Burma reduces value of the Straits

Politics

Burma reduces value of the Straits

The Straits of Malacca's importance to China as well as India has now been significantly reduced by Burma's agreement to allow its neighbors the use as well as the improvement of its land routes, according to a senior government official in Rangoon.

"In the past, the Straits had served as a lifeline to both counties," the official who wished to remain unidentified elaborated, "For China, the Straits was its access to the Middle East oil and for India, the doorway to its Fareast markets. But now that Myanmar has opened its doors to these countries for passage, their future has inescapably become intertwined with ours."

Thailand, India and China have already signed agreements with Rangoon to develop its dilapidated motorway, railway and waterway systems, he said.

In addition, while India is planning to rechannel its merchandise to Thailand through southern Burma by building a deep sea port in Tavoy (Dawei), China will also be constructing a corresponding one at Arakan's Kyaukhpyu.

"It can therefore be concluded that we will be able to withstand the sanctions from the West for another 4-5 years," he said confidently. "And now that we are on board together with our neighbors, when they get richer, so will we."

Jose Ramos-Horta, 1996 Nobel Peace Prize winner, according to Bangkok Post, 30 August 2004, had said: Without India and China's cooperation and partnership, no amount of sanctions by the European Union and the United States will alter the situation on the ground in Burma.

Gangantah Jha, security expert and professor of Jawarharlal Nehru University's International Studies, also claimed, "No country in the region can afford to wait for democracy to happen in Burma," according to Irrawaddy, October 2004 issue.

The late Chao Tzang Yawnghwe, Shan scholar and leader, however, had offered a different slant on the question of sanctions:

"What the SPDC wants is not removal of sanctions, simply because it knows they are totally ineffective. What the SPDC wants is the resumption of bilateral government to government assistance and multilateral assistance from the global financial institutions."