The Role of Burma in Sino-US Summit

Kanbawza Win

A summit between President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping will be their first face-to-face meeting since Obama's re-election and Xi's promotion to head of the Communist Party last November. "The current China-U.S. relationship is at a critical juncture, and we must build on past successes and open up new dimensions for the future” Xi told to Tom Donilon, the National Security Adviser as he went over to Beijing in preparation for the summit.[1] In a sign that both sides want to stem a drift in ties, the summit is taking place months earlier than the two presidents were supposed to meet indicates that both sides want to stem drift in ties The meeting at the private Sunnylands estate of the late publishing tycoon Walter Anneilonnberg in southern California – is supposed to be informal, giving Xi and Obama a chance to build a rapport. Meeting earlier with State Councillor Yang Jiechi, China's senior foreign policy official, Donilon said the summit is a chance for the two presidents to work through problems. In fact ties are strained from longstanding differences over the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs to new disputes over cyber-attacks, where Washington considers Beijing responsible for any cyber-attacks launched from Chinese soil and must take action to curb high-tech spying. It has threatens to damage U.S.-China relations, as well as potentially damage the international economy and China's reputation, is the use of cyber technology – particularly as a means of obtaining intellectual property from American companies and institutions," a senior White House official told reporters.[2]  However a more assertive pursuit of territorial claims against U.S. allies Japan and the Philippines can prove that China is after all not so peaceful in its dealing with the neighbours., Burma is a new ground to be tested and China is losing ground because of the common hated for the Chinese who are not only scrupulous business dealers but has all the time supported the Burmese dictators in order to exploit the country’s human and natural resources as even now human trafficking especially Burmese brides for the Chinese men has risen dramatically. The fact that Xi agreed to an informal summit has been seen by Chinese and U.S. experts as positive. His predecessors always preferred formal state visits, splashing images of White House ceremonies and banquets in the Chinese media to bolster their standing as world statesmen.[3] Good will aside, distrust has deepened in relations in recent years as the U.S. feels its world leadership challenged and China, its power growing, demands greater deference to its interests and a larger say over global rule setting. Chinese officials and state media regularly say Washington is thwarting China's rise, strengthening alliances in Asia to hem in Beijing and discouraging Chinese investment in the U.S. on grounds of national security.[4] The US rapprochement with Burma has less to do with cuddling democracy icon Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and more to do with money, natural resources and the dragon that lurks on the country’s northern border write the editorial of Mizzima News[5] and perhaps it is love at first sight to discuss developments in Burma a clear sign that the embrace is getting tighter and America’s woo to Burma is a new love affair than meets the eye. The very fact that President Obama go to the very grain of American values that dictators can change the name of the country according to their whims and fancies without the tactic approval of the people by calling Myanmar to Burma, tantamount to  indirectly encouraging the ethnic cleansing policy of the Myanmar over the Non Myanmar. But this proves that Washington is taking its engagement with the Golden Land very seriously, a country viewed as a crucial piece of Obama’s foreign policy “pivot” to the Asia-Pacific region. This message was clearly pick up by the quasi military government of Burma as it goes on with much severity of ethnic cleansing policy to the Rohingyas in particular and the Muslims in general. On the face of it, Washington stresses support for democratic reform, human rights, improving the economy, and paving the way for American companies to do business in the country. But, largely behind the scenes, America is pursuing a China containment strategy, aware of that country’s growing military and economic clout. Few America policymakers and think-tank experts take China’s self described strategy of “Peaceful Rise” at full face value. China sits center-stage in US-Burma relations, despite Washington’s denials. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went out of her way to stress the US is not opposing China, noting, “... we are not viewing this in light of any competition with China.” This is mere diplomatic obfuscation – a veneer of politeness to thinly hide the 21st century’s replaying of the Great Game, albeit on slightly different turf. [6] As far as Washington is concerned, Burma is a brick in the wall around China’s western, southern and eastern flank. As Jurgen Haacke says in an analysis entitled, “Burma: Now a Site for Sino-US Geopolitical Competition?” the United States has for some time generally welcomed China’s growing stature and weight. “However, Washington has also been concerned about China’s growing military capabilities and it has sought to influence China’s foreign policy choices by shaping the latter’s regional environment, not least by revitalizing relations with alliance partners and friendly states.”[7] It seems that Beijing has at been at pains to limit overt sabre-rattling; however increasingly vehement disputes with fellow Asian nations over numerous small atolls and islands suggest a clear policy of force projection that unsettles other countries in the region. In recent weeks, China’s official newspaper, The People’s Daily, has raised the ante in voicing suggestions that Japan’s Ryukyu Island chain, which includes Okinawa, might well be subject to a renewed Chinese claim of sovereignty. Hence China’s rise may not be peaceful. The Marxist Lenin theory clearly indicates that there will be an ultimate war between the Capitalist and the Socialist where the socialist will come out as a victor and then only the world will be peaceful society.[8] The U S has also been concerned that some of the economic and trade balance problems it has with China are due to the deliberately managed undervaluation of the Yuan. The Middle Kingdom has increasingly been troubled by the sense that the US is interfering in the issues of human rights, Taiwan, the Tibetan Autonomous Region and the South China Sea, which it sees as either hypocritical – over human rights – or a sovereign challenge, as with the others. What this means is that geopolitical competition over Burma between China and the United States will increase. In the unfair trade cases that Washington had taken against China before the World Trade Organization but if they are not making progress simply through dialogue then there is no option but   to use measures available to us within the international system. Evidently with China worried the United States is trying to encircle it militarily with its “Asia pivot,” Obama also faces the challenge of convincing Xi that America’s reorientation of foreign policy and the shifting of some military resources toward the region are not meant as a threat to Beijing, even though the strategy is widely seen as a way of reassuring allies like Japan and South Korea of the US commitment to counter China’s power. Surely Obama will also be looking to build on recent signs of a sharpening of Chinese pressure on North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs, a shift that could bring Beijing closer to Washington’s position. China has long been the closest thing North Korea has to an ally. It should be remembered that the Sino-American relations all seemed so promising. In December 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama flew to Copenhagen to try to reach an agreement on a legally binding treaty for climate change. The sheer force of Obama's charisma and drive where he had made climate change a top priority  coupled with the momentum in the United States and the developed world, made a positive outcome likely: if only he could convince China, the world's biggest polluter, to cut its emissions. But the summit was a disaster, as the Chinese made it clear that they would not yield. Despite a burst of eleventh-hour diplomacy, personally negotiated by Obama, the final agreement fell far short of creating a new global consensus on stopping global warming. Then, starting with climate change,