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O 080405Z MAR 07
FM AMEMBASSY BEIJING
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 5384
INFO RUCNASE/ASEAN MEMBER COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIJING 001518 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/08/32 
TAGS: PREL ETRD UNSC CH BM VN XC
SUBJECT: DAS JOHN DISCUSSES BURMA, VIETNAM AND JOINT 
INTERESTS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA WITH CHINESE ACADEMICS 
 
REF: BEIJING 1448 
 
Classified By: Daniel Shields, Political Minister Counselor. 
Reasons 1.4 (b/d). 
 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1.  (C) Chinese scholars of Southeast Asian affairs told EAP 
DAS Eric John that Burma presents a major challenge and 
opportunity for United States-China relations following 
China's veto blocking a Burma resolution in the UN Security 
Council (UNSC).  The academics said China wants to cooperate 
with the United States and continues to pressure Burma to 
reform, but may emphasize economic reform and resolving 
ethnic conflicts more than the political inclusiveness that 
the United States stresses.  Zhai said China thinks Burma's 
plans for a new constitution are "better than nothing" and 
that America's criticism of procedural and other flaws in the 
regime's roadmap toward national reunification might be lost 
on Beijing.  DAS John countered that a bad constitution is 
worse than nothing if it permanently excludes from the 
political process any legitimate opposition.  Elsewhere in 
Southeast Asia, the United States and China share many 
interests, including promoting economic growth, increasing 
cooperation on nontraditional security issues and fighting 
terrorism.  The weakness and indecisiveness of ASEAN creates 
problems for building regional architecture.  China sees 
Southeast Asia as a growing market, especially for exports 
from China's border provinces.  Vietnam is rapidly growing 
more powerful and this causes China some concern, according 
to the scholars.  End Summary. 
 
¶2.  (C) On March 5, EAP DAS Eric G. John, joined by EAP DAS 
Thomas D. Christensen, discussed American and Chinese 
interests across Southeast Asia, including Burma and regional 
architecture issues, with scholars Han Feng, Deputy Director 
of the Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS) Institute of 
Southeast Asian studies, Zha Daojiong, Professor of 
International Political Economy at People's University and 
Zhang Xuegang, research fellow at the Ministry of State 
Security-affiliated China Institute for Contemporary 
International Relations (CICIR).  In a separate meeting, DAS 
John discussed similar topics with Zhai Kun, Director for 
Southeast Asia at CICIR. 
 
Burma: A Challenge and an Opportunity 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶3.  (C) Burma presents a challenge and an opportunity that 
only major powers like the United States and China can hope 
to address, CICIR's Zhai told DAS John.  The UNSC debate on 
Burma pushed the Burma issue back to the major powers to 
resolve, he said, noting that ASEAN has "given up."  Chinese 
analysts think top General Than Shwe believes resource-rich 
Burma can resolve its problems alone, while others in the 
regime know that they need support from China, India, Russia 
or Japan.  China wants to cooperate with the United States 
and continues to pressure Burma to reform, but may emphasize 
economic reform and resolving ethnic conflicts more than the 
political inclusiveness that the United States stresses. 
State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan's recent trip to Burma put 
further pressure on Burma to respond to international 
concerns, the scholars said. 
 
China Thinks Regime's Roadmap is Not So Bad 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶4.  (C) Zhai said China thinks Burma's plans for a new 
constitution are "better than nothing" and that America's 
criticism of procedural and other flaws in the regime's 
roadmap toward national reunification might be lost on 
Beijing.  DAS John countered that a bad constitution is worse 
than nothing if it permanently excludes from the political 
process any legitimate opposition.  Chinese support of a 
"bad" reunification process risks putting the United States 
and China in an ongoing cycle of confrontation over Burma, 
DAS John said, something that Washington wants to avoid.  Han 
said China sees Burma's situation improving, in part because 
Beijing focuses as much on resolving disputes with armed 
ethnic groups as on the regime's reaching out to the National 
League for Democracy. 
 
Burma Thanks China for Veto 
--------------------------- 
 
¶5.  (C) Since China's veto in the UNSC, the Burmese junta has 
expressed appreciation to Beijing for its support, scholars 
said.  Third-ranking general Thura Shwe Mann (whom Zhai said 
 
BEIJING 00001518  002 OF 003 
 
 
China sees as Than Shwe's likely successor) visited Beijing 
to thank Chinese leaders, the academics stated. 
 
Oil Pipeline through Burma 
-------------------------- 
 
¶6.  (C) Zha said he has read in Chinese economic publications 
that China is moving ahead with plans for an oil pipeline 
through Burma.  He was critical of the pipeline on economic 
grounds.  He noted that Chinese officials previously urged 
China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) to sign an energy 
deal with Burma without suitable geological or feasibility 
studies.  The site turned out to have no oil or gas 
resources, he said. 
 
