of overwhelming power still persist, it is by no means representative of the critical positioning of most other Chinese artists. Ai may have situated himself admirably behind enlightened westernized ideals of freedom and openness, but the sheer bluntness and reductive simplicity of his critical approach to authority have effectively foreclosed a more searching discussion of contemporary art within China as well as the complex, web of localized cultural, social, political and economic forces that surround its production and reception.

[…] Ai Weiwei is right in drawing our repeated attention to the debilitating injustices of totalitarian power within China. He is also right to upbraid western viewers for their inability to see past what are for them the pleasurable ambiguities of contemporary Chinese art. Less convincing, however, is Ai’s wholly reductive view of the critical possibilities of contemporary art in China. By insisting on his own stridently oppositional approach towards power as the only legitimate game in town, and because we are already highly familiar with that approach, [he] has misrepresented the contemporary Chinese artworld. One might add that Ai is also romanticizing the conditions of criticality in the West.

At 54 in the Foreign Policy list is Yu Jianrong, for his concise but detailed roadmap for reform.

In April, he released a succinct, two-phase plan he called a “10-Year Outline of China’s Social and Political Development.” Despite its bland title, Yu’s blueprint offers a timetable for Chinese reform that for once is as credible as it is ambitious. The plan puts dates and specifics to the task, advocating, for example, a stronger law on private property, the revealing of “information pertaining to government affairs” and “officials’ property,” and the abolition of “speech crimes,” after which China should “open up” the media and political parties. Yu’s short manifesto immediately caused a splash when he released it to his nearly 1.5 million followers on the popular microblogging site Sina Weibo (though the government has maintained a deafening silence). “We’ve already decided to change,” Yu explained in an interview. “The question is: In which direction do we change, and from where do we start?” Sweeping reform in this authoritarian land of 1.3 billion won’t be easy, but Yu’s plan is as good a place to begin as any. The era, he said, of crossing the river “by feeling the stones” is over.

China Media Project’s David Bandurski translated Yu’s plan in March. Soon afterwards, Didi Kirsten Tatlow described it at The International Herald Tribune, together with some criticism from Tsinghua University political scientist Liu Yu:

Master plans like Mr. Kang [Youwei]’s, or Mr. Yu’s are “unrealistic,” she said.

“All Chinese intellectuals, especially the men, they tend to blur the line with being an official and then they’re thinking, ‘How should I design a system for the country?’ and ‘How to make progress?’

“In the West there are intellectuals who make proposals on specific things, but in general they don’t make plans for the whole country,” she said.

What is needed instead, she believes, is a broad debate, among ordinary people.

“A good plan should involve the whole society,” she said. “There should be a big debate on where the country should be going.”

Yu’s nomination for best idea of 2012 is Mo Yan’s controversial selection for the Nobel Prize for Literature. Mo’s chief rival for the award, Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami, took 49th place on the Foreign Policy list as a consolation prize.

At 69 is environmentalist Ma Jun:

[…] A journalist turned environmentalist who founded the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, Ma applies scientific rigor to exposing such corporate violations (more than 90,000 to date), flagging everything from a small coal-tar factory improperly storing its dangerous waste to Apple suppliers poisoning workers with a toxic chemical used on touch screens — as well as local governments that flout environmental regulations across China. Dozens of major multinationals now consult Ma’s pollution readings when working with suppliers in China. And by documenting environmental violations that had long been obvious but were never compiled in a way the public could easily understand, Ma has given statistical ammunition to Chinese citizens trying to nudge the Communist Party into cleaning up its act.

Wang Jisi, “China’s most respected expert on the United States”, came in at 73:

[…] What does Wang want us to know? That the feel-good stories U.S. officials tell themselves about China’s global ascent are an elaborate form of denial. In an influential monograph co-authored by Brookings Institution senior fellow Kenneth Lieberthal, Wang this year described China’s actions on the world stage as rooted in the conclusion that “America will seek to constrain or even upset China’s rise.” Beijing’s view, he says, is that the United States is “heading for decline” and that China’s development model provides an “alternative to Western democracy and market economies.” The result? “[T]hese views make many Chinese political elites suspect that it is the United States,” Wang says, “that is ‘on the wrong side of history.’”

