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HEADLINES
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AP - Cyber attacks cripple opposition Myanmar media
Reuters - China formula scare spreads to ice-cream, yoghurt
Reuters - India to import 1 mln tonnes lentils from Myanmar
The New Straits Times - Japan provides more assistance to Myanmar to fight malaria
Oakland Tribune - Burmese monk adjusts to American life in Oakland
VNN - Project yet to bring promised prosperity
Asia Times - China threat? It's a blessing
PTI - No permanent camp of Indian rebel groups in Myanmar: AR
Christian Post - Web Campaign Fights Brutal Regime in Burma
Mizzima News - Burmese activists protest on 20th anniversary of coup
Mizzima News - Another student activist sentenced to two years in prison
The Irrawaddy - The Burmese Regime’s Cyber Offensive
The Irrawaddy - Red Alert in Rangoon

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Cyber attacks cripple opposition Myanmar media
Thursday September 18, 12:42 pm ET
By Doug Mellgren, Associated Press Writer

Cyber attacks shut down Web sites of exile Myanmar opposition media on anniversary of revolt

OSLO, Norway (AP) -- The Internet sites of three Myanmar opposition media groups in exile suffered widespread cyber attacks on Thursday, the anniversary of last year's failed uprising against the Southeast Asia country's military dictatorship.

"We think it has something to do with the Saffron Revolution," the anti-government protests by thousands of Buddhist monks in Myanmar on Sept. 18, 2007, said Aye Chan Naing. The chief editor of the Oslo-based radio and TV network Democratic Voice of Burma told The Associated Press that computers began flooding the station's servers with so many requests for information on Wednesday that the systems could not cope.

Similar attacks on Thursday also periodically shut down the servers of the Irrawaddy Magazine and the New Era Journal, Myanmar opposition media groups based in Thailand, he said. At its Web address, Irrawaddy confirmed that its service was not available due to a cyber attack.

The military dictatorship that has ruled Myanmar, formerly called Burma, since 1962 ordered an army crackdown on Sept. 18, 2007 that the United Nations later estimated left 31 people dead, including a Japanese photojournalist, and hundreds in detention.

Naing said the Internet attacks appeared to come from Russia, possibly Moscow, but that the networks had not been able to determine who was behind them. He said the Democratic Voice of Burma's severs suffered similar cyber attacks in July.

"We got several anonymous e-mails and phone calls before the (current) attacks, saying they were initiated by Burmese military members doing training in Russia," Naing said. If that is the case, he alleged, the soldiers could be using the attacks as a way of impressing their superiors in Myanmar in hope of being promoted.

Naing said the July onslaught lasted about four days, and that his network on Thursday was able to sporadically get its Internet sites back on line during the onslaught.

He said the Democratic Voice of Burma's radio and television broadcasts into Myanmar continued as normal, and that e-mail communications with sources inside the country were not impaired.

Exiled pro-democracy student activists, including Naing, founded the Oslo-based network in 1992, a year after Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo for her peaceful pro-democracy campaign.

Suu Kyi's party won a 1990 general election, but was not allowed to take office by the military. She has mostly been held in house arrest since then.

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China formula scare spreads to ice-cream, yoghurt
From RTR on 2008-09-18 09:33:36 (posted on 2008-09-18 09:33:36)
By Ian Ransom

BEIJING, Sept 18 (Reuters) - Hong Kong has ordered the recall of a Chinese company's products after milk, ice cream and yoghurt were found to be contaminated with melamine, the compound responsible for killing four children in a China health scandal.

Tainted milk powder produced in China has made thousands ill, and triggered sackings and detentions and rocked public trust already battered by a litany of food safety scares involving tainted eggs, pork and seafood in recent years.

Now the scandal has spread to milk, ice-cream and yoghurt ice-bars. Hong Kong ordered the recall of a Chinese company's products on Thursday after tests found that eight of 30 of its products, including milk drinks, were tainted with melamine.

The company, Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co Ltd was a Beijing Olympic Games sponsor and is one of 22 Chinese firms implicated in the scandal.

A regional Chinese health authority said on Thursday a fourth child had died at a hospital in remote northwestern Xinjiang. The report on the authority's website (www.xjwst.gov. cn) gave no further details.

Milk tainted with melamine, a compound banned in food, has killed three other babies, two in China's northwestern Gansu province and one in eastern Zhejiang.

The health scare erupted after Sanlu Group last week revealed it had produced and sold melamine-laced milk, and a subsequent probe found a fifth of 109 Chinese dairy producers were selling products adulterated with the substance.

At the latest count, 6,244 children have become ill with kidney stones after drinking powdered milk laced with melamine, with three deaths and 158 suffering "acute kidney failure".

"It's just a terrible situation, it's really scary," said a 34-year-old father surnamed Zhou, cradling one of his eight-month twins outside a Beijing children's hospital.

"You expect small brands to have quality issues, but these are big brands, name brands. The authorities need to improve their oversight," said Zhou, queuing to have his children examined.

Dozens of lawyers and rights campaigners have mobilised to support families stricken by the toxic powder. One said they had already received nearly a thousand phone inquiries, underscoring the political volatility of China's latest food safety scandal.

SACKINGS

Local media have largely kept quiet about claims that Sanlu and officials in Shijiazhuang, where the company is based, concealed the poisonings from the public and senior authorities during the Beijing Olympics in August.

But an outraged commentary on the official Xinhua agency blamed the group for covering up substandard milk.

"The hard lesson we should learn from this tragedy: never overestimate the credibility of any company," the report warned.

