Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia (35 page)

Notes

Acknowledgements

Index

All current GDP and population figures are from
US Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook 2010
(
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/
) and all historical GDP figures from the Angus Maddison databases (
http://www.ggdc.net/databases/index.html
) unless otherwise indicated.

Prologue

‘
A few years before
’: Bin Yang,
Between Winds and Clouds: The Making of Yunnan (Second Century BCE–Twentieth Century CE)
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), p. 76; Nicola di Cosmo,
Ancient China and its Enemies
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), chapter 5; Charles F. W. Hingham,
Encyclopedia of Ancient Asian Civilizations
(New York: Facts on File, 2004), p. 409.

‘
noticing the news reports
’: On plans in the mid-2000s, see for example David Fullbrook, ‘China to Europe via a new Burma road’,
Asia Times Online
, 23 September 2004; David Fullbrook ‘Gas deal fuels China’s plans for Myanmar’,
Straits Times
, 2 February 2006; David Fullbrook, ‘China paves way to Myanmar riches’,
Asia Times Online
, 1 November 2006.

‘
and Bombay
’: Also known as Mumbai since 1995. Similarly, in 2001, the official English-language name of Calcutta was changed to Kolkata. I have used the older spellings for these and other Indian place names rather than the more recent versions, as the older spellings are still better known and to avoid using two different spellings depending on the historical period discussed.

‘
Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia
’: On the ‘Great Asian War’ of the mid-twentieth century, see Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper,
Forgotten Wars: The End of Britain’s Asian Empire
(London: Allen Lane, 2007).

Part One The Back Door

Irrawaddy Dreaming

‘
Before there was Rangoon, there was
’: Elizabeth H. Moore et al.,
Shwedagon: Golden Pagoda of Myanmar
(London: Thames & Hudson, 1999).

In 1989, the ruling junta ‘changed’ the name of Burma to Myanmar and Rangoon to Yangon. These are actually not new names but the Burmese-language versions of the same words. And in the same way that one would normally say ‘Sweden’ rather than ‘Sverige’ or ‘Florence’ rather than ‘Firenze’, and because the older spellings are still better known, I have used these older spellings rather than the now official Burmese-language versions.

‘
rose superb, glistening
’: W. Somerset Maugham,
The Gentleman in the Parlour
(London: Vintage, 2001), p. 6.

‘
Australia’s Foreign Minister Alexander Downer
’: Mark Baker, ‘Downer Warns ASEAN on Burma’,
The Age
, 2 July 2004.

‘
The lure of China
’: Archibald Colquhoun,
Across Chryse: Being A Journey of Exploration Through the South China Borderlands From Canton to Mandalay
(London: Scribner, Welford, 1883);
China in Transformation
(London: Harper and Brothers, 1912);
English Policy in the Far East: Being
The Times
Special Correspondence
(London: Field & Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, 1885), and
Burma and the Burmans: Or, ‘The Best Unopened Market in the World’
(London: Field & Tuer, The Leadenhall Press, 1885).

‘
H. R. Davies
’: H. R. Davies,
Yunnan: The Link Between India and the Yangtze
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1909), p. 10.

‘
The French had similar
’: Milton Osborne,
River Road to China: The Search for the Source of the Mekong
,
1866–73
(London: Allen & Unwin, 1975).

‘
By the beginning
’: On Rangoon history, see Alister McCrae,
Scots in Burma: Golden Times in a Golden Land
(Edinburgh: Kiscadale, 1990); B. R. Pearn,
A History of Rangoon
(Rangoon: American Baptist Mission Press, 1939); Noel F. Singer,
Old Rangoon: City of the Shwedagon
(Gartmore, Scotland: Kiscadale, 1995).

‘
Rangoon in those days
’: On General Ne Win’s ‘Burmese Way to Socialism’, see Michael W. Charney,
A History of Modern Burma
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 107–47; David I. Steinberg,
Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 62–80, Thant Myint-U,
River of Lost Footsteps: A Personal History of Burma
(New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2006; and London: Faber, 2007), chapter 12.

‘
In
1988’: On the 1988 uprising, see Bertil Lintner,
Outrage: Burma’s Struggle for Democracy
(Hong Kong: Review Publishing, 1989); Maung Maung,
The
1988
Uprising in Burma
(New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies, 1999).

