02 October 2007

On the Edge

I discovered, to my growing horror, that I cannot do it this morning. I am a bit befuddled by the image of the South Korean President crossing the Bridge of No Return at Panmunjong to meet with the Dear Leader on North Korean soil. There was no American General with him.

The prospect that Kim's nuclear weapons program may actually be shut down is a real possibility, and if the remnants were destroyed by the Israelis in northern Syria last month, perhaps there is something good happening on the peninsula.

There is talk that the fences may be coming down on the DMZ. It may be true, and it may not. I am a skeptic in my old age. But one thing is clear to me. The East is changing in a fundamental way, the great center of gravity pulling all toward it.

I thought I could move from the meeting between UN Special Envoy Ibrahim Gambari and Senior General Than Shwe in the junta's remote new capital, Naypyitaw. Details are not available, but if my little experience in meeting with Burmese strongmen is any guide, I am betting that Gambari did not get much from him.

The General has been reported to be ailing of late, though I am absolutely confident that some other tough General will step right up to replace him when necessary.

Non-governmental reports indicate that the Junta killed as many as two hundred protesters, and thousands detained.

I think that China, and what China says to the General and his co-juntists might be the key to the resolution of this crisis, and possibly the transition to a democratic Burma headed by The Lady.

I realized this morning that it is quite impossible. The hot-house which the militarists set up in Burma has preserved some things intact, though changed in a subtle way from wars long ago. Sifting through it all this morning, I met Chindits, and Stillwell, Tojo, Chinese Nationalist Armies of the Kuo Min Tang (KMT), Viscount Slim, the Flying Tigers and Merrill's Marauders.

The canvas is so rich with characters that it is impossible to focus on any one of them.

All played a part in the rise of Aung San in the great impending transition to independence, and the Chinese Armies were still in place in Shan State in the north after Ne Win seized control of the government in Rangoon. That is when the CIA and State come into the story, part of the game on China's periphery. A negotiated pullout of the Nationalist Army was arranged in 1961, just as the war to the East was starting in Vietnam.

The Thais welcomed the new immigrants as a bulwark against the Communists, and if the KMT Army kept control of the opium distribution, it was just the cost of doing business.

You can enjoy some fine oolong tea with old men in Northern Thailand today, and hear them chat in Mandarin. They are the veterans of the KMT 93rd Division, led by General Tuan, who refused to surrender to the Communists and made their own long march out of Yunnan Province, with stop to occupy northern Burma for a dozen years, eventually to find their retirement as Thai citizens.

The only unifying theme in all this that I can find this morning is that Burma, and Korea, and Taiwan are all in the news because they are on the edge of China, the focus of old wars on China's flanks. The lines drawn in another century by British and Americans are melting away. Regardless of the story line in each individual case, all of the players are looking north, just as they did in ages past.

Tomorrow: The String of Pearls

Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com

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