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Burma and China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Frank Trager
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No international concern has been as important to Burma as her relations with China. Kuomintang China had encouraged the Burmese nationalists, had sponsored Burma's entry into the UN but had also exhibited (in various published maps and otherwise) traditional Chinese expansionist tendencies toward Burma and mainland Southeast Asia. Most of all, after 1950, Kuomintang China endangered Burma's relation with Communist China by her active, irresponsible support for her troops who had escaped via Yunnan into northeast Burma. However much the Burmese may have initially and quietly tolerated the presence of these KMT “escapees,” – a view which has been unofficially hinted in some Burmese and American quarters — expecting that they would either merge into the Burma population or quickly repatriate to Taiwan, at the end of the first year of experience with these troops the Burmese became justifiably alarmed, repeatedly sought but did not receive assistance from the United States for this repatriation and eventually, in 1953, officially took the issue to the United Nations. (It was this issue which brought U.S. prestige and relations with Burma to a postwar low.)

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian History , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , March 1964 , pp. 29 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1964

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References

1. The data supplied by the Burmese government in its “brief,” Kuomintang Aggression against Burma (Rangoon, Government of the Union of Burma (GUB), 1953), 221 pp., with illustrations and appendices, is generally verifiable See also, Clubb, O. E., The Effects of Chinese Nationalist Military Activity in Burma on Burmese Foreign Policy. (Rangoon-HopkinsCenter Monograph, 01 20, 1959) 60 pp.Google Scholar F.N.T. a.o. Burma's Role in The United Nations, 1948–1955.Google Scholar (N.Y.I.P.R. 1956) pp. 9–13; and for more recent events The New York Times, 02 15, 18, 22–24, 26–27, 1961.Google Scholar

2. It will be recalled that the Chinese Communists had captured Peking at the end of January 1949. The Nationalists moved the capital south first to Nanking then to Canton. The People's Republic was formally established and immediately recognized by the U.S.S.R.) on September 30, 1949. The Burmese Ambassador U Myint Thein, later Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, had been accredited to the Nationalist government; remained in China until October 1949; was recalled to Rangoon and then reassigned, June 8, 1950, to Peking after recognition on December 18, 1949. There is an Indian account which indicates a Burmese request to Nehru to allow Burma to be first in Asia to recognize Communist China. The India recognition date is December 30, 1949. The Indian account of this sequence may have evolved from the brief visit, December 16–19, of then Foreign Minister E Maung to New Delhi to discuss with Nehru “certain subjects of mutual interest.” The first Communist China ambassador arrived in Rangoon on August 28, 1950. (The exchange of Burma U.S.S.R. embassies was announced respectively in August and November 1950. The Burmese ambassador did not get the opportunity to present his credentials in Moscow until mid-February, 1951. The Russian ambassador arrived in Burma in mid-April 1951 and presented his credentials five weeks later.)

3. For the text of this “Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement”, entered into force on October 1, 1961, see the Burma Weekly Bulletin (Rangoon: 01 19, 1961).Google Scholar

4. Useful studies (with bibliographical data for further reference) are: Wiens, Harold J., China's March toward the Tropics A Discussion of the Southward Penetration of China's Peoples and Political Control Relation to Non-Han Peoples of South China and in the Perspective of Historical and Cultural Geography (Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1945) pp. iv, 441Google Scholar; Hinton, Harold C.: Sino-Burmese Relations (New York: Institute of Pacific Relations, 1958)Google Scholar; Furnivall, J. S., “Historical Setting”Google Scholar; and Musgrave, J. K., “The Languages of Burma”Google Scholar and “An Introduction to the Anthropology of Burma” in Trager, Frank N. and Associates, Burma (New Haven: Human Relations Area Files, 1956, 3 vols.) V. I pp. 1–34Google Scholar; Vol. II, 544–621. By far the most important studies of early Burma from indigenous, Chinese, classical and European languages are those by Gordon H. Luce. A number of his relevant articles from 1918 to 1939 which appeared in the Journal of the Burma Reseach Society (JBRS) have now been gathered and republished (along with others) in Fiftieth Anniversary Publications No. 2, (Rangoon: Burma Research Society, 1960), pp. 187–403Google Scholar; see also his five reprinted articles in the JBRS, VoL 42, 06 1959, Part I.Google Scholar

