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The logic of the dominant and current policy is that to develop Burma into a strong country, you have to strengthen the military first. But there is also an undercurrent policy saying that, "only when the country is strong will the military be strong." This is a reverse policy and also significant. But it is also possible that this group is merely making a tactical, not a strategic, shift. The goal is the same: a strong military. Anyway, if you gain knowledge about development, you will recognize that military supremacy is anathema to development. It is a self-contradictory. Once you get knowledge and you believe in development, you have to invite civilian participation. Q: There seems to be an element within the regime that tends to be more reform-minded, at least in terms of economic development. What do you think of this? A: I will say that transition is a result of the interaction between the ruling elite and the opposition, as well as the interaction between moderate forces and hard-liners within both sides. Change doesn't depend only on the military. When moderate forces start getting strong in the military, it helps the transition. I think we should welcome any development showing the emergence of the reform-minded element within the military. Holding conferences on economic development are good if they want to learn. It doesn’t matter if they’re working with Japan or another Asian country. But at the same time, I’d like to warn, especially the Japanese and other Asians, not to be too romantic about this process. We have to look at the specific measures this regime is taking, whether they are moving in the direction of development or supremacy. Holding conferences doesn’t necessarily mean they are going in the direction of development. Q: Do you think that economic development is more important than democratization? A: I think democracy is essential for development. The strategic issue now is how can we achieve democracy. In other words, we are tackling the question of transition. According to my understanding of transitional processes, there is no transition without the dominance of a liberalizer within the ruling elite. So, we are now dealing with two stages: liberalization and democratization. Liberalization is civilian participation in the process of decision-making, while democratization is citizen’s political participation in the process of decision-making…. It sounds similar, but it is different in action. In the Burmese military context, potential liberalizers are those who are oriented towards development. When I talk about development in the current Burmese political context, I am talking about development only in the context of transition. Q: Can you tell us about your experiences dealing with censorship in Burma? A: In my career, sometimes I succeeded and other times I failed in dealing with censorship. By succeeding, I mean that I was able get past the censors and at the same time get my message across to my readers. But sometimes readers didn’t understand what I meant. Other times, I couldn’t cross the [censorship] line at all. So I would call theses cases my failures. It happened that way sometimes. Dealing with the censor, you have to be very tactful. Sometimes we have to change the presentation style. From the Western point of view, some of our articles are too long. But we have to make them long because it is sometimes necessary to have some cover-up. There are always two messages, [one on] the surface and [another] underneath. When you read the article, you can find the surface message and then go to the underneath message. Q: In the past few years, there has been an explosion of journalism in Burma. Some say that the atmosphere for intellectual creativity has improved, but at the same time, you still have censorship. Do you see any kind of contradiction in these two trends? A: I think there is no change, specifically [with regard to] tolerance of dissenting views. But in my experience, the regime can tolerate it to a certain extent if we are talking about economic or development policy. But they would never tolerate any political discussion. Every time we get into that area, we get censored. In a way, [there has been some] improvement. But overall, I don’t think there is any real relaxation. Q: In 1995 you wrote an article on HIV/AIDS in Burma. How did you do the research for the article, and how did you deal with censorship? A: I believe almost all the words in the article passed. I think it depends on policy. At the time the international community didn’t speak much on AIDS in Burma, but after that more people became aware of the problem. I think that at that time only the WHO was interested in it. It depends on whether or not the international community is interested in Burma. I think that at that time, there was no problem [to write about AIDS]. Q: How did you gather information? A: I went to Kengtung, Tachilek, Mae Sai.