China keeps wary eye on U.S.-Burma relations

China keeps wary eye on U.S.-Burma relations
China is concerned over the possibility of betterment of relations between the U.S. and Burma, local sources say. The Chinese government's security agents on the Sino-Burma, ...

China is concerned over the possibility of betterment of relations between the U.S. and Burma, local sources say.

The Chinese government's security agents on the Sino-Burma, say that China feels betterment of relations between the U.S. and Burma will threaten the national security of communist China.

China also feels that the U.S. military may be deployed on the border, as a result of better relations between the U.S. and Burma, which will threaten communist party-ruled China, added border-based Chinese security agents. Burma shares one of its borders with China’s southwest Yunnan province.

110409-us-burmaA Yunnan-based weekly magazine editor told KNG today, "China is extremely concerned regarding the ties between the U.S. and Burma. China does not want to see neighboring Burma becoming close to its main rival and its greatest political opponent the U.S."

Now, two senior U.S. diplomats are in Burma on a two-day visit which is the highest-level visit in more than a decade. The exercise is part of the US’s direct engagement with the junta after the Obama administration declared its new Burma policy recently. It has decided on direct engagement with the regime while maintaining the sanctions imposed.

Yesterday, Kurt Campbell, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, and Scot Marciel, a Deputy Assistant Secretary, met Burmese military officials, including Prime Minister Gen Thein Sein in the capital Naypyidaw, also spelled Naypyitaw.

Today, the two U.S. officials are meeting Aung San Suu Kyi Burma's pro-democracy leader and Nobel Prize Laureate who is currently under house arrest in Rangoon.

China has been closely monitoring relations between the two countries since U.S. senator Jim Webb of Virginia met Burmese junta supremo Snr-Gen Than Shwe in August and took back John Yettaw, an American was jailed for intruding into Suu Kyi's home in Rangoon in May.

China is also concerned that Burma and U.S. may have secret agreements, which will not be publicly announced  similar to the ones Chinese and Burmese military generals have had over a long time, according to Chinese security agents on the border.

China has told its citizens in Burma to come back home and constructed three new refugee camps in different places for the Burmese in its territories on the border since the junta captured Kokang ceasefire group's capital, also called Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), Laogai on August 24.

The Laogai had mainly Han Chinese settlements and several dozens of them were killed during the fighting between Kokang rebels loyal to Peng Jiasheng and the Burmese Army from August 27 and 29.

A Yunnan-based weekly magazine editor said that China does not trust Burmese military leaders fully but keeps an eye on economic benefits like the Shwe gas pipeline and the China-Burma-India railroad even as it worries about Burma being controlled by the U.S.

Military analysts on the border said, China may provide military aid to the border-based ethnic armed groups if relations between Burmese generals and U.S. gets stronger or if the Burmese Army starts military offensives against border-based ethnic armed groups.