Global Response to Myanmar Earthquake Shines Light on Strategic Rivalries

全球对缅甸地震的反应揭示了战略对抗

作者：贝蒂尔·林特纳          来源：伊洛瓦底江

Teams of relief workers from Russia and China, the junta’s closest allies, were—not surprisingly—the first international rescuers to arrive in Myanmar after the earthquake. They were followed by teams from India, Thailand, Singapore and Japan. Supplies were flown in even from a poor country like Nepal. But so as not to upset the Chinese, emergency workers from Taiwan were told not to come. In its belated initial pledge, the US announced it would contribute a paltry US$2 million to assist in the recovery from the devastating earthquake, which, according to unofficial estimates, has claimed at least 10,000 lives. On Saturday, however, the US Embassy in Yangon announced that, “Following initial assessments from our disaster experts, the United States is making approximately $7 million in additional funds available to support earthquake-affected communities in Burma.

来自军政府最亲密盟友俄罗斯和中国的救援队伍，在地震后第一批抵达缅甸的国际救援人员，并不令人惊讶。紧随其后的是来自印度、泰国、新加坡和日本的团队。物资甚至从尼泊尔这样的穷国空运过来。但为了不惹恼中国大陆，台湾的紧急救援人员被告知不要来。在姗姗来迟的最初承诺中，美国宣布将捐助区区200万美元，帮助缅甸从毁灭性的地震中恢复过来。据非官方估计，这场地震已造成至少1万人死亡。然而，周六，美国驻仰光大使馆宣布，“根据我们的灾难专家的初步评估，美国将提供大约700万美元的额外资金，用于支持缅甸地震受灾社区。

This additional support, on top of the $2 million announced on March 31, will provide earthquake-affected communities with emergency shelter, food, medical care, and water.”

在3月31日宣布的200万美元的基础上，这笔额外的援助将为受地震影响的社区提供紧急避难所、食品、医疗保健和水。”

Looking at the international response to the earthquake, two developments stand out, the first being the rivalry between China and Russia for influence in Myanmar, and the second being the unexpected decision by the US to donate anything at all, after dissolving the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a move that has seen it halt assistance to media and civil society organizations in Myanmar as well as to refugees in neighboring countries. Humanitarian assistance of any kind is normally not on the agenda of US strongman Donald Trump, who recently returned to the White House.

从国际社会对地震的反应来看，有两个事态发展非常突出，第一是中国和俄罗斯在缅甸的影响力竞争，第二是美国在解散美国国际开发署（USAID）后出人意料地决定捐赠任何东西，这一举动使得它停止了对缅甸媒体和民间社会组织以及邻国难民的援助。任何形式的人道主义援助通常都不在最近重返白宫的美国铁腕人物唐纳德?特朗普（Donald Trump）的议程上。

Beijing’s policy makers have not forgotten that the Myanmar military decided in the 1990s to reach out to Russia to counterbalance its then overwhelming dependence on China. Since then, Russia-Myanmar relations have flourished. Russia has become a major arms supplier, and Myanmar cadets have gone to Russia for training. In the most recent development, junta leader Min Aung Hlaing traveled to Moscow in the first week of March and signed an agreement with Russia on the development of a 110 MW nuclear reactor in Myanmar. That came after Myanmar and Russian officials met in Naypyitaw on Feb. 23 and agreed to cooperate on investment in the Dawei Special Economic Zone, including the construction of a new port, a coal-fired power plant, and an oil refinery.

