The Economist July 10th 2021 Asia 37
A
lmost as soonas the tanks rolled
into Naypyidaw, Myanmar’s capital,
in February, rumours began circulating
on social media about how China would
respond. It is a sign of its influence:
China is probably the only country that
could coax Myanmar’s generals to the
negotiating table. The speculation was
laid to rest only in June, when the Chi
nese embassy referred to Min Aung
Hlaing, the Burmese commanderin
chief, as Myanmar’s “leader”. The next
day, China convened a meeting of foreign
ministers from asean, a club of South
East Asian nations, and included the
military government’s representative.
With their putsch, the generals are trying
to wind the clock back to 2010, when they
still ran the show. China appears to be
adjusting its calendar.
China’s leadership and Myanmar’s top
brass possess similar authoritarian
instincts, but it was not inevitable that
they would arrive at an understanding.
The “Sinophobic” army has long been
suspicious of China, says Yun Sun of the
Stimson Centre, a thinktank in Wash
ington. During the decades of military
rule, when Western sanctions choked the
Burmese economy, the regime survived
because of Chinese trade and invest
ment. But the junta was wary of depend
ing too heavily on its northern neigh
bour. Intent on improving relations with
the West, it liberalised the economy and
put Myanmar on a path to democracy.
In turn, China made a friend in Aung
San Suu Kyi, the democracy activist who
became de facto leader of the country in
2016. She went on to sign billions of
dollars worth of deals with China before
being toppled by the army. China prob
ably would have preferred Ms Suu Kyi’s
party to remain in government, says Ms
Sun. It helped that she was wildly pop
ular with the public; her imprimatur on
investments from China served to allay
antiChinese sentiment.
But Ms Suu Kyi is now under house
arrest, and China is worried that the chaos
in Myanmar will spill over the border, says
Jason Tower of the United States Institute
for Peace, an Americangovernment think
tank, also in Washington. Criminal syn
dicates are ramping up their activities in
the lawless zones abutting Thailand and
China. Refugees fleeing the violence are,
despite border closures, trickling into
China. Some carry covid19. A Chinese city
on the border was locked down on July 7th
after the virus was detected there.
The fortunes of Yunnan, the poor
Chinese province adjacent to Myanmar,
hinge on stability on the other side of the
border. Chinese investors flocked across
because they see Myanmar as a portal to
SouthEast Asian economies. Oil flowing
through a pipeline from Myanmar sup
plies a refinery that contributes 8% of the
province’s gdp. China’s cherished hope of
finding a trade route that bypasses the
Strait of Malacca, whose waters are
clogged with American warships, also
rests on Myanmar. At the terminus of the
pipeline, on Myanmar’s western coast,
China is bankrolling the construction of
a deepsea port which, once completed,
will enable it to import oil and gas via the
Bay of Bengal.
China has bet that the Tatmadaw, as
the army is known, will deliver on its
promise to restore stability. True, the
coup has provoked formerly quiescent
rebel groups to take up arms once more.
But the Tatmadaw, which has the ear of
the Chinese government, argues that it
has a good record of preventing the
country from disintegrating. China
suspects that the opposition—a grabbag
of ethnic rebels and deposed parliamen
tarians—is no match for the organised,
disciplined military. Generals are speed
ing up several big Chinese infrastructure
projects to show their sincerity.
Yet by publicly backing the Tatmadaw,
China may in fact provoke attacks on its
interests. China’s refusal to condemn the
coup was interpreted by many Burmese
as tacit acceptance. Thirtytwo Chinese
linked factories were torched in March.
In May, three security guards at the natu
ralgas pipeline were killed in an attack.
China is concerned about an escala
tion of such attacks. But it is doing noth
ing to assuage the anger of potential
saboteurs, to avoid crossing the army. Its
officials have only limited communica
tions with Myanmar’s shadow govern
ment, which most Burmese regard as
their legitimate rulers. Chinese state
media are also antagonising the resis
tance by suggesting that they are being
“manipulated” by democracy activists in
Hong Kong. China reckons that the hot
heads fighting the coup will lose steam
before long, says Mr Tower. But it is a bet
it would rather not have had to make.
China is making a risky bet that the generals will prevail
Banyan The Myanmar trap
the casual callousness that stands out. He
was one of 16 codefendants, all but one of
whom remain in jail, in a case that police
describe as a Marxist terror plot. They have
tied the group, which includes distin
guished academics, humanrights activ
ists and a wellknown poet, to a rally held
in 2018 by lowcaste Dalits (socalled “un
touchables”) at a village called Bhima Kore
gaon, some 170km east of Mumbai. This
was marred by a stonethrowing incident
involving highercaste Marathas, during
which one person died. Police have also
claimed the group funnelled money to
Naxalite guerrillas seeking to overthrow
the state, and were plotting to assassinate
Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister.
So far, the only evidence produced has
been electronic, consisting of files re
trieved from the personal computers of the
accused, all of whom say they had never
seen any of this supposedly incriminating
material. According to independent inves
tigations by Arsenal Consulting, a Boston
based digital forensics firm, they appear to
be right. Close analysis by Arsenal of two of
the defendants’ computers shows they
were victims of malware attacks dating
back to 2016, which allowed dozens of doc
uments, including those later leaked by
police as proof of a conspiracy, to be insert
ed surreptitiously into their filing systems.
Separately, both Amnesty International, an
advocacy group, and Citizens Lab, a Cana
dian research group, have found that Dalit
activists were targeted by hacking soft
ware, typically sold only to governments,
that permits remote control of devices.
A statement from Father Stan’s family
and friends decries his death as “theinsti
tutional murder of a gentle soul byanin
human state”. That sounds about right.n