January 27:
Burma has taken out an unknown number of fresh loans from China and issued a law approving the creation of a Special Economic Zone modeled after Shenzhen, Guandong, the Democratic Voice of Burma reports. Zhu Xinqing, Vice President of the China Exim Bank, and Burma’s Deputy Minister of Finance and Revenue, U Hla Thein Swe, signed the loan agreements; one for an airport in the capital, Naypyidaw, and one in reminbi for undisclosed joint development projects, the official China Radio International announced.
[Editor’s Note: Last year, Burma’s junta leader, Senior General Than Shwe, visited China’s successful Shenzhen SEZ and held meetings with local officials and businessmen. Shenzhen has been the center of China's export-led rise following the government's decision to allow foreign investment and deregulate private enterprises, which were able to exploit an expensive dollar and China's large labor force.]
January 28:
In an interview with Fox News, Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe’s reform-minded Prime Minister and leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was asked about China’s involvement in Africa and Zimbabwe. Tsangari said: “Whatever you can say about the Chinese, they are not missionaries. They have business interests, they have their own national interests especially when it comes to resources. They have not been exploitative. There are certain practices that I would not subscribe to. They are not philanthropists. They are coming for business interests. In that regard, it’s mutually beneficial. We should be tougher. We should not be preferential to them. Of course, we should recognize our historical linkage through the liberation struggle, but certainly we should get the maximum advantages in whatever deals are made.”
[Editor’s Note: The Communist Party of China (CPC) has supported the ruling ZANU-PF party and its leader Robert Mugabe since the country’s liberation struggle, which ended in 1980. Mugabe’s forces have brutally suppressed the MDC and jailed and severely beaten its supporters, including Tsvangirai himself.]
Two former leaders of the 1989 Tiananmen protests, Wang Dan and Wu'er Kaixi, have been refused entry into Hong Kong to attend the funeral of democracy icon Szeto Wah. Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Donald Tsang and Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee ignored reporters’ questions about the decision during a press conference, although a source told Hong Kong’s The Standard
that “the decision was made after careful consideration and based on the potential ‘consequences’ of allowing them in.” Wang and Wu’er said that the incident shows that Beijing has tightened its grip on the officially autonomous territory and that “the ‘one country, two systems’ framework is dead and should never be applied to Taiwan.” They also called on Taipei to include human rights and democracy in its next dialogue with the mainland.
January 31:
Almost half of the 35,640 megawatts of electricity that will be generated by the 21 major hydropower dam projects currently under construction in Burma will be sold to China. China’s state-run companies and/or banks are involved in all but one of Burma’s new dams and it has increased investment in the Tasang dam, Burma’s largest dam located on the Salween River in Shan State, from $6 billion to $10 billion. “Since China is the main investor in the dam projects, it will receive most of the electricity,” said Sai Sai, the coordinator of Burma Rivers Network in comments carried by the independent, Thailand-based, Burmese publication Irrawaddy website. China will get 48 percent, Thailand will get 38 percent, 3 percent will go to India, and 1 percent will be for Burmese domestic consumption. The remaining 10 percent will be used by the Burmese military and on large-scale development projects such as the construction of a natural gas pipeline from the offshore Shwe gas fields in western Burma's Arakan State to China, the independent Irrawaddy reports.