Sanlu is 43 percent owned by New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra, and New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said on Monday that Chinese officials acted last week only after her government pressed Beijing.

A vice governor of Hebei, Yang Chongyong, said on Wednesday that Sanlu knew "long ago" that melamine was being used in its milk from as early as 2005, and that 41 of 372 milk stations supplying the company had been found to have problems.

The firm is still struggling to trace 35 tonnes of contaminated powder, Xinhua quoted newly elected Chairman Zhang Zhenling saying on Thursday. "We will specially dispatch staff to the remote rural and mountainous areas to retrieve the milk powder," he said. Sanlu's milk was popular among poorer Chinese parents because it was seen as reliable but relatively cheap.

Two Chinese dairy firms had also exported baby milk powder to Yemen, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Gabon and Burundi.

"Though there has been no bad reaction, the quality watchdog has demanded that these companies take action to recall the products," Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Jiang Yu said.

Melamine is rich in nitrogen, used to measure protein, and so can be used to disguise diluted milk. It can cause kidney stones and other organ problems.

Hebei police seized 222 kg of melamine and arrested 12 people on Thursday, bringing the total detained in the scandal to 18. Six were melamine dealers and the others 12 dealers suspected of selling contaminated milk.

Another 10 have been held including sacked Sanlu chairwoman, Tian Wenhua, and authorities are hunting for another milk dealer.

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India to import 1 mln tonnes lentils from Myanmar
Thu Sep 18, 2008 2:58pm IST

NEW DELHI, Sept 18 (Reuters) - India's cabinet on Thursday approved imports of one million tonnes of lentils from Myanmar to help stabilise domestic prices, Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi said.

India consumes 18 million tonnes of lentils, popularly called pulses, annually but output is lower, forcing the country to import from Myanmar, Tanzania, Australia, Canada and Ukraine.

In 2007/08, India produced 15.19 million tonnes of lentils, according to government estimates.

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Japan provides more assistance to Myanmar to fight malaria
The New Straits Times - 2008/09/18
Bernama

YANGON, THURS: The Japanese government has provided US$3.1 million more assistance to Myanmar in fighting malaria under its grassroot grant assistance scheme, Xinhua news agency quoted a local daily as reporting Thursday.

Medicines for effective treatment, medical care and prevention against the disease as well as mosquito nets will be distributed to malaria-sensitive divisions and state of Bago, Magway and Rakhine under the Japanese grant aid agreed upon recently, the Biweekly Eleven said.

In February 2007, the Japanese government had extended similar grant aid of US$178,822 to Myanmar to help fight malariain the country’s Bago division covering the region’s eastern and western parts, according to earlier official report.

Malaria is among the three diseases of national concern which Myanmar has been encountering. The other two are HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB).

Myanmar treats the three diseases as priority with the main objectives of reducing the morbidity and mortality in a bid to become no longer a public problem and meet the Millennium Development Goals of the United Nations.

In its prevention efforts against malaria, the Myanmar government has distributed 50,000 long lasting insecticidal nets annually since 2000 to hardly accessible areas of national races with up to 400,000 existing bed nets also impregnated with insecticide annually since then.

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Burmese monk adjusts to American life in Oakland
Oakland Tribune - By Matt O'Brien
Article Last Updated: 09/18/2008 07:08:17 AM PDT

OAKLAND — A year ago, Burmese monk U Kovida helped spark the nonviolent Saffron Revolution that brought international attention to human rights abuses in Myanmar.
It also made him a target.

With his face plastered on wanted posters across the city of Yangon, Kovida hid silently in a bamboo house for weeks before trading his Buddhist robe for a shirt and pants, bleaching his hair, donning a crucifix and sneaking out of town.

"My picture was everywhere," Kovida said. "I realized, if I'm arrested by the government, I have no chance for life. So I decided, myself, to leave my country."

The disguise helped Kovida escape to Thailand. Later, like many Burmese refugees before him, he ended up in Oakland.

Here since March, the 24-year-old has faced a different set of challenges. He navigated the complicated social dynamics of Craigslist to find a quiet place to live. He was robbed with a gun to his head on his way home from English class at Jack London Square. And he has regularly traveled around the East Bay on his bicycle and worked at a thrift store to pay the rent — two unorthodox activities that have caused some consternation among the local Burmese community. Clerics in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, depend on community alms for their survival. And they don't ride bikes.

"This is the United States," Kovida said. "I cannot go around for alms in the city. I need work."

But as he gets accustomed to an American life, and an uncertain future, nothing has consumed the soft-spoken monk as much as the tumultuous political events that began for him a year ago today.

"September 18," his fliers had read. "Three o'clock."

In a copy shop in Yangon, the former capital that Kovida and many opponents of Myanmar's ruling junta still call Rangoon, the monk had persuaded store employees to let him make more than 100 copies of a dissident message, one that advertised an upcoming anti-government protest.

The flier, if authorities had seen it, would have gotten them all into trouble.

But monks, Kovida said, are afforded an enormous amount of trust and respect by the Burmese people.

Some days earlier, on Sept. 5, 2007, hundreds of monks had marched in the city of Pokkoku, protesting a spike in the price of cooking oil. The military regime, which has ruled the country for decades, lashed back at the monks with violence.

News of the attack against such revered, peaceful demonstrators quickly reached Yangon, where Kovida said some monastery leaders proposed sending a response to the country's leaders.

"They didn't apologize to the monks," Kovida said. "If they didn't apologize, we would make protest."