And at 83 is the Taiwanese-American former head of Google China, venture capitalist Kai-fu Lee:

In an article he published on his LinkedIn page in October, Lee named China’s narrowly focused school curriculum and the risk-averse nature of Chinese students, as well as the country’s chaotic Internet environment, among the reasons China hasn’t yet produced its own Mark Zuckerberg. That may be why he has also started a popular education website encouraging Chinese students to think more creatively. Although none of his companies has exploded yet, Lee’s ultimate contribution may be more fundamental: laying both the intellectual and financial groundwork for a revolution in the world’s largest online community.

Perhaps more significant to China for now than any of the above are Aung San Suu Kyi and Thein Sein, who top the list having begun to pilot the formerly reliable Chinese satellite of Myanmar (also known as Burma) into a more open and international orbit:

Aung San Suu Kyi, the soft-spoken, iconic political activist whom devotees call simply “the Lady,” may not seem like an obvious partner for Thein Sein, but she has become one by doing what few legends of her stature can: embracing the messy pragmatism of politics. Although Burma’s struggles are far from over — she has warned that international investment has been too rapid, and ethnic violence is escalating — the willingness of both the Lady and the general to embrace short-term compromise and foster long-term reconciliation in what was only recently one of the world’s most isolated countries is something to celebrate.

Fittingly, Aung San Suu Kyi finally was able to accept her 1991 Nobel Peace Prize in June. She used the occasion to remind the world of those like her, who struggle in the most forlorn places: “To be forgotten too is to die a little. It is to lose some of the links that anchor us to the rest of humanity.” It is a sentiment still felt from Aleppo to Havana, Pyongyang to Tehran, but also, as Aung San Suu Kyi and Thein Sein have shown, one that doesn’t need to be permanent.

See more on Chen Guangcheng, Ai Weiwei, Yu Jianrong, Ma Jun, Wang Jisi, Kai-fu Lee and Myanmar/Burma at CDT.

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Beijing has met these developments with a muted but clear lack of enthusiasm. From Evan Osnos at The New Yorker, citing a CDT Ministry of Truth Directive on Obama’s visit:

The clearest measure of the symbolic significance of President Obama’s visit to Burma on Monday came not in his surprising speech, or in the sight of him towering over the Nobel laureate and former political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi. It came from a less likely source: the Chinese Propaganda Department.

In the past year, as Burmese leaders released wave after wave of political prisoners, ended its censorship of the press, and welcomed former dissidents into government, China and its fellow-autocrats, have looked on with bewilderment and no small degree of concern that the infection of openness could spread beyond Burma’s borders. So in an internal notice to national media last week, China’s Orwellian agency, which oversees the world’s largest censorship apparatus, made clear just how it feels about witnessing an American President welcomed by once-hostile generals in Burma, a nation that was, just two years ago, one of China’s most avid partners in authoritarianism: “Downplay Obama’s visit,” the Chinese Propaganda Department ordered.

The propaganda officials are not the only ones with reservations about the occasion. At Foreign Policy, Joshua Kurlantzick of the Council on Foreign Relations argued at length that the presidential presence in Myanmar was “too much, too soon”. In short:

Myanmar’s political and economic changes, though substantial, are not as secure as many Burmese reformers and outside observers think. The economic reforms that have been put in place are tenuous, and if they do not lead to broad-based growth, they could only fuel greater unrest. Civil wars still rage in parts of the country, and the end of the authoritarian era seems to have unleashed dormant ethnic tensions in places like Arakan State in the west. Meanwhile, though the former senior generals really do seem to have retired, that does not mean the army has simply vanished from power.

Obama acknowledged such concerns in a speech to the University of Yangon on Monday but, as The Economist explained last week, they were ultimately outweighed by the need to press an unexpected strategic advantage:

Trumping the concerns […] is America’s “pivot” towards Asia and the geopolitical contest for friends and influence in the face of a rising China. Myanmar, which shares a 2,000-kilometre (1,250-mile) border with China, is viewed as a crucial prize in this contest. Mr Obama hotfooting it to Myanmar throws out an unequivocal message of American intent.

[…] Meanwhile, foreign-policy experts in China refuse to be taken in by all the American rhetoric about democracy and human rights. America, complains Zhu Feng, an international-relations specialist at Peking University, always had a strategic concern with China in the region, assuming that it wants to use “Myanmar as a springboard to the Indian Ocean”. (That is a not unreasonable assumption.)

