Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-5mhkq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-18T10:49:56.999Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Peking and Rangoon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Extract

In his Burma in the Family of Nations (Amsterdam, 1956), Dr. Maung Maung, Burma's modern jurist-scholar, tried to dissipate the impression —created according to him by Chinese nationalist pride rather than legal rights—that Burma had at any time in her history borne tribute to the Imperial Court of China. It must have made him shudder that hundreds of his compatriots should shout “Chou En-lai wan sui” when the latter visited their country in mid–April 1960. For Burma relations with mainland China in recent years have been in many ways difficult. When China under the Nationalists had to trade space for time vis-à-vis powerful Japanese invaders in the late 1930s, the building of the Burma Road almost inevitably led to a common defence of the two neighbours in later stages of the Second World War. Between 1942 and 1945 Chinese troops were in and out of Burmese territory, and Burmese freedom fighters and independence leaders likewise used China as their shelter and planning headquarters. The Chinese Nationalist Government expressed its readiness to exchange Ambassadors with Burma in September 1947, when the latter had hardly completed the formalities of its independence pact with Britain. But no sooner had the Burmese envoy been appointed to Nanking than the latter had to face the menace of the Chinese Communists, whose leader, Mao Tse-tung, had himself supported Burmese independence as early as 1945.

Type
China, Russia and Asia
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1961

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See The New York Times (hereafter cited as NYT), 04 16, 1960.Google Scholar

2 Tung-nan-ya ke-kuo nei-mo (Inside the Various Countries of South-east Asia) (Shanghai: Shih-chieh Chih-shih, 1948), p. 18.Google Scholar

3 Pien-ke-chung ti tung-fang (The East in Transition) (Hong Kong: Sheng-huo, 1949), pp. 6970.Google Scholar

4 For some of these earlier developments, see Dai, Shen-yu, Peking, Moscow and the Communist Parties of Colonial Asia (Cambridge: Center for International Studies, M.I.T., 1954), pp. 2224.Google Scholar

5 NYT, 05 6, 1949Google Scholar; Nationalist Chinese and Indian English-language radio broadcasts, 06 10 and 24, 1949.Google Scholar

6 New China News Agency (hereafter cited as NCNA), 10 9, 1949; January 8 and 19, 1950.Google Scholar

7 See NYT, 06 6, 1950.Google Scholar

8 Mei-ti tsen-yang ch'ing-lüeh tung-nan-ya? (How does American Imperialism Commit Its Aggression Against South-east Asia) (Peking: Jen-min, 1950), pp. 2930.Google Scholar

9 NYT, 12 4, 1950.Google Scholar

10 NCNA, 01 19, February 19, April 2, May 8, September 25, and December 22, 1951.Google Scholar The overseas Chinese in Burma, having thus been brought to toe Peking's line, were yet to have to show more of their “patriotism” for such “care and protection.” Their divided allegiance toward Taipei and Peking follows the typical pattern of overseas Chinese developments elsewhere in the neutralist world, but Peking has retained an upper hand in Burma over the years as against Taipei, and this has made it inevitable that they serve at times as an instrument of Communist Chinese policy. For the latest example, see NYT, August 21, 1960, on Indonesia; for a comprehensive analysis, see China News Analysis (Hong Kong), No. 295.

11 NCNA, 05 6, 1952.Google Scholar

12 NCNA, 02 2 and 3, June 20, 1953.Google Scholar

13 Ya-chou ti-li t'i-kang (Outline Geography of Asia) (Shanghai: Chung-hua, 1953), p. 33.Google Scholar

14 NCNA, 08 8, 1950.Google Scholar

15 NCNA, 08 29, September 27, 1951.Google Scholar

16 NYT, 07 20, 1952.Google Scholar

17 Trager, Consult F. N., “Burma's Foreign Policy, 1948–56: Neutralism, Third Force and Rice,” Journal of Asian Studies, 11 1956, pp. 89102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 See Thomson, J. S., “Burma and China: A One-Sided Love Affair,” Progressive, 11 1956, pp. 2629.Google Scholar

19 NCNA, 09 8, 1953.Google Scholar

20 People's China, 06 1, 1954.Google Scholar

21 Ibid., July 16, 1954, Supplement.

22 Ibid., December 1, 1954.

23 Ibid., January 1, 1955, Supplement.

24 Consult F. N. Trager, loc. cit.

25 People's China, 07 16, 1955.Google Scholar

26 NCNA, 03 31, 1955.Google Scholar

27 NYT, 04 24, 1955.Google Scholar

28 See Survey of China Mainland Press (hereafter cited as SCMP) (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate-General) Nos. 1160, 1168, 1170, and 1201.