From about Sept. 7 through Sept. 12, Kovida said he and others began traveling across the city by bus with stacks of posters hidden inside their robes. They distributed them throughout the city's monasteries.

"September 18," the notices read. The monks would rise up on behalf of the Burmese people who were mired in poverty and unable to object to the sharp rise in commodity and fuel prices. While the military's history of silencing its critics with detention or violence left most Burmese afraid to speak out, the monks believed their status in society could give them special leverage and protection.

Finding a calling

Born in a small village in the western Arakan state, an autonomous kingdom before the Burmese conquered the region in the 18th century, Kovida grew up with little knowledge of his country's often tragic modern history. He was only 5 years old in 1988, when university students led a nationwide protest movement that disrupted military rule but did not end its iron grip.

Kovida, always a voracious reader, said he left home to live in an Arakan monastery at age 12 so he could study the Buddha's teachings. He remained there until he reached the limit of what he could learn in the provincial setting. In late 2003, he moved to Yangon.

In the big city, he followed the 227 rules of discipline that guide monastic life in Theravada Buddhism. But he also grew disturbed as he came to know through reading and word-of-mouth about the brutal realities of Burmese history.

"Before I knew about politics, I liked (the country). I liked everything," Kovida said.

Kovida never expected to be thrust into a leadership position. But on Sept. 18, he stood on the steps of a pagoda and called for volunteers from a crowd of waiting monks.

"Now, we have to do it for the people; we have to show to the world this is a peaceful demonstration. We need leaders," Kovida shouted to them, according to his best recollections of that day. "Please join me."

Because they were monks, the robed demonstrators who crowded the streets of the city and other parts of Myanmar over the coming days were given a degree of latitude.

"We chanted, 'Love and kindness, love and kindness to the people,'" Kovida said. "It was raining, raining, but we didn't care. We have a lot of energy. Every day, we keep protesting."

The protests continued for about a week before police and soldiers began cracking down. Video footage, now on the Internet, shows Kovida raising up his hand as authorities try to detain a man in lay clothes.

"I told them, 'Don't touch the student. We are a peaceful demonstration, '" he said. As they tried to stifle the rallies, soldiers collected photographs of those they considered instigators and began to pursue them. Monks were arrested, injured and killed. The government charged Kovida and other monks with hiding explosives in their monasteries, untrue accusations he says were meant to smear the peaceful campaign.

Taking to hiding

In late September, as curfews and arrests effectively shut down the protests, Kovida found refuge in a tiny bamboo house outside Yangon. Friends would bring him food a few nights a week. He remained silent for most of two weeks for fear of getting caught.

 

He also received word that authorities raided the homes of his adoptive mother in Yangon and of family members back in the Arakan state, with whom he had little contact.

That, he said, was a sign that he had to flee. He was putting them in danger.

Disguised as a Christian and with fake identification, he escaped into Thailand and the Mae Sot refugee camp. That's where he met Dawn Calabia, an American and a senior adviser at Refugees International.

"He's a very remarkable young man," Calabia said. "His story, once he came in the room, the board asked some questions about why he chose to get involved. They were very taken with him."

It wasn't just the personal courage, Calabia said, but also his broader perspective.

"He was concerned about what was going to happen to Buddhism," Calabia said. "You sort of remember somebody like that."

Because of the dangers Kovida faced in Thailand, American officials fast-tracked his refugee application, and by April, the monk and two others were testifying in front of the U.S. Congress.

A month later, Myanmar was devastated by a cyclone that killed tens of thousands of people. The devastation saddened Kovida, who was trying to adjust to his new life in the East Bay.

In his new apartment in Oakland's San Antonio district, which he shares with roommates found on Craigslist, Kovida still keeps his crucifix necklace atop his bookshelf as a memory of his flight. Beneath it is "Freedom From Fear" by Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, but also a "Roadside History of Wyoming" and biographies of Gandhi, Churchill, Truman, MacArthur and Lincoln.

"He's fascinated by Abraham Lincoln," Calabia said. "He said he had read a number of books about Lincoln when he was in Burma as a student. He was taken by Lincoln's courage and leadership."

On Tuesday, he gets to compare notes between the first Republican president and the latest. As the United Nations General Assembly meets in New York City, Kovida and a few dozen other activists from around the world will have lunch with the current American president, George W. Bush, to talk about human rights.

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Project yet to bring promised prosperity
Viet Nam News - 21:15' 18/09/2008 (GMT+7)

VietNamNet Bridge – The East-West Economic Corridor (EWEC) – a 1,450km highway linking central Vietnam with Laos, Thailand and Myanmar – which opened two years ago has yet to boost trade equitably among countries as anticipated.

Statistics released by Tien Sa Port in Da Nang City, revealed that in the first five months of the year, of the 30,000 containers passing through the port, there were only 1,000 belonging to Lao enterprises.

According to Thai transport companies, provinces in Thailand’s north-east region each year transport around five million tonnes of cassava, one million tonnes of rice, one million tonnes of ore and 500,000 tonnes of rubber latex via Vietnamese ports. However, in reality, freight companies prefer to transport goods through Bangkok rather than through Da Nang, which is just 500km away – 200km nearer than the Thai capital.

Thai companies claim it takes them two days to transport goods to Da Nang and they incur numerous fees. They also say goods take too long to clear customs at four border gates: Mukdahan, Savanakhet, Densavan and Lao Bao.