And so the Obama visit is likely only to deepen the Chinese feeling of creeping encirclement. Chinese experts also point to last month’s extraordinary announcement that next year the Burmese army will, as observers, probably attend America’s annual regional military exercises with its friends, known as Cobra Gold. This year’s event, in Thailand, included contingents from South Korea, Indonesia, Japan and Singapore. If the Burmese join this lot, then expect the more conspiratorial readings of the “pivot” to get a really good airing in the Chinese capital.

At The Wall Street Journal, Deborah Kan and Patrick Barta discussed these geopolitical manoeuvres and the prospects for expanded American commercial investment. Barta stressed, however, that “Burma cannot afford to upset China in the long run”.

Thein Sein’s chief political advisor Ko Ko Hlaing recently visited China and stressed the breadth and depth of ties between the two countries. From Qin Zhongwei at China Daily:

Myanmar was one of the first countries to establish diplomatic ties with New China in 1950. But the two countries’ close relationship dates to centuries ago, Hlaing said. He said the ancestors of people now living in both countries had referred to each other at one time as “paukphaw”, a Myanmar word meaning brothers and sisters.

The countries’ relationship has remained strong in recent decades, especially during Myanmar’s isolation, a time that it received much assistance from China. China is now the country’s largest investor and trade partner, he said.

[…] “We need to keep cordial relations with all nations,” Hlaing said. “But the truth is, China is our most important neighbor. We will never forget that.”

This very importance has been a major force behind Myanmar’s recent shift, however. China’s stance towards its much smaller neighbour has at times been predatory. One example is the voracious logging carried out there by Chinese companies dodging environmental restrictions at home. “Soon the trees will be all cut,” a manager at one Chinese logging firm told The Globe and Mail last year. “Without the trees, there will be only mountains. So we will look into mining them.”

The key case, however, is the Myitsone Dam, whose suspension by Thein Sein’s government was a pivotal moment in its rejection of total dependence on China. The dam’s impact assessment found that it would cause “serious social and environmental problems” in Myanmar, but all of the electricity it produced was intended to be transmitted to China. At YaleGlobal earlier this month Bertil Lintner saw trouble brewing for China in Myanmar as this unbalanced relationship bred resentment:

Even within the ruling military, anti-Chinese feelings run high. Already in 2004, a document was compiled by Lieutenant Colonel Aung Kyaw Hla, a researcher at Burma’s Defence Services Academy located in Pyin Oo Lwin, an old hill station in the highlands northeast of Mandalay.

[…] The thesis bluntly states that having China as a diplomatic ally and economic patron has created a “national emergency” that threatens the country’s independence. Aung Kyaw Hla, probably a committee of army strategists rather than a single person, goes on to argue that although human rights are a concern in the West, the US would be willing to modify its policy to suit “strategic interests.” Although the author does not specify those interests, the thesis makes it clear that includes common ground with the US vis-à-vis China. The author cites Vietnam and Indonesia under former dictator Suharto as examples of US foreign-policy flexibility in weighing strategic interests against democratization.

If bilateral relations with the US were improved, the master plan suggests, Burma would also gain access to badly needed funds from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and other global financial institutions. The country would then emerge from “regionalism,” where it currently depends on the goodwill and trade of immediate neighbors, including China, and “enter a new era of globalization.”

But Chinese officials have suggested that they, too, see advantages in a more open Myanmar, provided that core Chinese interests are protected. Yunnan Party chief Qin Guanrong commented on the issue during the 18th Party Congress in Beijing this month. From Ben Blanchard at Reuters:

“We understand and support the wish of the Myanmar authorities wanting to open up and become part of the world,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a Communist Party congress, in rare comments on a sensitive relationship.

“We believe that Myanmar’s leaders will exercise their wisdom to lead their country’s opening up. They know that the people of China will always be true friends of Myanmar’s.”

[…] Still, concern persists over some vital Chinese projects in the country, notably a twin oil and gas pipeline being built across Myanmar into Yunnan.

[…] “We hope that Myanmar will protect the safety of China’s investments and personnel there,” Qin said. “Because the cooperation on these projects accord with the interests of both sides, and are mutually beneficially and win-win.”