5. The Glass Palace Chronicle of the Kings of, Burma, translated by Tin, Pe Maung and Luce, G. H. (London: Oxford University Press, 1923)Google Scholar, compiled during the reign of King Bagyidaw of Burma in 1829 complements the account of Marco Polo on the battle and ultimate fall of Pagan. The Venetian describes the 2,000 elephants each carrying “twelve to sixteen well-armed fighting men” and 60,000 horsemen and footmen. “A fine force, as well befitted such a puissant (Burmese) prince.” “The Mongol forces (The Tartars) had only 12,000 well-mounted horsemen” — but “had better weapons, and were better archers to boot.” The Burmese Chronicle in describing the same “invasion” gives the Mongols (called “Tarops”-Taruk) six million horsemen and two crores (20,000,000) footmen” and credits King Narathihapate — the “Taroppye,” “the king who fled through fear of the Tarops” … with “four hundred thousand soldiers and a great host of elephants and horses.” There were in effect considerable numbers of soldiers and elephants involved, but the numbers have been slightly exaggerated.

6. Harvey, G. E., History of Burma (London: Longmans, Green, 1925).Google Scholar See his map, preceding p. 153, “Burma under the Toungoo Dynasty, 1553–1752.” The Burmese also refer to these Shan States as having been formerly under Chinese suzerainty. The transliteration occasionally differs. Sometimes they will be found as Hasha, Lasha, Santa, Mongla, Mongwan, Momgti, Mongwaw, Kenghung and Kengma. This is the area of ko shan pye, “the nine Shan countries,” which seesawed between China and Burma obeisance. It is part now of Yunnan but both Nationalist and Communist China governments claimed territory west of this area, that is in the Burma Shan State area of Hsipaw, Hsenwi and Maingmaw. (See Harvey, , cited p. 323.)Google Scholar It is also rather interesting to note that Parker, E. H., Burma with Special Reference to Her Relations with China (Rangoon, Gazette Press, 1893), (p. 71)Google Scholar, who wrote a deprecatory history of Burma from “what the Chinese had to say upon the subject, finds” the Chinese annalists (who otherwise are full of details) have been misinformed and ….go largely by hearsay” on the Toungoo Dynasty's successes on the Southeast Asian mainland.

7. Douglas, R. K., “China and Burmah” The Asiatic Quarterly Review, 01–04, 1886, no. 1, pp, 148–149.Google ScholarFairbank, J. K. and Teng, S. Y., Ch'ing Administration, Three Studies. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), pp. 165–170, [193–198Google Scholar of former pagination in this reprint from Harvard Journal of Asiatic Researches, 6 (1941)] confirm Burmese record at least between 1662 and 1750; but record from Chinese sources a resumption of tribute missions in 1751 and 1752. See also their bibliography, “Appendix I, pp. 210–214 which in part supplements footnote 24 below.

8. See for example a popular account of the Burmese hero-general, “Mahd Thiha Thura” by Tin, Tun in The Burmese Review, v. 1, no. 40 (02 17, 1947).Google Scholar The author relies heavily on Harvey for specific data. For a scholarly account see, Luce, G. H., “Chinese Invasions of Burma in the Eighteenth Century,” Journal Burma Research Society, Vol. XV (1925) pp. 115–128.Google Scholar