The Lao Bao border gate in particular has suffered administrative problems, admitted Chairman of the central Quang Tri Province’s People’s Committee Le Huu Phuc.
Currently, the "one-door" administrative policy has been piloted at Lao Bao and Densavan border gates – the first in the Greater Mekong sub-region to apply the policy, which is designed to shorten the time it takes to clear customs.

However, enterprises using the two gates are still subject to numerous charges, such as the customs fee, the botanical quarantine fee collected by the Botanical Quarantine Agency and the border-crossing fee collected by border guards.

Aside from the cost, the process is also time-consuming, freight companies say.

The provincial People’s Committee is drafting a plan to simplify fee collection procedures for imports and exports.

Customs clearance for imports and exports at Viet Nam’s Lao Bao border gate are also considered more complex than that in Laos and Thailand.

Another problem encountered by freight companies is that right-hand vehicles are not allowed to travel in Vietnam, according to Lam Quang Minh, Director of Da Nang City’s Investment Promotion Centre.

Despite the fact that transport ministers from Vietnam, Laos and Thailand signed an agreement to permit right-hand-drive vehicles to travel in EWEC countries, Minh says Vietnamese cars and lorries are not allowed to enter Thailand, while right-hand-drive vehicles are only permitted to enter Vietnam’s Lao Bao special commercial and economic zone.

Phuc suggested that the Government and the Ministry of Finance (MoF) improve fee-collecting procedures by selling goods-transport tickets that covers the total cost of using a border gate.

The MoF and the General Department of Customs should also simplify procedures for the temporary import and re-export of goods, Phuc said.

The Government, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and the Ministry of Planning and Investment should issue concrete guidance on implementing the memorandum of understanding on economic co-operation among EWEC countries signed by Vietnam, Laos and Thailand on December 26 last year, he added.

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China threat? It's a blessing
Asia Times - Sep 19, 2008
By Francesco Sisci

BEIJING - Geography is destiny - perhaps the most inevitable of all. America's power projection throughout the world in the 20th century, after a period of splendid isolation, was first possible because of its borders. It had no enemies pressing on it. It was, and is, sandwiched between two geographically large countries whose economies and populations are tiny compared to those of the US.

Both of them, Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, are America's allies, integrated in a trade agreement, the North American Free Trade Agreement, and with security treaties guaranteeing Washington's safety. They are de facto buffer states, shielding the US. At the time of the Cold War, the Soviet Union shared a small state line with the US, but it consisted of a scarcely populated area, Alaska, far removed from the American heartland. The only real border threat came from Cuba, which in the 1960s almost plunged the US and the USSR into a world war.

However, China is in a very different predicament. Embedded in the heart of Asia, it is bounded by nearly every other country on the continent, large and small. In fact, it is the Asian country with the greatest number of bordering neighbors. China has less than idyllic relations with all of them; it has open border disputes or only recently resolved ones with others. Many are unstable countries; others are ambitiously eyeing China's economic and political growth with fear and suspicion.

Most have a history of vassalage to China, from which they have freed themselves only in the past century because of China's misfortunes. They worry that China, once again a superpower, will try to force them back into their bondage.

Besides the countries bordering China directly, many other states remain heavily influenced by it. Thailand and Bangladesh, for instance, feel the Chinese breathing down their neck, despite a safe distance of a few hundred kilometers from the nearest Chinese frontier. Even Cambodia, more than 1,000 kilometers away from the closest Chinese border, remembers well that in the 1970s it hosted a proxy war between Vietnam and China.

The list of countries directly bordering China exposes Beijing's difficult geographic position. Starting from the northeast and moving counterclockwise, are North Korea, Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. Then, there are the sea neighbors all quarrelling over the disputed Spratlys and Paracel islands. China claims all of them while Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei each claim parts of them. From there we have Taiwan, which is the largest problem of all just because it is not a "neighboring country". Finally, there are Japan and South Korea.

In all, China is surrounded - almost besieged - by 21 states or territories. Of these, at least three are giants: Japan, whose economy is presently larger that that of China's; India, with a fast-growing economy and mushrooming population that will soon outpace China's; and Russia, the old military superpower shaping up to become the energy superpower. None of them houses governments as friendly to China as those of Canada's or Mexico's are to the US.

Beijing presently controls none of its neighbors in the way Moscow used to run its satellites in the Soviet empire. The only two governments allegedly "friendly" to China, North Korea and Myanmar, have proved time and again to be far less obedient than Beijing might wish. The former has tried to stir up a regional fuss by demanding aid in exchange for giving up its military nuclear program; the latter has resisted demands to move towards economic reforms and check drug trafficking.

Yet these two neighbors are but a small nuisance compared with the largest threat posed by giants like Japan, India, Russia or even by smaller but no less ambitious countries such as Vietnam, which had its last border clash with China as recently as 1988. In that small naval skirmish some 80 Vietnamese sailors were killed by Chinese battleships, which were trying to enforce Beijing's claim on some remote South China Sea reefs.

Friends like Pakistan can also be troublesome. In 1998, Pakistan exploded six nuclear devices against Beijing's wishes. The following year, Islamabad started a border war with India in Kargil that quickly escalated, scaring the Chinese into thinking that an all-out conflict might erupt at its southwestern border. Pakistan and India are in fact rival, neighboring nuclear states.

Pakistan for decades has been closer to China, while India feels that China wants to exert pressure on it through Pakistan. A war between these two countries could spin out of control and endanger China's security near its soft underbelly: The restive region of Tibet.

