High mountains, distant emperors

JUST days after her government took office late last month, Aung San Suu Kyi, the world’s best-known democracy activist, welcomed her first foreign dignitary: Wang Yi, foreign minister of the world’s biggest authoritarian state, China. They smiled and shook hands for the cameras. Miss Suu Kyi welcomed China’s “substantial assistance”. And Mr Wang praised the pauk phaw (fraternal) warmth between the two countries.

Yet the warmth is not what it was. Indeed, so deep had resentment become in Myanmar of China’s growing influence that it helped push the generals who had long ruled the country towards a democratic opening in 2011, and towards the West. With waves of Chinese investment bringing tens of thousands of Chinese workers and traders, ordinary Burmese, particularly in Myanmar’s north nearer the Chinese border, were beginning to feel that their country was at risk of becoming just another Chinese province.