A Global Times editorial on Tuesday, meanwhile, urged readers not to read too much into Obama’s visit, and repeatedly insisted that China’s relationship with Myanmar remains secure.

Myanmar’s opening-up was unavoidable. Sino-Myanmese relations must undergo some changes to adapt to this. But the changes will be limited.

There is no possibility that bilateral relations will be overturned entirely. China is the biggest neighboring country of Myanmar and has irreplaceable influences on it. More importantly, such influences are based on equality.

Myanmar is becoming open to the West in order to maximize its national interests. But it’s unwise to replace China with the West. Both the current leadership of Myanmar and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi well know this.

That said, Obama’s visit may still have an eye toward challenging China’s influence. But the actual effect will be difficult to tell. Obama likes to be applauded for his efforts in promoting democracy in Myanmar and this merits some reward. However, the US can’t squeeze China out of Myanmar.

The newspaper has been equally insistent on the question of whether China might follow its neighbour towards elections and a freer press. “Myanmar’s reforms,” it claimed in August, “are still flower buds that haven’t been exposed to wind and rain yet. We sincerely hope Myanmar’s reforms will prove successful. But it’s naïve if we doubt the road we have taken, just because these buds look different from China’s prosperous tree of reform.” At China File, Bi Cheng argued that this condescending attitude betrays complacency:

One weibo user called Dengba invoked the One Hundred Days Reform of the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), when China’s emperor rolled out a series of policies—modeled on Japan’s earlier Meiji Restoration—to modernize Chinese society, only to see the powerful conservative faction in his court shut them down a few months later.

“The Great Qing has made and will make significant progress in its reform,” Dengba wrote, likening the voice of the Global Times editorial to those of the hardline Qing aristocrats. “We mustn’t make an idol of Japan, a backward country that has completed the Meiji Restoration.”

[…] It is against the brightening backdrop held up by China’s neighbors that Beijing’s suspicion and wariness of basic freedoms and rights seems anachronistic. The Global Times editorial is oddly reminiscent of Emperor Qianlong’s reaction to the Macartney Mission in 1793. The British aimed to expand trade with the Qing Empire, but Lord Macartney’s entreaties famously ended in failure because Qianlong found engagement with the rest of the world unnecessary. China, believed the emperor, possessed everything it needed in abundance, and, as such, it was unnecessary to “import the manufactures of outside barbarians.” “Strange and costly objects do not interest me,” Qianlong wrote in the letter he sent back to King George III.

[…] As “strange and costly” as press freedom seems to China’s censors, it may be unstoppable in the Middle Kingdom. […]

See also Sim Chi Yin’s photographic exploration of the Chinese presence in Myanmar at China File; the full text of Obama’s speech in Yangon; Max Fisher at The Washington Post on the significance of the president’s use of the name ‘Myanmar’; Scott A. Snyder of the Council on Foreign Relations on the visit’s message to Kim Jong Un; coverage of the country’s ongoing sectarian violence from Human Rights Watch and The Economist; more on Myanmar via CDT; and a video from The New York Times last week summarising various aspects of Myanmar’s apparent transition:

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Barack Obama, Burma, civil war, dams, ethnic conflict, Global Times, Hillary Clinton, Hydropower, Indian Ocean, logging, Ministry of Truth, Myanmar, Nobel Peace Prize, oil pipeline, press freedom, qing dynasty, United States, Yunnan, Zhu Feng
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Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date is noted after the directives; the date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.

Central Propaganda Department: During U.S. president Obama’s trips to Thailand, Cambodia, and Myanmar [Burma], Chinese leaders will simultaneously visit Thailand and Cambodia. Use only Xinhua copy. Do not comment. Downplay Obama’s visit. (November 13, 2012)

中宣部：美国总统奥巴马即将访问泰国柬埔寨缅甸，中国领导人同一时间访问泰国柬埔寨，只用新华社稿子，不评论，低调处理奥巴马访问。

Central Propaganda Department: With regards to the online contents about the story “Beijing Spends 70 Mil Yuan on Heating per Day,” all media are asked not to carry, report, or comment on this. (November 11, 2012)

中宣部：对网上有关“北京一天供暖花费近7000万元”的内容，请各媒体不转载不报道不评论。

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Barack Obama, Beijing, Burma, cambodia, censorship, central propaganda department, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, Internet censorship, media censorship, Ministry of Truth, Myanmar, propaganda, thailand, Xinhua
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A Chinese court on Tuesday sentenced Naw Kham, a drug lord from Myanmar, and three of his subordinates to death for the murder of 13 Chinese sailors on the Mekong River last year.