A large dispute could pop up between China and Japan as well over the control of some islands that the Chinese call Diaoyu and the Japanese Senkaku. In the sea around those islands, which are little more than rocks, there are large gas fields, and energy-starved Japan and China are both keen on claiming them. Moreover, old issues of history (ie Japan's invasion of China in 1937), national ambition and pride in both countries make for a potentially lethal combination.

Beyond these are a handful of smaller strategic issues. Maoist guerrillas, ravaging the Chinese border with Nepal, have spilled into India and Bangladesh, destabilizing the countrysides in both places. Ultimately, the guerrillas could move into China. Merciless pirates infest the South China Sea, disrupting the world's busiest supply lines. Heavily armed drug traffickers operate on the border with Myanmar, providing cash and all kinds of smuggled goods to triad gangs infiltrating Chinese society.

In this environment, the dramatic change of status quo, brought on by Chinese economic development, might have sufficed to trigger a gigantic arms race. The resources spent on arms could, under other circumstances, easily outpace economic performance and soon drain national wealth.

That this has not happened is due to China communicating its peaceful intentions and concentration on economic buildup. It has learned from the Soviet Union's lesson: butter before guns. Too much expenditure on arms would lead to economic, social and political collapse. If Beijing were to start a real arms race, its economy could implode in no time, even without any real pressure from abroad.

But, perhaps more importantly, this arms race is not taking place in Asia because the US is providing a common security umbrella, so everyone else can put money to better use.

The US's security umbrella

The case of the American alliance with Japan well illustrates this state of affairs. Washington's commitment to Tokyo is theoretically considered a threat by Beijing. But Beijing is not overly concerned about it and in fact welcomes it. The US military umbrella prevents Japan's re-armament, and, for many reasons, China prefers the "American threat" to the Japanese one.

Without America, Japan would have to secure its own defense and all manner of prejudice and miscalculation could push Tokyo to deploy more weapons than Beijing would be comfortable with. After all, Japan has invaded China; America hasn't. China feels that America's alliance with Japan helps to allay Japan's concerns over China, thus holding Japan's own military spending in check.

The case of Japan also holds true for India. China has not overreacted to the American deal to supply nuclear technology to India (about to be ratified in the US Congress), despite that in 1998 India exploded six nuclear devices, while openly presenting it as a move against the Chinese threat. Beijing may feel that closer military ties between the US and India can help restrain New Delhi's military ambitions.

This pattern is no less true with regard to those countries with which China has friendly relations. For example, South Korea is tempted to become a nuclear power - a temptation that would be stronger without an American presence in the country. Singapore, again a friend of China, would otherwise find its proximity to Malaysia or Indonesia far more worrisome, potentially spreading instability across the South China Sea.

It is hard to believe that in the short term, China would be able to manage its own security in Asia - which is to say the security of the region as a whole - among its motley collection of distrusting neighbors.

On the other hand, the US cordons China's periphery. Besides basing troops in South Korea and Japan, America holds close ties with the Thai military, maintains a large naval base in Singapore and has garrisons scattered throughout Central Asia. Yet its troops are combating fundamentalist Muslim militants who, besides being enemies of the US, are also eager to support their brethren who remain active in the Chinese region of Xinjiang.

America's forward basing might pose a threat to China if Beijing desired to militarily project itself beyond its boundaries. But Beijing does not want to do this and the US presence can be seen just as a form of saving Chin's military expenditures. Deng Xiaoping's old tenet that China must think first of the economy still holds, thanks to the US presence.

The same principle works in reverse: the American presence saves other Asian countries the trouble of worrying about managing China's growth. If one thinks of Asia as a kind of vast engine, with China at its hub, America then acts as a kind of engine oil in the geopolitical machinery, helping relations run smoothly throughout.

Without America, China would have to deal with at least 21 hostile or semi-hostile neighbors, devoid of the old pattern of vassal ties and lacking a cultural mold for new interactions. Similarly, without America, all of Asia would have to conceive a new way of coping with a rising China, with no established

 multilateral institutions for the purpose and each country too weak to deal with China on a bilateral basis.

America then is good for China and other Asian countries. But the opposite holds true: China's rise is good for the American presence in Asia. After the collapse of the Soviet empire in 1991, the US should have pulled out or greatly reduced its presence in Asia.

Without China's ebullient economic and political development, America would have far less cause to maintain a presence in Asia. Asian countries could more easily manage their affairs by themselves, and the US government and businesses would have less reason to be involved on the continent. China's "threat" then is a blessing for all countries involved; it can be seen as the reason for the peaceful development of the Asia-Pacific region.

This blessing, however, hinges on a delicate balance: a carefully managed distance between China, the US and the other Asian countries. Any imbalance between any two countries could cast a shadow over the entire regional equilibrium. It is not unlike the challenge of keeping the peace in Europe after the Franco-Prussian war in 1870, but on a much larger scale. Then add several active nuclear states, several failing states, growing religious fundamentalism, nationalistic movements, exploding wealth, mounting social inequality, rising criminality, etc.

In this situation, a thriving China could be the best possible scenario. However, it is an extremely volatile state of affairs, made all the more so because of China's continuing growth, and this environment cannot last forever. Therefore, China has to take a more active role in the strategic security of the region by actively building a new culture of political relations in Asia and fostering new ties in the region.

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao's April 11-13 visit to Japan set a new tone for relations with the most sensitive and powerful of China's neighbors. Wen stressed that friendly relations had existed between China and Japan for 2,000 years, and said there had been problems between the two countries only in the past 50 years.