9. Phayre, Arthur P., History of Burma (London: Tribune, 1883), pp. 190–203Google Scholar, and Harvey, G. E., History of Burma, cited, pp. 253–258Google Scholar, have brief but useful accounts. Tne latter writes: “The Chinese ought to have won … (they) threw away the advantage of superior numbers by allowing themselves to be overwhelmed in detail.” His well-known anti-Burman bias does not wholly hide the importance of the Burmese vistory over the great Manchu emperor, Chien-lung. Incidentally, the Burmese had the benefit of some “heavy artillery”, manned, according to Father Sangermano, “by the Christians” (descendants of French, Dutch and Portuguese captives). See his The Burmese Empire, [translated by Tandy, William, Rome, 1833]Google Scholar with introduction and notes by Jardine, John, (Westminster, Archibald Constable, 1893), p. 63.Google Scholar

10. Douglas, R. K., “China and Burma”, cited, p. 151Google Scholar; also Parker, E. H., Burma… cited, pp. 82–94Google Scholar, gives his characteristic pro-Chinese account of this period: Ming-jui “perished like a noble gentleman and brave soldier that he was.” The Chinese, according to Parker, committed a “strategical blunder.” The Burmese victory was never actually acknowledged for the Emperor had “instructed Fu-heng to withdraw his army, and to inform the Burmese that ‘out of sheer compassion the Emperor had decided not to annihilate them as they deserved’”. Parker had been the British consul at Kiungchow and Officiating (British) Adviser on Chinese Affairs in Burma.

11. Hinton, H. C., Sino-Burmese Relations, cited, p. 32.Google Scholar According to Fairbank, and Teng, 's Ch'ing records there were Burmese missions in 1776, 1778, 1790–91, 1793, 1795, 1811, 1823, 1825, 1829, 1833–34, 1843, 1853, 1875. cited, pp. 194–197.Google Scholar However, the authors point out that there were more missions in the period of declining Ch'ing power than when it was at its height. “The most obvious suggestion is that this increase … was prompted by commercial motives.”

12. Harvey, G. E., cited, pp. 279–280, and p. 362Google Scholar, indicates that the prior exchange was “sometimes polite … sometimes haughty.” But he adds that the Burmese “must have made some serious admissions — e.g. the acceptance of the 1792 seal — for the Chinese were able to convince the English Foreign Office that Burma was tributary, so that England, as successor to Burmese liabilities, consented … in) 1886 [after complete annexation of Burma] to send decennial tribute of local produce to China stipulating that the envoys should be of Burmese race.” This is discussed further, below. See also Hinton, Harold C., cited, pp. 31–33Google Scholar, and Thet, Kyaw, “Some Aspects of Sino-Burmese Diplomacy in the Reign ofi Bodawpaya, 1782–1819,” Burma (Rangoon), v. 1, no. 4 (07, 1951), pp. 1–6.Google Scholar Dr. Dyaw Thet's Sino-Burmese researches throw considerable doubt on a number of these presumed missions.

13. Christian, John L., Burma and the Japanese Invader (Bombay Thacker, 1945), p. 270.Google Scholar But contrary to the visible evidence of the Indian sources of Burma's Buddhist culture he gratuitously adds that the relationship was “of a dutiful son grateful for the gifts of culture rather than that of a politically dependent state.” (Italics added.)

14. Christian, John L., same, Ch. XII, “The Burma Road,” and p. 270.Google Scholar This chapter is a slightly expanded reprint of the author's “Trans-Burma Trade Routes to China,” Pacific Affairs, XIII: 2 (06 1940) pp. 173–191.Google Scholar

15. The annexation was quickly engineered by the adroit Conservative political leadership of Lord Randolph Churchill, then Secretary of State for India. The war began and ended in the first two weeks of November, 1885. The Indian Viceroy, Lord Dufferin, announced the annexation on January 1, 1886. Debate in Parliament did not take place until the next month after the Liberal Party victory of Prime Minister Gladstone. He and his government sustained the action referring to the war as a “defensive” one in the interests of securing India. See Cady, John F.A History, of Modern Burma (Ithaca: Cornell University Press), pp. 130–132.Google Scholar

