Modern China-Myanmar Relations: Dilemmas of Mutual Dependence

by David I. Steinberg and Hongwei Fan

This volume examines the changing relations between China and Burma/Myanmar since Burmese independence in 1948 and the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Drawing on hitherto unavailable Chinese sources, it documents the negotiations and settlement of outstanding issues such as the border demarcation, the Chinese Nationalist forces in Burma, the status of the overseas Chinese residents, and the Burma Communist Party. The study documents the Sino-Burmese riots of 1967, the improvement of relations, culminating in the close bilateral association since 1988-89. It analyses in detail Myanmar's changing role in Chinese strategy, concentrating on trade and investment relations, oil, gas, hydroelectric power, natural resources and improved transportation. It outlines military cooperation, narcotics control, and migration while emphasizing Indian and ASEAN concerns and responses. The volume outlines a set of policy dilemmas facing the central and provincial Chinese authorities, the Myanmar government and Burmese ethnic minorities, while analysing dilemmas for the United States, India, ASEAN and Japan in responding to the changed interdependent Sino-Burmese relationship.

"This book, a breathtakingly panoramic analysis of Sino-Burmese relations from 1949 to the present, demonstrates that this traditionally neutralist Southeast Asian country occupied a more significant role in Beijing’s Cold War strategy than one would assume from the standard monographs on China’s policy in Asia, focused as they are on the battlefields of Korea and Indochina." - Balázs Szalontai, Kwangwoon University, Journal of Cold War Studies, Fall 2014

David I. Steinberg is Distinguished Professor of Asian Studies at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. Formerly a Representative of the Asia Foundation in Korea, he has had a distinguished professional career and published extensively on Myanmar-Burma, the Koreas and the wider Asian scene.

Hongwei Fan is Associate Professor at the Research School of Southeast Asian Studies (Nanyang Yanjiu Yuan), Xiamen University, China. He obtained his Ph.D. in History from Research School of Southeast Asian Studies, Xiamen University. In 2008, he was the postdoctoral fellow in the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.

Publication year: 2012
507 pp / 229mm x 152mm
15 tables, 5 figures, 9 maps
ISBN: 978-87-7694-096-6, Paperback
ISBN: 978-87-7694-095-9, Hardback

NIAS Press