Whether or not this is historically accurate, it is politically momentous. The speech was broadcast live in China, so that the Chinese public could take note of the new official line and learn that anti-Japanese chauvinism is no longer tolerated in Beijing. Japanese parliamentarians applauded, demonstrating Japanese domestic endorsement for the new line of appeasement between the neighbors. Any potential future rightwing Japanese governments, looking to whip up nationalistic sentiments against China, will have to contend with the parliamentarians who applauded Wen's speech.

Roadblocks along the way

Though the trip was saluted as a melting of the ice, we are far from a political spring, let alone a torrid summer, in Sino-Japanese relations. China is making an extra effort in improving relations with all its neighbors, but it will take time to reap significant results. In the meantime, many incidents might upset the intended peaceful course of events.

In a related development, the growing cooperation between China, the US and Japan on North Korea could become a cornerstone of Asian security. Even if the talks fail to scale back North Korean nuclear capabilities, they will have achieved the total political isolation of Pyongyang's regime and begun building confidence on crucial security issues in Asia. This confidence is a strategic capital that can be called on by the three main countries in discussions over other sensitive areas.

It is likely that North Korea will freeze its nuclear development program and will reconsider opening an overland route through the Korean Peninsula to China and then to Russia. In Washington, ambassador Joseph DeTrani, one of the architects of the talks, is confident North Korea can be reined in, and the regime's almost hysterical reaction to the freezing of its assets in Macau in 2006 has proved there is concrete leverage to exert.

These events will have consequences throughout the world.

The growth of China and the Pacific region, and the United States' political involvement therein, increasingly renders the European Union superfluous. Political and economic growth is concentrated in the Asia-Pacific region, while the EU flounders on the periphery. Europeans will need to assess, in light of their geopolitical marginalization, whether the union really serves their interests, or whether they would be better off as separate states.

In time, perhaps 20 to 30 years, a best possible scenario could emerge: China has managed to develop a new approach of regional ties without vassalage, and Asian affairs are more integrated, both politically and economically. Even then, it is hard to imagine that the US will be totally out of the picture. However, it may have eased the cordon around China, scaling down its military presence in the area, and it may have developed better relations with China, thanks to the integration of Taiwan into a greater China.

Thanks to the due revaluation of the yuan, China may well be the largest economy, but the US will still possess the most sophisticated military in the world. Furthermore, because of its complicated geopolitical situation, it is difficult to imagine that China could greatly build up its military without suffering regional blowback. This would void what would by then be decades of efforts at political easement.

Meanwhile, as America's political capital in Asia is rising, that same political capital is being squandered in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here the lingering conflict and the constant bleeding of the pro-American forces in the long term could waste even the political capital America needs in East Asia.

An analysis written by Wang Xiangsui [1] highlights this concern. In "Key Points of Chinese National Security Strategy" [2] he explains that China worries about "power politics as the root threat to world peace and stability". He argues that the US wants to use weapons and military tactics to fight terrorism, while China wants to advance economical and social development "to eliminate the soil for terrorism". The US is worried about "failed or autocratic states"; China wants to develop Asian security agreements between countries to oppose terrorism.

Wang is worried that in so doing the US will fail to restrain terrorism. This defeat will lead to the spread of terrorism while weakening American political capital. China would have nothing to gain in this process. Islamic terrorism threatens China as well and a massive weakening of America could awaken thousands of ghosts throughout Asia, with each nation attending more closely to its security and a resulting arms race and loss of economic growth throughout the region.

So, while treading deftly on a new path of political relations with Asian countries, China and others states must pay special attention to developments in the Middle East. If America does not make major progress there in the next year, then perhaps a new Saddam Hussein - kept on a shorter leash - will be brought in to salvage the situation.

Yet, if the fight against Saddam were to result in bringing in a new Saddam, then the US should perhaps review its quasi-ideological fear of "autocratic regimes". This is already happening. The Arab world is full of autocrats who rule their countries by oppressing their people with America's blessing. But the US's blatant abandonment of former democratic ideals could further convince Islamic terrorists that the US's interests in the Middle East have only to do with oil. This, and the oppressive behavior of the region's US-sponsored dictators, could in turn boost anti-American sentiments.

If, in the Middle East, America remains caught between the Scylla of the autocrats and the Charybdis of the terrorists, Asian countries could soon start thinking of new security arrangements without America. This is a path fraught with risks for all involved: for the US, for China and for the whole of Asia.

Notes
1. Retired senior colonel, co-author with Qiao Liang of Chao Xian Zhan (War Beyond Limits).

2. ISPI papers, December 2006.

Francesco Sisci, Asia Editor of La Stampa.

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No permanent camp of Indian rebel groups in Myanmar: AR

Shillong, Sept 18 (PTI) Claiming that there are no permanent camps of Indian insurgent groups in Myanmar, the Assam Rifles today said the army of the neighbouring country is acting against the ultras present in its territory in coordination with it.

"As far as our information goes, there are no permanent camps of Indian insurgent groups in Myanmar. But the groups tend to set up temporary shelters in the country. We have been coordinating with the Myanmarese army and there has been operations against the rebels on both sides of the border," Assam Rifles DG Lt Gen K S Yadava told reporters here.

He said the groups have set up shelters in the thick forested terrains along the border and it is not easy to flush them out.

"Anyone can move around within certain limits of the border as per laid rules. Such a scenario is bound to foment the movement of the militants to and from the boundary," the DG said.