北京的政策制定者没有忘记，缅甸军方在上世纪90年代决定与俄罗斯接触，以平衡当时对中国的极度依赖。此后，俄缅关系蓬勃发展。俄罗斯已成为缅甸主要的武器供应国，缅甸军校学员也前往俄罗斯接受培训。最近的进展是，缅甸军政府领导人敏昂莱（Min Aung Hlaing）在3月的第一个星期访问莫斯科，与俄罗斯签署了在缅甸开发一座110兆瓦核反应堆的协议。此前，缅甸和俄罗斯官员于2月23日在内比都会晤，同意就投资大威经济特区（Dawei Special Economic Zone）进行合作，包括建设一个新港口、一座燃煤电厂和一座炼油厂。

China cannot be pleased with those developments. Myanmar is of utmost strategic importance to China, and the Chinese are determined to be the only game in town. As Hawaii-based researcher Miemie Winn Byrd pointed out in a 2020 study for the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu: “With over 2,000 kilometers of coastline along the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea, proximity to the western entrance of the Malacca Strait, and a direct linkage to the Indian Ocean, Myanmar is a geographically significant country in Asia. That was the reason the British colonials and the Japanese during World War II strived to control Myanmar. The same geopolitical interests apply to modern-day China.”

中国不会对这些发展感到高兴。缅甸对中国具有极其重要的战略意义，中国人决心成为唯一的游戏。夏威夷研究员Miemie Winn Byrd在2020年为檀香山亚太安全研究中心所做的一项研究中指出：“缅甸沿着孟加拉湾和安达曼海拥有超过2000公里的海岸线，靠近马六甲海峡的西部入口，与印度洋直接相连，是亚洲地理上重要的国家。这就是第二次世界大战期间英国殖民者和日本人努力控制缅甸的原因。同样的地缘政治利益也适用于现代中国。”

Chinese displeasure with Russian activities in Myanmar came out in the open in August last year. A Chinese-language website called One Guide, which covers the fighting in northern Myanmar, revealed that the junta may turn to the infamous Russian Wagner Group of state-sponsored mercenaries for help in its wars against armed groups opposing its February 2021 seizure of power — and also accused Min Aung Hlaing of “betrayal” for ignoring Chinese efforts to mediate in the conflict. The website’s logo shows a picture of the back of a mysterious man wearing a Western-style hat, and it always displays unique videos of the fighting in the north accompanied by amazingly detailed maps showing the exact locations of battles and the positions of Myanmar army camps and outposts in the area. The announcer speaks rapidly in what Chinese-language experts consulted by The Irrawaddy say is standard Chinese, not a local or rustic dialect. And the subtitles in English are too good to have been produced by Google Translate or any such tool. One Guide’s outburst showed quite clearly that the Chinese do not want competition from any other outside power, not even Russia, which is usually perceived as an ally of Beijing.

去年8月，中国公开表达了对俄罗斯在缅甸活动的不满。一个报道缅甸北部战事的中文网站One Guide透露，缅甸军政府可能会向臭名昭著的俄罗斯瓦格纳集团（Wagner Group）寻求帮助，帮助其打击反对其2021年2月夺取政权的武装组织。该网站还指责敏昂莱（Min Aung Hlaing）无视中国在冲突中斡旋的努力，是“背叛”。该网站的标志是一名戴着西式帽子的神秘男子背部的照片，网站上总是播放有关缅甸北部战斗的独特视频，并配有令人惊讶的详细地图，显示了战斗的确切位置，以及该地区缅甸军营和前哨的位置。《伊洛瓦底江报》咨询的汉语专家说，播音员语速很快，是标准汉语，而不是当地方言或乡村方言。而且英文字幕太好了，不可能是谷歌翻译或其他类似工具制作的。《指南》的爆发很清楚地表明，中国不希望与任何其他外部大国竞争，即使是通常被视为中国盟友的俄罗斯。

China and Russia may have a common enemy today — the West — but they are not natural allies. The Chinese have not forgotten that what today is referred to as the Russian Far East consists of territories the Chinese once claimed as theirs. The Russian conquest of those areas began in the 17th century and was not completed until the mid-19th century. The Chinese suffered humiliating defeats and were forced to relinquish their claims to all the areas the Russians had taken over. To this day, however, Vladivostok, Khabarovsk and Blagoveshchensk continue to be called Haishenwei, Boli and Hailanpao on maps printed in China. The same maps use Kuye for the island of Sakhalin, Miaojie for Nikolayevsk-on-Amur, Nibuchu for Nerchinsk, Xing’an for the Stanovoy Range, and Shuangchengzi for Ussuriysk.

