THE prospect of growing chaos in the confrontation between Burma’s military junta and civilian protesters provides a critical challenge to China’s efforts to forge a new international image as an influential and responsible world leader.
It calls into question the Chinese position of non-interference in the politics of countries with which it does business, and the absolute priority for political “stability” – which hitherto has always meant an acceptance of the status quo.
If pictures of soldiers shooting unarmed Buddhist monks are broadcast around the world, while China is see to do nothing, it will give rise to fresh criticism of the 2008 Olympic Games being held in Beijing.
Campaigns have already been launched in Europe and the U.S. to boycott the games because of China’s long delay in backing intervention in the Darfur conflict in Sudan.
Senior Chinese academics attending a Sino-European dialogue in Paris last month repeated the familiar mantra that China puts development before democracy. But they also admitted that growing experience of operating conditions in Africa has caused Chinese officials to start discussing issues such as the rule of law, corporate social responsibility, and institution building.
Neighbouring Burma is far more sensitive for Beijing than distant African states such as Sudan and Angola, but there are similar signs of growing frustration with the Burmese military regime, as much for its incompetence as for its brutality.
“China is changing its identify from being a spectator to being an actor,” said Professor Feng Zhongping, director of the Institute of European Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, at the Paris seminar, hosted by the EU Institute for Security Studies. “Now it increasingly realizes its responsibilities outside China.”
He insisted that this government rejected “regime change” in the way the U.S. had ousted Saddam Hussein. “China thinks the most important thing is not to organize elections, but to help develop the economy.”
In Burma, however, the military government is not merely undemocratic. It has also proved economically incompetent, turning a country with substantial natural resources into the most miserable in south-east Asia. Far from being a factor for stability on China’s border, it is a cause of serious instability.
In Africa, China is ready to co-operate more closely with the European Union, both in crisis management and institution-building, according to Professor Xu Weizhong, director of African studies at the CICIR: “China is getting tired of terrorists,” he said. “It needs to co-operate with Europe more. We do think we have common interests.”
He said that China while China maintained the “principle of non-interference”, that should not be seen as indifference. China would support intervention in such a case as the genocide in Rwanda. It had agreed to participate in the Darfur peacekeeping operation.
“There are a lot of critiques of China’s behaviour in Africa,” Professor Xu said. “Scholars are aware of the problem. We must observe market principles. China needs more efforts to have laws. We must have more regulations of Chinese behaviour. Chinese companies are less willing to adopt corporate social responsibility than their western counterparts.”
The challenge for China was to extend its government-to-government relations into private relations, and not simply deal with elites, he said.
Of course, for scholars to realize such problems is one matter. It is another for the Chinese government to act on them. And it is one thing to worry about such questions in Africa, but quite another in neighbouring Burma.
(Courtesy: Financial Times - By: Quentin Peel - 29.9.2007)
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