The six suspects, comprised of five people from Myanmar, Thailand and Laos and one stateless suspect, faced charges of intentional homicide, drug trafficking, kidnapping and hijacking or a combination of those criminal offenses. The suspects were ordered by the court to pay compensations totalling six million yuan (about 960,000 U.S. dollars).

All six defendants said they will appeal Tuesday’s verdict.

Naw Kham and his gang members were found to have masterminded and colluded with Thai soldiers in an attack on two Chinese cargo ships, the Hua Ping and Yu Xing 8, on Oct. 5, 2011 on the Mekong River, the court said in an investigative report.

While four of the suspects were given the death sentence, another suspect was given a suspended death sentence, and one suspect was sentenced to eight years in prison, from AP:

Nine Thai soldiers who are accused of taking part in the killings previously surrendered but have not been tried or extradited. They remain in Thai military custody and are suspected of murder and concealing evidence, Deputy National Police Chief Police Gen. Pansiri Prapawat said Tuesday.

Sailors shipping Chinese produce and manufactured goods down the Mekong have long complained of armed gangs that loot their boats or demand cash. Little action was taken to protect them until the Oct. 5, 2011, attack near the Thai-Myanmar border, which sparked Chinese demands for a thorough investigation.

The Bangkok Post reported a few days after the killings that local Thai authorities seized both the hijacked Chinese boats after a gun battle with the gang and found cargo that included amphetamine pills worth 100 million baht ($3.22 million), garlic, apples and fuel.

The murder occurred in the ‘Golden Triangle’, which runs through China, Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos, and it is also known for its illegal drug trade. While the principal suspect, Naw Kham, has been identified as Burmese, the nationality of the other suspects is unknown, from AFP:

The reading of the verdicts was shown live on state television.

The trial finished in September after the gang of six men pleaded guilty to intentional homicide, drug trafficking, kidnapping and hijacking, state news agency Xinhua said in September.

The gang, based in Myanmar’s northern Shan state, was led by Myanmar national Naw Kham, who was one of the men sentenced to death.

At least one of the remaining five gang members is Thai, but the nationalities of the other four is unclear.

© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: death sentence, drug trafficking, Golden Triangle, hijack, murder, Myanmar, thailand
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Chinese officials and media have expressed concern Washington’s renewed interest in slowly democratizing Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, could be part of U.S. designs to dilute China’s influence there and encircle China with pro-U.S. states.

But during a meeting on the sidelines of a trade fair in southern China, Thein Sein said Beijing should not worry.

“Myanmar is at present in a transitional phase, but Myanmar pays great attention to developing relations with China, and its policy of seeing China has a true friend has not changed,” China’s foreign ministry cited Thein Sein as telling Xi.

“China has for a long time provided a large amount of sincere support and help, and stood at Myanmar’s side at the most difficult of times. Myanmar’s people will never forget this,” Thein Sein added, in the statement released late Friday.

China has worried about its relationship with Myanmar due to a halt in the controversial dam project in the Irrawaddy River, and Chinese media has had mixed reactions over the ending of censorship in Myanmar. The Asian Correspondent reports China has persuaded Myanmar to maintain the status quo:

President of Burma Thein Sein will have a trip to the United States after concluding his China trip. He has been visiting China for a trade fair since 18 September. It is Thein Sein’s second trip to China from the time when he became head of state in March 2011.

President Thein Sein has planned to attend the 9th China-Asean Expo and the China-Asean Investment Summit. The 9th Expo in Nanning aims to promote economic cooperation between China and ASEAN. Burma was rewarded the trade fair’s “Country of Honor” this year and President spoke at the opening ceremony on behalf of the ASEAN-member states launch the event which runs from September 19 to 24.

It looks as if China has been trying to keep Burma within its influential sphere since the ASEAN-member country has also been seeking to join in the US-led Cobra Gold military exercise in the Pacific. A senior Thai army officer was quoted by Japan’s Kyodo News saying that Burma expressed an interest in joining the Cobra Gold annual military exercises in the future. China may be concerned about military relations between Burma and the US to some extent.

