Myanmar’s political transition has spawned debates and deliberations in policymaking circles and strategic communities across the world. The economic and strategic spinoff of the political changes has generated immense attention and interest. Not least in China.
As recently as 2011, prior to its “opening up,” Myanmar was not only considered cut off from international engagement, it was mostly seen as a Chinese vassal state. Yet the history of China-Myanmar relations reveals that the “Pauk-Phaw” (fraternal) era has in fact been rather checkered. Under U Nu’s presidency (1948-1962), bilateral relations have been described as “cautious but friendly.” Myanmar’s initial cautiousness towards its much larger neighbor was an outcome of an incursion by the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) in 1952. The incursion was designed to cut off Kuomintang forces trying to attack China from Myanmar’s northern Shan state. In 1954 however, the “Pauk-Phaw” phase began, based on the tenets of peaceful coexistence.
In the 1960s, relations hit a rocky patch with anti-China protests in the then capital, Rangoon (Yangon). The protests were a reaction to the active support China provided to the Burmese Communist Party (BCP) and other insurgent groups in the northern reaches of Myanmar bordering China. The Chinese support was seen as an extension of the excesses of the Cultural Revolution and caused anti-China sentiment within Myanmar.
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