China quietly reaches out to Myanmar opposition

By Chris Buckley

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has been quietly nurturing ties with democratic and ethnic groups at odds with Myanmar's military government, partly hedging bets in the restive Southeast Asian nation even as Beijing avoids openly criticizing the junta.

China has been a steady friend of the generals who have ruled for decades in Myanmar, also known as Burma, standing by them after they crushed a pro-democracy uprising in 1988 and then swept aside a 1990 election won by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy.

In past days, as thousands of Buddhist clergy have taken to Myanmar's streets to demand democratic change, Beijing has avoided public pressure on its resource-rich neighbor, instead urging "stability" and vowing non-interference.

But behind the scenes in past months and even years China has held low-key meetings with minority ethnic and democratic opposition groups, said group representatives and a Western analyst.

Zin Linn, a spokesman for the exiled National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma in Thailand, said his organization had met Chinese representatives in the past year or so.

"They didn't accept us officially or say they wanted to have formal relations, but I think they are trying to understand the situation and our views," he said of China.

Beijing has a deep investment in Myanmar's future, with concerns about trade, border stability and fighting drugs magnified by plans to build oil and gas pipelines through Myanmar's ethnically mixed border regions into China.

The meetings showed that China realized it had to explore other options in Myanmar, even if it was not ready to turn on the generals, said Andrew Small, a researcher at the German Marshall Fund in Brussels, who has co-written a study of Beijing's relations with "rogue" regimes widely criticized by the West.

"With this big pipeline investment, they've got an even bigger stake in a stable neighbor," said Small, who added he recently spoke to Myanmar sources knowledgeable about contacts with China.

"They know they can't afford poor relations with either the ethnic groups or the democratic groups if their interests are to survive a change in power".

DELICATE PRESSURE

Western powers have shunned contact with the junta and even many of Myanmar's neighbors have grown impatient with its reluctance to launch dialogue with opposition groups.

China has so far shown no open signs of jettisoning support for Myanmar's embattled junta.

In January, China and Russia vetoed a resolution calling on it to stop persecuting minority and opposition groups and to take concrete steps towards democracy.

More quietly, however, China appears to have been seeking to temper its support with delicate pressure on the generals.