Yadava's statement comes in the backdrop of reports that some militant groups of the region like the ULFA were using Myanmar for regrouping and carrying out its subversive activities from its bases in the neighbouring country.

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Web Campaign Fights Brutal Regime in Burma
Christian Post - By Ethan Cole, Christian Post Reporter
Wed, Sep. 17 2008 11:01 AM EDT

An online campaign by a Christian rights group was launched Wednesday to raise public awareness and press for political change in Burma, which has one of the world’s most brutal military regimes known for using violence to silence critics and for its ethnic cleansing campaign.

The Web site, “Change for Burma!” is created by two U.K.-based groups - Christian Solidarity Worldwide and Partners Relief and Development - that are calling the United Nations to increase pressure for change in Burma (also known as Myanmar).

Its launch day is exactly a year after the country’s largest pro-democracy protests in 20 years. Tens of thousands of people, led by Buddhist monks, had protested last year against government violence and economic hardship throughout streets in Burma, resulting in hundreds of peaceful protesters killed by police and military forces.

The campaign also comes a day before the 20th anniversary of the seizure of power by Burma’s current military junta – the latest in a succession of military regimes that have ruled the country since 1962.

“This is an exciting new campaign to mobilize people to use their freedom to promote Burma’s freedom,” said CSW’s advocacy officer for South Asia, Benedict Rogers.
Rogers, author of A Land without Evil: Stopping the Genocide of Burma’s Karen People, has visited Burma and its borderlands 23 times during which he witnessed the people’s suffering firsthand.

“The struggle for human rights in Burma deserves as much attention as South Africa’s anti-apartheid movement received, and our aim is to inspire and equip people to rise up and demand real action,” he said.

Organizers seek to inform the public about the army military’s frequent attacks on villages of ethnic minorities including the Karen, Karenni, and Chin people – who are mostly Christians – and systematic rape of ethnic women.

The Chin population in Burma is about 90 percent Christian and is severely persecuted by Burma’s traditionally pro-Buddhist military regime.

Burma has one of the world’s worst religious freedom records and is repeatedly designated by the State Department as a “country of particular concern” (CPC) – the worst religious freedom violator label.

Visitors on the “Change for Burma!” Web site can email British Members of Parliament to urge them to ask the U.N. Security Council to bring the Burmese government before the International Criminal Court. They hope the ICC will impose a universal arms embargo on the country.

On the Web: http://www.changeforburma

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Burmese activists protest on 20th anniversary of coup
Mizzima News - Phanida, Huaipi
Thursday, 18 September 2008 21:15

Anti-government leaflets were distributed in Myitkyina, Kachin State on Thursday to condemn the 20th anniversary of the military coup in Burma.

Spokesperson of the 'All Kachin Students Union' (AKSU) told Mizzima that activists distributed and pasted anti-regime leaflets elsewhere in Myitkyina such as in high schools, university, colleges, government offices and residential blocks.

"We want to show our solidarity with all the students and monks in Burma while our second objective was to stage demonstrations on the 20th anniversary of the military coup," AKSU spokesperson said.

The students, who distributed about 400 leaflets printed on A-4 size papers, said they will continue to distribute the leaflets despite local authorities removing and seizing the posters, one of them said.

"The authorities removed and seized the leaflets as soon as they found them at about 9 a.m. today. We heard that the authorities announced cash rewards for information leading to our arrest. However we will continue what we have to do," he added.

On September 18, 1988, Burmese military made coup after brutally and ruthlessly cracking down on a nationwide uprising which left at least 3,000 dead and many injured.

Meanwhile, to denounce the junta's brutal military coup, pro-democracy activists in New Delhi, staged demonstrations near condemning the generals, who has persistently cling on to power for the last twenty years despite of international and internal pressures.

Dr. Tint Swe, Minister of the Prime Minister's Office (West) of the National Coalition Government of Union of Burma (NCGUB), during his speech at the protest, urges the people to remain resolute and unwavering in their struggle for democracy.

"We must work for our cause. Democracy can be achieved and restored only by the force of the people. All the people must continue their struggle bravely and resolutely. We must fight," he said.

Similarly, Burmese activists and their supporters in various parts of the world including Malaysia, United States, and Japan held demonstrations condemning the junta for its military coup 20 years ago and call for the immediate political reformation in Burma.

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Another student activist sentenced to two years in prison
Mizzima News - Phanida
Thursday, 18 September 2008 20:57

Chiang Mai – The Kyauktada Township Court in Rangoon Division on Thursday sentenced Lu Tin Win, an 88 Generation Student held in Insein prison, to two years in jail on charges of 'disrespectful act towards the State'.

The prosecutor Police Inspector Soe Naing framed charges against Lu Tin Win, 88 Generation Student from Syriam under section 505(b) (inducing crime against public tranquillity) , sections 145 and 147 (unlawful assembly) of the Penal Code.

"The court pronounced its judgment today and sentenced him to two years in prison. He was released from prison only last year and then rearrested and put behind bars," advocate Khin Maung Shein said.

Lu Tin Win was arrested on September 29, 2007 at a check gate near Rangoon's Sule Pagoda traffic point, when he was searched and found by the police to have  possess a copy of a book 'Opinion of 88 Generation Students'.

Khin Maung Shein, who has been working as defense counsel for several student  activists said, "Lu Tin Win was arrested while police were hunting down activists in the aftermath of the September demonstrations. He was on his way to a publishing house when the police found him with the book."

He was earlier arrested in 1999 for his political activities and was imprisoned to nine years in the Tharyarwady prison in Pegu Division. He was released in early 2007.