16. See Furnivall, J. S., Colonial Policy and Practice (Cambridge, University Press, 1948), pp. 69–70Google Scholar, “… the annexation may be regarded … as an episode in, the rivalry of Britain and France for supremacy in South-East Asia.” The study by Cady, John F., The Roots of French Imperialism in Eastern Asia (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1954)Google Scholar, amply documents this though he is inclined without giving the evidence to place major responsibility on “the aggressive policies pursued by successive French ministries.” (See also, same, History of Modern Burma, cited, p. 117 and in passim).Google Scholar

17. Maung, Maung, Burma in the Family of Nations (Amsterdam: Djambatan 1956), p. 72.Google Scholar Dr. Maung Maung supplies some interesting quotations from The Times (London) 02 19 and 26, 1886Google Scholar, which, anticipating the actual terms of the Convention, sharply argued against decennial tributes and territorial claims on the basis of Burmese history. The Times was historically accurate. The revival of the tribute mission opened the door to a Pandora's box of Burmese troubles. The issue for February 26 pointed out, inter alia, that the Ko Shan pye state of Kenhung (or Kiang Hung) had apparently been in Burmese hands in the middle of the nineteenth century. See also, a former Chinese Adviser to British Burma, Douglas, Robert K., Europe and the Far. East (England: Cambridge University Press, 1904), p. 244.Google Scholar He refers to the “confused notions” of the Foreign Office.

18. Hall, D. G. E., A History of South-East Asia, cited, pp. 591–612Google Scholar for “Britain, France and the Siamese Question” written from a British point of view.

19. Aitchison, C. V. (compiler) A Collection of Treaties, Engagements and Sanads Relating to India and Neighboring) Countries (Calcutta: Government of India, 1931), V. 12. pt. 4, pp. 199–283Google Scholar is devoted, ta a useful review and compilation of Anglo-Burmese “treaties, engagements and Sanads” from the eighteenth century forward. All above Conventions will be found at pp. 244–260.

20. Jain, Girilal, Chinese “Panchsheela” in Burma, (Bombay: Democratic Research Service, 1956) pp. 23–4.Google Scholar For a careful historio-geographical article on this: disputed zone see Norins, Martin R., “Tribal Boundaries of the Burma-Yunnan Frontier”, Pacific Affairs, XII, No. 1, 03 1939, pp. 67–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21. The Texts appear in Jain, Girilal, same, pp. 36–40.Google Scholar They were reprinted during a tense period in the Sino-Burmese border dispute by The Nation, 08 9, 1956.Google Scholar

22. Norins, Martin R., “Tribal Boundaries of the Burma-Yunnan Frontier,” cited, p. 74.Google Scholar See also Tinker, Huge, “Burma's Northeast Borderland Problems,” Pacific Affairs, Vol. XXIX, (12, 1956,) pp. 324–346.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23. Yat-sen, Sun, San Min Chu I (The Three Principles of the People), translated by Price, Frank W. (Chungking: Ministry of Information, Republic of China, 1943), pp. 91–93.Google Scholar Sun Yat-sen formulated these principles while he was in Europe (1896–1898) and announced them in 1905. See Chien-nung, Li, The Political History of China, 1840–1928, trans. Teng, Shu-yu and Ingalls, Jeremy (N.Y.; Van Nostrand, 1956) p. 16.Google Scholar

24. For modern references to “The Yunnan-Burma Border Dispute,” see Kiaang, Lu-yu, “Chinese Sources,” in Trager, Frank N., editor, Japanese and Chinese Language Sources on Burma: An Annotated Bibliography (New Haven, Human Relations Area Files Press, 1957), pp. 87–106.Google Scholar

25. China's Relations with Burma and Vietnam, cited, p. 35.

26. The New York Times, 12 7, 1958Google Scholar, carried a New Delhi date-line story and accompanying map showing Peking's encroachments on Indian territory. Prime Minister Nehru is quoted as having told the Parliament that “Communist China has changed many things done by the Kuomintang Government and I do not see any reason why they cãnnot change the map.” Subsequently, The New York Times, 04 23, 1959Google Scholar, published new maps, showing additional eneroachments about which Prime Minister Nehru reported that the Chinese reply to India's representation on this subject “was not very adequate.”

