China: Myanmar’s Heartless Ally
By refusing to pressure Myanmar's junta to accept desperately-needed aid shipments and foreign aid workers post-cyclone, China has Burmese blood on its hands.
It was the lowest of the low for a regime that had already scraped the delta bottom with its bloody crackdown on peaceful democracy protesters last fall: As more than a million of its residents remained homeless and up to 100,000 were dead from Cyclone Nargis, the Myanmar government pushed ahead with its constitutional referendum over the weekend.
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“Those who value the national well-being should go and vote ‘yes,’” state-run TV declared, not pausing to mention the thousands dead and missing from the storm — or the international aid that would fill the junta’s tummies or just rot before it ever saw a cyclone victim. Or, as was done with boxes of relief from Thailand, the name of one of the junta’s generals was written over the actual country of origin and handed out (to none of those in the hard-hit regions, mind you) in a macabre P.R. blitz.
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The referendum, called by Myanmar’s iron-fisted military rulers a “road map to democracy,” guarantees 25 percent of all parliamentary seats to the military and reserves the right to “emergency” military takeover of the sham government. It also, tellingly, bans pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi — the newest Congressional Gold Medal recipient — from ever holding public office, once again disregarding her National League for Democracy party’s win in 1990.
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So while the Burmese opposition are preoccupied with trying to survive, pick up the pieces, and, in the case of the Buddhist monks who led the pro-democracy marches and survived, shelter the homeless and move debris with their bare hands, it’s the perfect time for the junta to fix — er, win — the vote. And in their corner is also the fact that a beaten-down populace barely knows what they’re voting for in this “democracy” farce.
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They’ve learned from their PRC mentors, no doubt.
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As Myanmar held shipments of aid and refused to let foreign aid workers past the gates, the junta’s friend and protector has refused to heed international calls to step in and pressure the regime to make sure its people get fed, water sources become potable, rotting bodies get cleared from streets, etc.
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“By blocking international relief efforts, the Burmese government is showing utter contempt for millions of its own people,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, in a Saturday statement. “China and Burma’s other friends should lead international efforts, including at the U.N. Security Council, to persuade or compel Burma to accept the international aid that cyclone survivors so badly need.
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“China should do everything in its power to get sufficient aid into Burma or it will share responsibility for the deaths of tens of thousands of people.”
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Like the PRC powers that be even care. China’s response to Myanmar letting its cyclone victims wither away is the same as when Myanmar was mowing down monks and shooting Japanese photojournalist Kenji Nagai through the heart: It has no business telling a sovereign nation what to do.
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See no evil, hear no evil makes them just as evil.
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In fact, on Thursday China blocked an effort by France to explore invoking “responsibility to protect” provisions at the Security Council, accusing proponents of helping people of tainting the disaster with politics. (Ironically, Indonesia — which relied on so much international aid after the devastating 2005 tsunami — joined China in voicing opposition to France’s effort, yet the country lacks China’s veto powers at the Security Council.)
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Meanwhile, Burmese die as international ships packed with aid wait at the ready.
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The Burmese people are now sitting ducks for the next storm: Another cyclone, possibly; epidemic illness, definitely. An outbreak of disease that would be caused by fetid water supplies, rotting corpses disposed of in those water sources, and unhygienic conditions in makeshift refugee camps.
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Though you probably won’t find much concern from China on that front, either. The current outbreak of hand, foot and mouth disease began killing dozens of kids in March, but the public wasn’t notified until a month later. (The World Health Organization absolved China of blame in this, racing to add that the outbreak wouldn’t affect China’s prized Olympic Games — even as the disease raced into Beijing.)
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As Burmese were pushed into exercising their “patriotic duty” by voting for the sham constitution — with a two-week voting extension in regions hardest hit by the cyclone (how generous!) — China still has yet to prove that it has any sense of humanitarian duty that supersedes its twisted loyalties to the world’s most nefarious regimes.
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Bridget Johnson is a columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News.
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14 Comments
1. ic:China has Burmese blood on its hands.
So what’s new? China has Tibetans’ blood, Chinese blood, Sudanese blood … on its hands. It’s part of their foreign policy. To kill a few is tragic, to kill millions is statistics. Those “realists” who believed the communists would change when they are rich, think again. They just amass more power making it harder to dislodge them. Putin is another communist who is getting his hands bloody.
May 11, 2008 - 1:04 pm 2. Akatsukami:Adams had best be careful what he says; the PRC is no respecter of rights, and will be as brutal and underhanded as need be to protect its interests. Only if it sees him as completely impotent will it allow him peace.
May 11, 2008 - 2:16 pm 3. Orsino:China has given Myanmar $5 million and lots of emergency supplies, 20 times more than what USA provided.
May 11, 2008 - 2:37 pm 4. John Samford:Also China has put pressure on Myanmar to ease the restriction on international aids, and now the junta indeed starts let the aids in …China is working this issue but they just don’t show off around. I know you can not see all those facts because that’s different with your American way.
The American way is bombing and Invading if they don’t listen to you.
If you think the Chinese care you are delusional.
When will the left wake up to the fact that the Despots of the world don’t give a rats arse about human rights. So long as the despots running China stay in power, they don’t car how many humans die.
Why should they? They don’t stand for election, the media does what it’s told to do and the army excells at shooting down unarmed civilians.
