Stemming the Chinese Tide

Although China has thus far been able to keep the Burmese leaders in their hip pocket while heavily investing in Burma to further both its economic and strategic interests, the Chinese may be on a collision course with Burma’s general population.

The growing animosity of the Burmese people towards Chinese who have come to do business in Burma was highlighted by a clash in Mandalay’s jade market on June 27th.

A group of Chinese buyers allegedly agreed to buy a jade stone from a Burmese gems trader for a price of 4 million kyat (US $5,000), but when they returned to collect the item, the Burmese vendor had already sold it to another customer.

Yeni is news editor of the Irrawaddy magazine. He can be reached at [email protected].

Infuriated, the Chinese buyer allegedly swore at the Burmese dealer and physically assaulted him. A crowd of local Burmese responded by attacking the Chinese traders, who phoned the police.

Although police officers were quickly deployed and brought the situation under control, local Burmese residents who heard about the incident ratcheted up the tension by gathering at the jewelry store and singing the Burmese national anthem. As a result, the police were required to escort the Chinese traders out of the market via a squad car.

No charges were pressed against the Chinese for physical abuse, but the next day they were deported to Yunnan and reportedly banned from reentering Burma (although there were subsequent reports that they were seen at the recent annual gem expo in Naypyidaw).

Although in this instant the lit powder keg was diffused, the rapid and intense anger displayed by the local Burmese community towards the Chinese traders is indicative of the Burmese population’s simmering resentment of the growing Chinese influence over both the social and economic life inside their country.

The Chinese “invasion” of Burma is highly visible in Mandalay, Burma’s second largest city, as well as in Upper Burma, where growing numbers of Chinese migrants have poured in over the last 20 years, secured citizenship cards from corrupt Burmese officials and established successful businesses.

Today, the Chinese are believed to make up 30–40 percent of the 1 million people residing in Mandalay, the capital of Burma’s last kingdom and a hub of traditional Burmese culture and Buddhism.

While the Chinese are largely responsible for the economic revitalization of Mandalay’s downtown area—which has been rebuilt with apartment blocks, hotels and shopping malls—and for returning the city to its role as the trading hub connecting Lower Burma, Upper Burma, China and India, their dominance of the city center has pushed Mandalay’s Burmese residents out to the suburbs.

Ludu Daw Amar, who was Burma’s best-known female journalist and social critic before her death in April 2008, once told The Irrawaddy that Mandalay felt like "an undeclared colony of Yunnan," and the recognition of this by the local Burmese community has fueled the fire of anti-Chinese sentiment in the city.

But the Chinese, whose business interests in Burma are supported by their national government, are not going away. As a growing powerhouse in the regional and global economy and geopolitical landscape, China has a clear strategy of using Burma to advance its interests in those areas.

China is now Burma's second-largest trading partner and biggest foreign investor. The latest official Chinese statistics reveal that the country’s investment in Burma reached $12.32 billion, primarily in oil, gas and hydroelectric ventures.

Experts have noted that Burma is an important part of China’s effort to revive its “Southwestern Silk Road,” running from Yunnan Province down to Burma, and then westward to Bangladesh, India and the Indian Ocean.

One of the biggest Chinese projects is construction of pipelines that will annually bring 12 million tons of crude oil from Africa and the Middle East through one pipeline, and 12 billion cubic meters of Burmese gas through another, into China’s Yunnan Province from Burma’s western Arakanese coast. Chinese companies are also involved in an estimated 60 hydropower projects in Burma.

To first grease the wheels for these investments, and then protect them once they were underway, China has supported the Burmese generals with military and economic assistance since the 1988 military coup, while at the same time most Western governments have placed sanctions on the Burmese military and its leaders.