27. U Nu, Speech in Parliament, March 8, 1951, From Peace to Stability (Rangoon: GUB, 1951) p. 197.Google Scholar

28. The McMahon line was presented at the Tripartite Simla Conference of 1913–14; attended by representatives of Britain (for India and Burma), Tibet and China. It delimited some 700 miles of Indian-Tibetan borders eastward to the Talu (Talok) Pass at the junction with Burma. From there it proceeds in an 120 miles arc along the line of the northern water-shed of the Irrawaddy River, except where it crosses the Taron Valley, to Izurazi Pass. Tibet signed the agreement as a sovereign country. China did not.

29. Speech on the “Sino-Burmese Boundary Agreement and Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Non-Aggression,” Chamber of Deputies, April 28, 1960. Burma Weekly Bulletin, 05 5, 1960.Google Scholar Hereafter referred to as “Speech, April 28, 1960.” This is a most useful summary of a decade of protracted negotiations

30. The story was seemingly ignored in Burma. It was mentioned in the Christian Science Monitor, 07 13, 1953Google Scholar, but did not otherwise attract attention outside of Burma.

31. Burma Weekly Bulletin, 12 25, 1954.Google Scholar

32. Supplement to People's China, No. 15 (August) 1957. Report on The Question of the Boundary Line Between China and Burma. Delivered on July 9, 1957, at the Fourth Session of the First National People's Congress.

33. Col. Aung Gyi gave the casualty figures at a Press Conference of Prime Minister Ba Swe, August 7, 1956. The clash took place in a strip of the northern Wa State enclosed by the village area of Wamaw, Walun and Toila, about 100 miles east of Lashio, well within the Burmese border. The Burmese armed forces were on a routine Flag March (i. e., border patrol) to which, the Chinese, already stationed inside Burmese territory, reacted.

34. U Nu in his “Speech, April 28, 1960,” indicates that the Chinese government, at that time was being so severely criticized in Burma that he “appealed” to the press to “refrain from publishing anything (further) that might jeopardize the negotiations for a peaceful settlement. For typical external reactions see “China, Burma and the Wa,” The Economist, (London, 08 19, 1956), p. 571Google Scholar; Woodman, Dorothy, “Three Burmese Villages”, The New Statesman and Nation, 12 29, 1956. pp. 833–834.Google ScholarThe New York Times coverage is quite useful. See, August 1–5; 8, 12, 26; September 4, 7; October 3, 20, 22, 1956.Google Scholar

35. Burma Weekly Bulletin (11 15, 1956).Google Scholar

36. U Nu, “Speech of April 28, 1960.”

37. The New York Times, 12 11, 15 and 19, 1956.Google Scholar The reception was compared to that of Chou's visit in April, 1955.

38. Speech in Rangoon, , The Nation, 12 12, 1956.Google Scholar Equally encouraging was a remark made on his departure from Rangoon, namely that the border issue “cannot but be settled peacefully, relations being what they are between Burma and China.” Same, Dec. 25, 1956.

39. See for example the argument presented by the most prominent newspaper critic of Communist China, Yone, U Law, “Why I favour the ‘Package, Deal,’” The Nation, 12 25, 1956.Google Scholar

40. U Nu, “Speech of April 28, 1960.”

41. Same. This is U Nu's figure. An editorial in The Nation, February 2, 1960, referred to this Chinese demand as “in excess of 500 square miles (which) may have been reduced in later negotiations.”