29 Thomson, J. S., loc. cit., p. 29.Google Scholar

30 Consult Maung Maung, “Burma at the Crossroads,” India Quarterly, 10/12 1958, pp. 380388Google Scholar; and Fairbairn, G., “Aspects of the Burmese Political Scene,” Pacific Affairs, 09 1956, pp. 211222.CrossRefGoogle ScholarCf. a relevant report in The Nation (Rangoon), 06 3, 1956.Google Scholar

31 See especially NYT, July 31, 1956 and the issues immediately thereafter.

32 NCNA, 08 29, 1956.Google Scholar

33 For general background, see “The Burma-China Frontier Dispute,” in The World Today, 02 1957, pp. 8692.Google ScholarCf. Kozicki, R. J., “Sino-Burmese Frontier Problem,” The Far Eastern Survey, 03 1957, pp. 3338Google Scholar; and Armstrong, H. F., “Thoughts Along the China Border: Will Neutrality Be Enough?Foreign Affairs, 01 1960, pp. 238260.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 For comprehensive analyses, see Tinker, H., “Burma's North-east Borderland Problems,” Pacific Affairs, 12 1956, pp. 324346CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fairbairn, G., “Some Minority Problems in Burma,”Google Scholaribid., December 1957, pp. 299–311; Silverstein, J., “Politics in the Shan State: The Question of Secession from the Union of Burma,” Journal of Asian Studies, 11 1958, pp. 4357CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Woodman, D., “Three Burmese Villages,” New Statesman, 12 25, 1956, p. 833Google Scholar; and “China, Burma and the Wa,” Economist, 08 18, 1956, pp. 570571.Google Scholar

35 NCNA, 10 22 and 25, November 9, 1956.Google Scholar

36 NCNA, 12 11, 13, 15–17, 1956Google Scholar; January 10 and 31, 1957.

37 For dates and specific points in this process, see Current Background (hereafter cited as CB) (Hong Kong: U.S. Consulate-General), No. 612.

38 For text of Chou's report, see SCMP, No. 1568.

39 For Chinese aid on textiles, see NCNA, 01 2, 1957.Google Scholar

40 NCNA, 02 10 and 15, 1957.Google Scholar This, of course, does not eliminate, and certainly tends to betray, the influence of Peking over Burma's Communist “underground forces” in this context. Cf. relevant information emerging from the case of the Russian defector A. Y. Kaznacheyev from the Soviet Embassy in Rangoon in mid–1959, as reported in NYT, June 27, 28 and 30, and December 18, 1959.

41 NCNA, 05 29, 1957.Google Scholar

42 SCMP, Nos. 1646, 1706, and 1719.

43 Cf. NYT, 07 7, 1959.Google Scholar

44 See relevant reports in SCMP, Nos. 2108, 2117, 2137, 2169, 2181, 2186, 2188, and 2189.

45 See text of Agreement in CB, No. 612. Cf. relevant comments in China News Analysis, No. 311.

46 Loc. cit.

47 See SCMP, No. 2261.

48 Editorial, February 1, 1960.

49 See SCMP, Nos. 2231, 2243–2244; cf. NYT, 04 16, 17, 1960.Google Scholar

50 SCMP, Nos. 2252, 2253, 2259.

51 Ibid., Nos. 2289–2291, 2295, 2299, 2301, 2303, 2306, 2309, 2311–2314, 2316, 2321, 2327–2328; cf. NYT, 07 31, August 14, 1960.Google Scholar

52 NYT, 09 26, 28; October 3, 1960.Google Scholar For texts of Treaty and Notes, see CB, No. 636, pp. 1–11. The minor amendments mentioned here have to do with the adjustment of “a small section” of the 1941 line to reunite bisected villages through exchanges (Article 3). Also, matters concerning free choice of citizenship and cultivation of frontier land are clarified (Notes exchanged between Chou En-lai and U Nu).

53 See NYT, 12 31, 1960Google Scholar; January 3, 5, 1961.

54 Speech at the Treaty signing ceremony in Peking, October 1, 1960; see CB, No. 636, pp. 12–14.

55 Loc. cit.

56 The Nation, 10 5, 20, 1960Google Scholar; cf. NYT, 12 25, 29–30, 1960.Google Scholar

57 Tinker, H., “Nu, the Serene Statesman,” Pacific Affairs, 06 1957, pp. 120137.Google Scholar

58 Trumbull, R., “Fear of Red China Evident in Burma,” NYT, 10 24, 1954.Google Scholar

59 See NYT, 11 1, December 7, 1960Google Scholar, for reports on Communist China's latest official propaganda on the theme that revolution “cannot be imported or exported” and, through the Moscow declaration of the 81 Communist parties, that the five principles of peaceful co-existence which Peking and Rangoon have subscribed to are to be respected.