‘
New political forces
’: On recent political developments, Charney,
A History of Modern Burma
, pp. 148–200; Steinberg,
Burma/Myanmar,
pp. 81–147; Thant Myint-U,
River of Lost Footsteps
, chapters 2 and 13.

‘
On
2
May
2008’: On Cyclone Nargis, see International Crisis Group, ‘Burma/Myanmar after Nargis: Time to Normalise Aid Relations’,
Asia Report
, No. 161, 20 October 2008.

‘
In the heart of downtown
’: On the Indian community in Rangoon and elsewhere in Burma, see Jean A. Berlie,
The Burmanization of Myanmar’s Muslims
(Bangkok: White Lotus, 2008); N. R. Chakravarti,
The Indian Minority in Burma
(London: Oxford University Press, 1971); Renauld Egreateau, ‘Burmese Indians in Contemporary Burma: Heritage, Influence, and Perceptions since 1988’,
Asian Ethnicity
, Vol. 12, No. 1 (February 2011), pp. 33–54.

‘
There is even
’: Ruth Fredman Cernea,
Almost Englishmen: Baghdadi Jews in British Burma
(Plymouth: Lexington Books, 2007), pp. 1–49.

‘
Most mixed races
’: Sir Charles Crosthwaite, ‘The Chinese in Burma’,
Straits Times Weekly Issue
, 24 May 1892, p. 11.

‘
Two Oceans
’: Li Chenyang and Lye Liang Fook, ‘China’s Policies towards Myanmar: A Successful Model for Dealing with the Myanmar Issue?’,
China: An International Journal
, Vol. 7, No. 2, September 2009, pp. 255–87.

‘
Malacca Dilemma
’: Ian Storey, ‘New energy projects help China reduce its “Malacca Dilemma”’,
Opinion Asia
, 14 May 2007; Marc Lanteigne, ‘China’s Maritime Security and the “Malacca Dilemma”’,
Asian Security
, Vol. 4, Issue 2, 2008, pp. 143–61

‘
Chinese plans
’: On Sino-Burmese economic ties in recent years, see Maung Aung Myoe, ‘Sino-Myanmar Economic Relations Since 1988’, Asia Research Institute Working Paper Series, No. 86; Lixin Geng, ‘Sino-Myanmar relations: analysis and prospects’,
Culture Mandala: The Bulletin of the Centre for East-West Cultural and Economic Studies
, Vol. 7.2, 2001; Toshihiro Kudo, ‘Myanmar’s Economic Relations with China: Can China Support the Myanmar Economy?’, Institute of Developing Economies, Discussion Paper No. 66, July 2006; Poon Kim Shee, ‘The Political Economy of China–Myanmar Relations: Strategic and Economic Dimensions’, 2002,
www.ritsumei.ac.jp/acd/cg/ir/college/bulletin/e-vol1/1-3shee.pdf
.

Cousins

‘
Early Burmese history
’: On ancient Burma, see Bob Hudson, ‘A Pyu Homeland in the Samon Valley: A New Theory of the Origins of Myanmar’s Early Urban System’,
Proceedings of the Myanmar Historical Commission Golden Jubilee International Conference
, January 2005; Bob Hudson, ‘Thoughts on Some Chronological Markers of Myanmar Archaeology in the Preurban Period’,
Journal of the Yangon University Archaeology Department
, Rangoon; G. H. Luce,
Phases of Pre-Pagan Burma: Languages and History
, 2 vols (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985); Elizabeth H. Moore,
Early Landscapes of Myanmar
(Bangkok: River Books, 2007), pp. 86–248; Janice Stargardt,
The Ancient Pyu of Burma
, Vol. 1,
Early Pyu Cities in a Man-Made Landscape
(Cambridge: PACSEA, Cambridge, in association with the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 1990), chapter 7.

‘
It had once been
’: Hsue Hnget,
Straight Lines of Mandalay
(Mandalay: Northern Plain, 2003), pp. 163–4.