When the Neo-cons want to end the rule of dictators once and for all, planet wide, the liberals band together to protect the Dictators.
PRESIDENT Bush removes one two bit despot and the left went rabid.
Going to war is stooopid. What can and should be done is a quite JDAM strike on the despots ruling Burma. It’s called a decapitation strike and you are your ilk would be the first to call for impeachment over it.
SO instead you whine and wring your hands,
Good luck with that.
“See no evil, hear no evil makes them just as evil.” As does acting against the appropriate military response.
“It is necessary only for the good man to do nothing for evil to triumph.”*
*
_Edmund Burke
“No man can tame a tiger into a kitten by stroking it. There can be no appeasement with ruthlessness. There can be no reasoning with an incendiary bomb.”*
*
_Franklin Delano Roosevelt Fireside Chat (December 29, 1940)
The best way to deal with a despot, dictator or tyrant is to kill them. Anything else just puts the danger off and lets it grow.
May 11, 2008 - 3:34 pm 5. China has Burmese blood on its hands. >> liberal.family:[...] China has Burmese blood on its hands. [...]
May 11, 2008 - 5:21 pm 6. Aucklander:Imagine if the world community had the guts to band together and tell China that if they didn’t kick their Burmese buddies in the butt and get the aid flowing - fast - then the world really would boybott the Olympic Games.
If this happened, how long would it take for the Burmese barriers to come down and for aid to start flowing?
As fast as it would take to say “free Tibet”.
May 11, 2008 - 6:47 pm 7. Tom W.:“The American way is bombing and Invading if they don’t listen to you.”
It’s not surprising that someone who says something this infantile would be in love with Red China.
In polls Europeans generally admire Red China more than the U.S.
Yet Europeans call Americans ignorant.
Hilarious.
May 11, 2008 - 9:51 pm 8. Don:For Orsino’s political persuasion it’s just “evolution in action” the useless mouths (or politically “unproductive” ones) are being sacrificed on the altar of political “progress” (this is how we build the new socialism).
Or? Perhaps Orsino is right in his way; The American way is to “do something” (witness our reaction to the Tsnami, or the Iranian earthquake), the way for the rest of the world? . . . Rwanda, Biafra, Sudan tsk, tsk . . . China is relentless in it’s self interest (as most countries are), we happen to be an aberration in our (often) displayed magnanimity.
May 12, 2008 - 4:09 am 9. Rubicon:In my lifetime, even with the foolish Bay of Pigs fiasco & other silly moves, America has never bombed until she has tried to resolve issues diplomatically. Twelve or more years trying to negotiate w/ Saddam substantiates that.
May 12, 2008 - 8:50 am 10. always right:“EVERY” nation on the planet makes mistakes.
“NO” nation moves along making no mistakes,
“IF” they are doing something at all.
America has made her fair share of them.
But do NOT tell us the rest of the world has made no mistakes. They have just done a super job making sure the media do not plaster their mistakes on front pages or nightly newscasts! Government control of so much permits that!
And for those internationally, know that there are many Americans who would “love” to simply pull back & let the rest of the world sink into the abyss they seem hell bent on jumping into. Most of us know this would not be wise.
Comparing America’s mistakes with the horrific actions of despotic nations, is pure bunk. Just how disingenuous some can be always amazes me.
We do not embrace socialism. We are capitalists & that system has made us profitable & successful. It has cost us as well as we go into debt helping poor nations over the entire planet. Some would say, perhaps we should stop spending money on others & just pay off our own debts while allowing the world to fall apart?
The problem… we would end up being called in to “fix” the problems anyway.
China could have & should act to allow aid in. Five million is a pittance when it comes to what is needed in Burma.
CommiChina wants to play the world dominant power? Take criticism with grace and make required corretions then.
They have to grow a thicker skin first. And pigs will fly.
May 12, 2008 - 9:20 am 11. Tony:“The American way is bombing and Invading if they don’t listen to you.”
ho hum.
If only that were true. I’m not an American but sometimes I wish George Bush and the US would live up to this perceived “evil” image they’ve been annointed with and wipe some of these utter scumbags from the face of the Earth for the good of all humanity. I mean, whats the worst that could happen? Maybe Bush and the US could be accused of Double Evil? Evil Squared? Extra Evil with Fries?
Burma will watch thousands upon thousands of its own people die and somehow the liberal morons that surround us in the west will convince themselves that this isn’t remotely as irresponsible as 4,000 heroes giving their lives for a great cause in the middle east liberating the people of Iraq.
Pathetic.
May 12, 2008 - 9:37 am 12. Alternate Media Making Headway | The Anchoress:[...] it just me or does Pajamas Media seem to be firing on all cylinders, lately, and doing a bang-up job of providing excellent coverage [...]
May 15, 2008 - 5:41 am 13. How to blame it all on China, a guide « Offkey’s Weblog:[...] of food aid, it’s not surprising that someone will soon find China to be blamed, proclaiming China has Burmese blood on its hands. The fact that China is among the first and largest unconditional aid provider while the U.S., [...]
May 18, 2008 - 7:00 pm 14. darin maclachlan:Chinese Communist Party: Stop the brutal persecution of Falun Gong in China!
May 31, 2008 - 8:28 am