Shared Interests in Southeast Asia 
---------------------------------- 
 
¶7.  (C) Turning from Burma to Southeast Asia as a whole, the 
scholars agreed with DAS John's position that the United 
States and China share interests in promoting the economic 
development of the region.  CICIR's Zhang stressed the risk 
of terrorism spreading from underdeveloped parts of the 
region and said that improving economic development can help 
to stem some underlying causes of Islamic extremism in 
Southeast Asia.  Zha noted that we also share interests in 
combating nontraditional security problems involving the 
spread of drugs, crime and infectious disease.  Zhai and Han 
pointed to disaster response and maritime safety as other 
fields in which the United States and China have shared 
interests. 
 
¶8.  (C) All four scholars agreed with DAS John that the 
United States and China are not competing in a zero-sum game 
in Southeast Asia.  Some in America may believe any gain for 
China is a loss for the United States in the region, but Zha 
said the United States has lost nothing to China in Southeast 
Asia.  In terms of security, economics and politics, the 
United States remains as influential as ever in the region, 
in Zha's view.  Increased United States-China cooperation in 
Southeast Asia could help to undermine zero-sum thinking and 
containment rhetoric, Han said.  In Indonesia, the United 
States and China could coordinate their investment and 
development aid to encourage good governance and discourage 
destabilizing factors, Zha suggested.  Working cooperatively 
on development in places like Laos, Cambodia and the 
Philippines could provide positive examples and help build 
confidence between the United States and China, he suggested. 
 
Regional Architecture: Does it Work? Is it Needed? 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
¶9.  (C) Efforts to build regional architecture are plagued by 
indecisiveness and inaction by ASEAN and its member states, 
the scholars said, with the result that that the existing 
architecture has produced few results.  Zha said perhaps no 
true regional architecture is needed for the next five to ten 
years.  CICIR's Zhai said it is anomalous that regional 
architecture in Asia involves the smaller ASEAN states 
leading larger, more powerful countries like Japan and China. 
 Han said this unusual arrangement is more in the interest of 
China than Japan, because China is more comfortable than 
Japan with giving ASEAN states the lead on regional 
architecture issues.  Han and Zhang both called attention to 
the United States' refusal to sign ASEAN's Treaty of Amity 
and Cooperation, saying this creates an image problem for the 
United States in Southeast Asia, where the treaty is seen as 
a symbolic way of establishing the equality of the 
signatories.  Zhang said that on regional architecture, 
China's advantage is politics, because for China doing 
something like signing a non-substantive agreement is not a 
problem.  Japan's advantage is economics, especially Tokyo's 
large assistance programs.  The advantage of the United 
States lies in the area of security, Zhang stated. 
 
Opportunities for China's Border Provinces 
------------------------------------------ 
 
¶10.  (C) CICIR's Zhai told DAS John he had just returned 
March 5 from a conference on cooperation in the Gulf of 
Tonkin sponsored by the Guangxi Province government.  Chinese 
provincial governments have increasing interests in Southeast 
Asia because of their desire for economic growth.  Provincial 
leaders in China's South and Southwest see markets in 
Southeast Asia as key to their expansion, Zhai said.  Zha, 
however, said officials in China's Ministry of Commerce 
recently voiced concerns that China's export of large volumes 
of cheaply manufactured goods will hurt China's relations in 
Southeast Asia in the long-term.  People in Southeast Asia 
 
BEIJING 00001518  003 OF 003 
 
 
are increasingly resentful of what they see as losing 
investment and local jobs to Chinese manufacturers.  In 2006, 
a Chinese train was ambushed at the Vietnam-China border by 
locals who dumped out the Chinese agricultural products seen 
as flooding Vietnam's markets. 
 
Vietnam 
------- 
 
¶11.  (C) Vietnam is rapidly growing more powerful and this 
causes China some concern, according to the scholars. 
Chinese scholars and policy makers are watching the 
improvement in United States.-Vietnam ties closely, Zhai 
said, noting that there is a major debate about how quickly 
those ties will improve.  China sees more room for Vietnam to 
play an active role in the region, but Zhai said that Beijing 
will be concerned if Washington's ties with Hanoi expand too 
rapidly. 
 
Laos 
---- 
 
¶12.  (C) Laos ranks near the bottom of most development 
scales, Zhai said, but President Hu Jintao's visit to 
Vientiane last year was part of the "democratization" of 
Chinese foreign policy, showing that large and small 
countries play equally important roles in the international 
community. 
 
¶13.  (U) DAS John cleared this cable. 
RANDT