Similarly, Thet Wei Chairman of National League for Democracy (NLD) Sanchaung Township in Rangoon Division was sentenced to two years in prison on September 15 for trying to lodge a complaint to the ILO against the junta for using child soldiers.

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The Burmese Regime’s Cyber Offensive
Posted by The Irrawaddy Magazine | Thursday, September 18, 2008 |
By AUNG ZAW

Marking the anniversaries of the student uprising on September 18, 1988, and the Buddhist monk-led demonstrations last year, the Burmese junta has launched another offensive—a cyber attack—on The Irrawaddy and several other Burmese news agencies in exile.

We at The Irrawaddy quickly learned the attack was linked to the anniversary of the “Saffron Revolution.” Burma’s military authorities obviously did not want any similar sentiments this year and, once again, shot down their enemies.

Exiled media groups, bloggers, reporters inside Burma and citizen journalists played major roles in September 2007 in highlighting the brutal suppression of the monks and their supporters in the streets of Rangoon.

Live images, eye-witness reports, updates and photographs landed on our desks every few seconds. The outside world was able to witness the terror of the Burmese regime on TV and on the Internet.

And so the military regime struck back. On September 27, all connections to the Internet were closed down for four days as the authorities tried to conceal their crimes.

So it was no surprise that they attempted the same tactic this year.

On Tuesday, we received reports that the Internet in Burma was running slowly, suggesting a concerted effort to prevent information from going in or out of the country.

Then on Wednesday, our colleagues and subscribers in the US, Japan and Malaysia notified our Thailand-based office that they were unable to access our Web site.

A few hours later, I-NET, the largest host server in Thailand, confirmed: “Your site has been under distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack since around 5pm.”

I-NET finally decided to shut down our server.

Singlehop, which hosts The Irrawaddy’s mirror site, explained: “Your server is under a major attack. Due to the size of the attack our network engineers had to null route the IP to negate it. When the attack has subsided we will remove the null route.”

Singlehop told us that the cyber attack was very sophisticated.

Currently, our Web site is disabled and we have been forced to launch our daily news in blogs. Fellow exiled news agencies Democratic Voice of Burma and New Era were also disabled.

The attack on our Web sites is persistent and believed to be manually launched from various locations - the attacks on our site including mirror site continue.

It is no secret that in recent years Burma’s regime sent an army of students to Russia for cyber warfare training. They also enjoy a large budget to hire cyber criminals overseas to attack exiled media Web sites.

Burmese dissidents believe that some of the cyber criminals working for the regime are based in the US, Japan and Europe. One IP address identified in the current attack was in The Netherlands.

In Burma, Internet cafes are not safe. They are the substations of subversive activity. In some Internet cafes, users have to provide ID, informers observe students playing video games, and Buddhist monks complain they are treated like criminals if they ask to the Internet.

In this increasing climate of fear where Internet users are frequently suspected of working for exiled media, people in Burma there are naturally afraid to communicate.

Reporters, editors and publishers based in Rangoon are under increasing pressure. Earlier this month, police apprehended some reporters for allegedly working for The Irrawaddy, though they were not.

Our stringers remain undetected, though they say they are nervous.

My friend, a foreign journalist who just came out of Burma, said that the mood was very tense. “It is hard for our Burmese colleagues to report,” she said. “But they are very brave.”

Over the last 20 years, the ongoing battle between Burma’s regime and the pro-democratic forces has shifted from the streets to the jungle and now to the computer.

The Burmese junta will not give in—rather, they will equip themselves and become more sophisticated.

Acknowledging the magnitude of the cyber attack against us, we at The Irrawaddy have to build stronger firewalls and more effective systems to prevent inevitable attacks in the future.

However, the junta is mistaken. Ultimately, the flow of information is unstoppable. The Burmese regime’s cyber criminals cannot penetrate the strongest firewall of all—the spirit of desire for change.

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Red Alert in Rangoon
Posted by The Irrawaddy Magazine | Thursday, September 18, 2008 |
By MIN LWIN

Burmese security forces, including firefighters and members of the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) and Swan Arr Shin, have been deployed around Rangoon’s main streets and landmarks, wearing red cravats around their necks as a sign of a heightened state of alert.

It is widely believed that security has been tightened to prevent a recurrence of the events of September 18 last year when an estimated 400 Buddhist monks marched from Shwedagon Pagoda to protest the military authorities’ alleged use of violence against monks in Pakokku Township, which led to mass demonstrations across the country.

According to sources in Rangoon, the security forces, including members of the USDA and Swan Ah Shin, were posted around Shwedagon Pagoda and Rangoon City Hall, two of the focal points for last year’s demonstrations.

“The USDA and Swan-Arh-Shin have set up road blocks in the outskirts of the city,” a resident said. “They are stopping cars, buses, taxis and passers-by, and checking everyone.”

She recalled that on this date last year, security forces had been wearing blue cravats, signifying a mid-level alert, whereas today they were sporting bright red cravats around the collars of their green uniforms.

Another resident said that riot police had been deployed around many of Rangoon’s well-known monasteries.

He said that plainclothes police and members of the USDA encircled Ngwe Kyar Yan monastery in South Okkalapa Township three days ago.

Meanwhile, Internet users found that connection speeds had been reduced drastically as authorities stepped up monitoring of suspects.

“We cannot even sit in an Internet café in comfort,” a senior monk in Rangoon said. “The authorities stare at us like we are terrorists.”

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