China Calls for Stability in Myanmar as Monks Protest

By Ed Johnson and Allen T. Cheng

Sept. 25 (Bloomberg) -- China called for stability in Myanmar where the military junta faces the biggest street protests in almost 20 years, and said it won't interfere in the nation's affairs.
``As a friendly neighboring country of Myanmar, China hopes to see stability and economic development,'' Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters at a briefing in Beijing today. ``China adopts a policy of non-interference in the affairs of other countries.''
Buddhist monks and pro-democracy campaigners have staged more than a week of protests against the military, which took power in 1962, and are demanding the release of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Monks led more than 20,000 people on a march in the former capital, Yangon, today, ignoring demands from the junta to stay out of politics, Agence France-Presse said.
China and India are the only countries with influence over Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, and must push the junta to show restraint, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group said in an e-mailed statement today.
``The regime has a long history of violent reactions to peaceful demonstrations,'' said Gareth Evans, the group's president. ``If serious loss of life is to be averted, those UN members with influence over the government are going to have to come together fast.''
Government troops killed more than 1,000 demonstrators on a single day in August 1988 to crush a pro-democracy uprising led by monks, the U.S. State Department said in a briefing note on its Web site.
China Veto
China and Russia, which have economic interests in Myanmar, in January vetoed a U.S.-sponsored resolution at the United Nations Security Council calling on the junta to hold talks with the opposition.
President George W. Bush will call for tougher action by the UN and announce new U.S. sanctions on the junta leaders, including restrictions on visas and financial transactions, in an address to the UN General Assembly in New York today, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations must support UN efforts to find a peaceful solution to Myanmar's political crisis, said the International Crisis Group, which aims to resolve conflicts.
Asean Member
Asean, which admitted Myanmar as a member in 1997 against the wishes of the U.S. and Europe, has been criticized by Western nations for not doing enough to induce democratic change there.
Singapore, which currently chairs the bloc, said in a statement yesterday it hopes the crisis will ``be resolved in a peaceful manner.''
Asean must send a ``clear and unequivocal message'' to the junta that a repeat of the 1988 ``bloodbath'' would be unacceptable, Lim Kit Siang, opposition leader in Malaysia's Parliament and a member of the Democratic Action Party, said in an e-mailed statement today.
Myanmar has been under international sanctions since 1990 when the army rejected the results of elections won by Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy. Demonstrations have intensified since the doubling of some fuel prices last month.
Suu Kyi, 61, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990, has spent 11 years in detention since the elections and was last placed under arrest at her home in 2003.
The U.K., Germany and France yesterday backed opposition protests in Myanmar and the European Union called for ``real political reform'' there.
Myanmar's government has ignored previous demands by the U।S। and the UN to free more than 1,000 political prisoners and return the country of 47 million people to democracy.

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