According to CRIEnglish, Xi is urging Myanmar to ensure smooth implementation of projects between the two countries:

Xi said the two countries should continue to strengthen communication and coordination to accelerate the formulation of mid-term and long-term goals of bilateral exchanges in politics, economy, trade, culture, security and other areas to steadily push forward comprehensive cooperation.

The current development of China-Myanmar relations is generally good, Xi said, noting that China is ready to work with Myanmar to promote the healthy and stable development of the bilateral comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.

The vice president said that China will continue to encourage Chinese enterprises to make investment in the livelihoods of Myanmar’s people and other areas. China is also ready to work with Myanmar in agricultural cooperation.

© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: ASEAN, bilateral ties, democracy, Myanmar, Xi Jinping
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The authorities in southwestern China are forcibly evicting thousands of encamped ethnic Kachin refugees who fled a renewed civil war in neighboring Myanmar, pushing them back into the conflict zone in Kachin State in northern Myanmar, according to foreign human rights researchers and some residents in Kachin State.

“All the refugees in China now are being pushed back,” said one resident of Laiza, the capital of the rebel-held part of Kachin State. “Many of them are back already.”Officials in Yunnan and Beijing had been tolerating the presence of the Kachin refugees for more than a year, although Yunnan officials had been threatening to evict them. It is not clear why the refugees are being expelled now. An employee at the Chinese Foreign Ministry said the ministry had no immediate comment after it was sent a list of questions on Thursday. Calls to the Yunnan propaganda office went unanswered, as did calls to the propaganda office of Dehong Autonomous Prefecture, the location of the camps.

China has not taken an official position on the Kachin conflict. Kachin State is rich in jade, timber, mineral wealth and water resources, all coveted by the Chinese. Several large Chinese dam projects are in the region, including the Myitsone dam, which aroused local protests. China is also a major patron of the Burmese government, though many Myanmar citizens are wary of or hostile toward growing Chinese influence.

Authorities in Southwest China’s Yunnan Province and the Consulate General of Myanmar in Kunming Wednesday both denied that China had pressured the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), a political organization in Myanmar’s Kachin State, to bring 4,000 people who fled conflict in Myanmar back to the country.

Officials from the Yunnan government and the government of Ruili, a town bordering Myanmar, told the Global Times that they hadn’t received any orders to pressure the Myanmar people who had fled to the province to leave.

“The Chinese government does not need to ask them to leave because it’s very common for Kachin people to come to Yunnan to visit relatives and friends as they share the same ancestors,” Zhu Zhenming, director of the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies at the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.According to the expert, Kachin people belong to the same ethnic group as Jingpo, a Chinese ethnic group who mostly live in the Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture of Dehong, which administers Ruili.

“China is flouting its international legal obligations by forcibly returning Kachin refugees to an active conflict zone rife with Burmese army abuses,” saidBill Frelick, Refugee Program director. “China should urgently change course and provide temporary protection for the refugees in Yunnan Province.”

The Kachin refugees repatriated the week of August 19 were not allowed to remain in the more than a dozen makeshift camps in China in which they had lived since June 2011. In July 2012, authorities in Yunnan Province, along Burma’s northern border, visited Kachin refugees and informed them they were no longer welcome in China and had to return to Burma.

A local Kachin aid worker who has communicated directly with the Yunnan authorities told Human Rights Watch, “I went to the camps when the [Chinese] authorities came to give a speech to talk about this to the refugees. They said, ‘We cannot accept you living here. We allowed you to stay here for over one year but it is no longer possible for you to stay here. You must go back.’”

While the Chinese government has provided sanctuary to an estimated 7,000 to 10,000 Kachin who fled conflict-related abuses in Burma and sought safety in Yunnan Province, the authorities have failed to provide them temporary protection or aid. The Chinese government has denied United Nations and international humanitarian agencies much-needed access to these refugees. Those returned to Burma will be relegated to living in camps for internally displaced people that lack adequate aid and are currently isolated from UN agencies because the Burmese government has blocked humanitarian access to the area.

© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Burma, kachin, Myanmar, refugees
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