By IPS Correspondents
BEIJING, Oct 19 2007 (IPS)

Having scored a subtle victory in using the Olympics card to nudge China to apply pressure on Sudan, international activists are now hoping to tie the 2008 Beijing Olympics with the unfolding civil crisis in Burma and draw the world’s attention to China’s potential to act there.

Masked Burmese women outside the office of Indian leader Sonia Gandhi on Friday, appealing for help Credit: Huapi/Mizzima News

"The Burmese junta has been immune to international condemnation of its ruling record for years and there does not exist a public relations problem for them," says Fan Hongwei, a frequent visitor to the country and professor at the South China Affairs Research Institute of Xiamen University.

The Burmese generals who have ruled the country with iron grip for 45 years, sent troops into the streets last month, opening fire on hundreds of thousands of peaceful protesters led by Buddhist monks. The crackdown on monks and dissidents that followed reprises the much-condemned crush of democracy movement from 1988, which resulted in some 3000 deaths.

Pointing out that the opening date of the Beijing Olympics, Aug. 8, 2008, coincides with the 20th anniversary of the "8-8-88" pro-democracy protests in Burma, the New ork-based Human Rights Watch urged China this week to use its influence with the junta and end the repression.

"If China takes a strong stand on Burma now, it will be credited rather than criticised on 08-08-08," said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director of Human Rights Watch. "Doing so isn’t just right, it’s also in China’s self-interest."

After calls by rights activists to boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics, China sent a special envoy to Sudan to try to defuse tensions in Darfur and persuade the Sudanese government to accept U.N. peacekeeping troops.

Taking cue, US First Lady Laura Bush has suggested that international activists should exploit China’s declared ambition to host the "best Olympics ever" and press Beijing to its use leverage with Burma to help solve the crisis.

"China has a huge amount of influence over Burma," she was quoted saying earlier this year.

China, by virtue of its permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, has always been a powerful player and has acted to shield Burma, a neighbour and major trading partner, from U.N. censure.

Isolated by Western opprobrium, Burmese leaders have relied on Chinese trade and investment to stay afloat. Two-way trade has doubled between 1999 and 2006 to 1.4 billion dollars. According to Burmese government figures, China has invested 194 million dollars in the country by the end of last year.

After the suppression of peaceful protests in Rangoon and Mandalay in September, the U.S. froze the assets of 14 top military figures and banned imports from Burma, threatening to impose harsher sanctions unless the military junta moves toward democracy. Both the U.S. and Britain have called on China to use its leverage with the Burmese leaders to ease repression.

But even though anxious to avoid an image of patron of brutal dictators ahead of the Olympics next summer, China would do little to push for democratic change in Burma, experts here say.

This month Beijing supported a Security Council statement rebuking the military regime for its suppression of peaceful protests but insisted on dropping key demands from the original draft. One called for the Burmese government to account for what had happened to detained demonstrators, and another called for a transition to democracy.

"There is a fundamental difference in the ways China and the U.S. see Burma," says Gao Heng, a researcher of international relations with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. "In the U.S. eyes, Burma is a repressive country in a desperate need of regime change. For China though, Burma is a neighbouring country with a shared 1,400 km border and one which is vital to its national interests."

For Beijing the policy priority in the region remains stability. "Only stable and peaceful environment would allow China to continue expanding its trade ties and shore up its business interests in the region," says Gao.

China wants access to Burma’s ports on the Indian Ocean and covets its rich reserves of oil and gas. A multi-ethnic state itself, China is loathe to see a democratic change on its border that might ignite simmering tensions between the Burmans and other ethnic groups, which have been clamouring for secession since the end of Burma’s British rule.

"The bottom line is that any new government in Burma might not be so willing to protect China’s interests there and continue favour its companies as the current junta has done," says Fan Hongwei of Xiamen University.

Politically, China’s Burma clout remains limited. Burma’s military, which seized power in 1962, has not forgotten the costly struggle it waged against the Chinese-backed Burmese communist party insurgency or the full-scale invasion mounted in 1968 by some 30,000 Chinese troops.

Fan says China’s power in Burma is increasingly revealed through its economic importance. For a country wealthy enough in power resources to supply 20 percent of Thailand’s electricity, Burma remains dark and trapped in time. A common Chinese pun on Burma’s new name, Myanmar, plays with its Chinese translation of Miandian, or Remote Pasture, replacing it with a homophone that means ‘Power Free’.

Pouring money to build dams, lay roads and construct railways, China is seen as filling the vacuum left by the Burmese military. Burma’s excessive spending on the military – which was as high as 50 percent of the junta’s budget during the 1990s – has taken money away from health, education and infrastructure, which have deteriorated badly.

"The junta has invested very little in any public works and this is where China can play a role in improving Burmese people’s welfare," Fan argues.

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