‘
Mandalay had been built
’: On Mindon and his reign, see Williams Barretto,
King Mindon
(Rangoon: New Light of Burma Press, 1935); Kyan, ‘King Mindon’s Councillors’,
Journal of the Burma Research Society
, 44 (1961), pp. 43–60; Myo Myint, ‘The Politics of Survival in Burma: Diplomacy and Statecraft in the Reign of King Mindon 1853–1878’, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, 1987; Oliver B. Pollak,
Empires in Collision: Anglo-Burmese Relations in the Mid-Nineteenth Century
(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1979); Thaung, ‘Burmese Kingship in Theory and Practice Under the Reign of King Mindon’,
Journal of the Burma Research Society
, 42 (1959), pp. 171–84; on Mindon’s reforms, see Thant Myint-U,
The Making of Modern Burma
, chapters 5 and 6.

‘
In
1885’: A. T. Q. Stewart,
The Pagoda War: Lord Dufferin and the Fall of the Kingdom of Ava,
1885–6 (London: Faber and Faber, 1972), pp. 76–9.

‘
George Orwell
’: Bernard Crick,
George Orwell: A Life
(London: Secker & Warburg, 1980), chapter 5; Htin Aung, ‘George Orwell and Burma’, in
The World of George Orwell
, ed. Miriam Gross (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971), pp. 26–7.

‘
Another denizen
’: H. R. Robinson,
A Modern de Quincey: Autobiography of an Opium Addict
(2nd rev. edn) (Bangkok: Orchid Press, 2004).

‘
Every house
’: Clare Boothe, ‘The Burma Front’,
Life
, 27 April 1942.

‘
like a field of wind-stirred tulips
’: V. C. Scott O’Connor,
Mandalay and Other Cities of the Past in Burma
(London: Hutchinson, 1907), p. 110.

‘
Later in the
1960
s, however
’: Roderick MacFarquhar and John King Fairbank (eds),
The Cambridge History of China
, Volume 15:
The People’s Republic
, Part 2:
Revolutions Within the Chinese Revolution,
1966–82 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 243.

‘
Enlightenment finds its way
’: George Ernest Morrison,
An Australian in China
:
Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma
(London: Horace Cox, 1895), p. 241.

The Burma Road

‘
For the British
’: On British rule, see John Cady,
A History of Modern Burma
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1958); F. S. V. Donnison,
Public Administration in Burma: A Study of Development During the British Connexion
(London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1953); J. S. Furnivall,
Colonial Policy and Practice: A Comparative Study of Burma and Netherlands India
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948); G. E. Harvey,
British Rule in Burma,
1824–42 (London: Faber and Faber, 1946); A. Ireland,
The Province of Burma,
2 vols (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1907).

‘
and then the “Stilwell Road”
’: On the Burma and Stilwell roads, see William Donovan,
The Burma Road: The Epic Story of the China-Burma-India Theater in World War II
(New York: Farrar Straus Giroux 2003); see also Brendon I. Koerner,
Now the Hell Will Start: One Soldier’s Flight from the Greatest Manhunt of World War II
(New York: Penguin, 2008), on the amazing story of one African-American soldier who went AWOL whilst working on the Ledo Road.

‘
In the
1700
s
’: On the Qing invasions of the 1760s, see Yingcong Dai’s seminal study ‘A Disguised Defeat: The Myanmar Campaign of the Qing Dynasty’,
Modern Asian Studies
, 38:1 (2004), pp. 145–89.

‘
Through the
1930
s
’: On the war, see Louis Allen,
Burma: The Longest War,
1941–45 (London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1984); Maurice Collis,
Last and First in Burma
(London: Faber and Faber, 1956); and Viscount William Slim,
Defeat into Victory
(London: Cassell, 1956).

‘
On
5
April
’: Barbara Tuchman,
Stilwell and the American Experience in China,
1911–1945 (New York: Macmillan, 1970), pp. 280–1.

‘
I have never liked Burma
’: 16 April 1942 letter from Franklin Roosevelt to Winston Churchill, Great Britain Diplomatic Files, Box 37, Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum.

‘
Meanwhile, under the
’: Robert Lyman,
Slim, Master of War: Burma and the Birth of Modern Warfare
(London: Constable, 2004).

‘
The enormous
’: On the Burmese army see Maung Aung Myoe,
Building the Tatmadaw: Myanmar Armed Forces Since
1948 (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009); Andrew Selth,
Burma’s Order of Battle: An Interim Assessment
(Canberra, Australia: Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, 2000). On the evolution of the Burmese army and its role in Burmese politics, see especially Mary Callahan,
Making Enemies: War and State-building in Burma
(Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003).