42. For a then current field survey see, Palmer, Norman; D., “Chinese Shadow on the Asian Rim,” The New Leader, 05 23, 1960, pp 16–19.Google Scholar

43. The Texts signed on January 28 were published, in Burma Weekly Bulletin, 02 4, 1960Google Scholar, along with some of the speeches and editorials in leading Burmese newspapers, January 30–February 2, supporting the Agreement, The editorials are uniformly approving of General Ne Win's accomplishment. The Nation congratulates him for “his wise statesmanship … which may well prove to be one of the greatest blessings conferred on independent Burma.” This is a typical reaction to what elsewhere in Burma was called “the crowning triumph of General Ne Win's Caretaker Government” (New Times of Burma, 01 30, 1960).Google Scholar

44. Burma Weekly Bulletin, June 30, 07 7 and 21, 1960.Google Scholar Vice-chief of Staff (Army) Brigadier Aung Gyi and Yao Chung-ming, former Ambassador to Burma, presently Director of the Treaties and Law Department, respectively headed the Burma and PRC delegations.

45. Same, September 1, 1960. See also Same, October 6, 1960 for the announcement of the September 27 departure to Peking of the Burmese delegation headed by U Nu; same, October 13, 1960 for “gifts” and proposed Text of the Treaty.

46. Same, with Text, January 12, 1961. As indicated, see supra footnote 3, the issue of the following week contained the text of the Chinese Economic Loan, a bit of icing on the cake.

47. Same, Burma Weekly Bulletin, 10 13, 1960.Google Scholar

48. (Rangoon), Vol VIII No. 2. February 1961, p. 6.

49. The Nation, 02 7 and 8, 1958.Google Scholar

50. See Verma, S. L., The Law Relating to Foreigners and Citizenship in Burma. With a foreword by Justice U San Maung (Mandalay: Rishi Raj Verma (1960), pp. 93–114.Google Scholar

51. See The Nation September 22 and 11 26, 1958Google Scholar; also The New York Times, 11 27, 1958.Google Scholar

52. The Nation, 08 30, 1957.Google Scholar

53. Same, October 5, 1956; January 24, 1958. See also Hinton, H. C., “China's Relations with Burma and Vietnam” cited, pp. 42–45Google Scholar conveniently summarizes, a number of additional references. See also, Thomson, John S., “Burma: A Neutral in China's Shadow”. The Review of Politics, 07 1957, pp. 331–336.Google Scholar

54. For a relatively recent Chinese Nationalist view see Yin T'ang Chang, “The ‘Kha-khu’ Area — A Geographical Study of the Undermarcated Frontier between China, Burma, and India.” Tsing Hua Journal of Chinese Studies, Taipei, N.S. 1, No. 1, June 1956, pp. 122–137. The author primarily uses English postannexation sources to convey the view that the area north of Myitkyina (i.e. from 25° 35′ N) is a “no-man's land” or “Any-Man's Land.” He indicates that “Kha-khu” is a Kachin word meaning “Upper Reaches” of the Irrawaddy River but he argues that “the Chinese were undoubtedly the first, outsiders to have penetrated this area and that Chinese “frontier officials” exacted tolls “from the natives” and established a political tie to China dating “back to the Ming Dynasty in the 16th Century when Emperor Wan-li sent an expedition … to the Triangle area.” He ignores, as do most Chinese writers on the subject, the fact that (a) the Tibeto-Burman and Sino-Tibetan people of the area had been incorporated in the first major unified Burmese nation in the eleventh century; (b) that the majority of the inhabitants of this area were and are Kachins, Tibeto-Burman in origin like their fellow-citizens in Burma proper; and that (c) Emperor Wan-li's expedition was forced to withdraw under sixteenth century pressure from the second unifying Burmese or Toungoo Dynasty.

55. Premier Reports to the People (Rangoon): GUB, 1958, pp. 35–36.Google Scholar

56. See for a less cautious expression, The Nation, editorials March 29, June 19, 1959; also The New York Times, article by Durdin, Tillman, “Asia deeply stirred by Tibet Repression,” 04 19, 1959.Google Scholar Burma, however, abstained on the October 21, 1959 UN General Assembly Resolution on Tibet.

57. The Chinese made effective use British offers to indemnify them for various, territories, e.g. a letter dated April 10, 1911 in which the British denied claims to the Kachin area but offered a modest payment; also the “rental” of the Namwan Assigned Tract.