中国和俄罗斯今天可能有一个共同的敌人——西方——但他们不是天然的盟友。中国人没有忘记，今天所谓的俄罗斯远东地区是由中国曾经声称是他们的领土组成的。俄罗斯对这些地区的征服始于17世纪，直到19世纪中期才完成。中国遭受了耻辱性的失败，被迫放弃对俄罗斯占领的所有地区的主权要求。然而，直到今天，海参崴、哈巴罗夫斯克和布拉戈维申斯克在中国印制的地图上仍然被称为“海深卫”、“博利”和“海兰堡”。同样的地图用Kuye表示库页岛，Miaojie表示阿穆尔河上的nikolayevsk， Nibuchu表示尼布楚，兴安表示Stanovoy山脉，双城子表示乌苏里克。

China and Russia became allies when both countries were ruled by communist regimes, but that friendship did not last for even a decade. When Nikita Khrushchev denounced the old dictator Josef Stalin in 1956, China’s Mao Zedong defended Stalin. The final break came in the late 1950s, and the conflict peaked during the Cultural Revolution in China, which lasted from 1966 until Mao’s death in 1976. During that decade of intense turmoil in China, with Red Guards attacking suspected “enemies of the people” all over the country, the revolutionary authorities in the town of Heihe in north-western China put up huge loudspeakers on the banks of the Amur River, which served as the border, and blasted anti-Soviet propaganda 24 hours a day, year after year, to Blagoveshchensk on the other side. The Chinese condemned the Soviet “revisionist renegade clique”, which they believed had betrayed true Marxism-Leninism. In 1969, there was even a brief border war between the Soviets and China over some disputed islands in the Ussuri River, a tributary of the Amur.

中国和俄罗斯在两国都被共产主义政权统治时成为盟友，但这种友谊甚至没有持续10年。最后的决裂发生在20世纪50年代末，这场冲突在中国的文化大革命期间达到顶峰，这场革命从1966年持续到1976年毛去世。在中国动荡不安的十年里，红卫兵在全国各地攻击可疑的“人民公敌”，中国西北部黑河镇的革命当局在充当边界的阿穆尔河岸边架设了巨大的扬声器，年复一年，每天24小时向对岸的布拉戈维申斯克播放反苏宣传。中国人谴责苏联的“修正主义叛徒集团”，认为他们背叛了真正的马克思列宁主义。1969年，苏联和中国甚至因为乌苏里江（黑龙江的一条支流）上一些有争议的岛屿爆发了短暂的边界战争。

However, the loudspeakers fell silent a long time ago and the days of outright hostility are over. Today, a completely different message emanates from across the Amur. From Blagoveshchensk, people can now see a different Heihe: modern, high-rise buildings and, after dark, flashing neon lights. Cross-border trade is brisk, and the Russian Far East has become a backwater, a source of raw material for China’s industries and a market for cheap Chinese consumer goods. Russia, once a superpower, now hobbles along in the shadow of the much wealthier and more powerful China. The Chinese economy has grown from half the size of the Soviet Union’s before it disintegrated in 1991 to more than four times that of Russia today.

然而，喇叭很久以前就安静下来了，公开敌对的日子已经结束了。今天，一个完全不同的信息从阿穆尔河对岸传来。从布拉戈维申斯克，人们可以看到一个不一样的黑河：现代化的高楼大厦，天黑后闪烁的霓虹灯。跨境贸易活跃，俄罗斯远东地区已成为一潭死水，成为中国工业的原材料来源地和廉价中国消费品的市场。曾经的超级大国俄罗斯，如今在更富裕、更强大的中国的阴影下蹒跚前行。中国的经济规模已经从1991年苏联解体前的一半增长到今天俄罗斯的四倍多。

Russia has joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the hope of attracting Chinese investment to rebuild the heavy industries in the Far East, which for defense reasons were moved from European Russia during World War II and then went idle after the collapse of the Soviet Union and its economy. But China is not interested in spending money on such ventures. BRI in the Russian Far East means investment in infrastructure — ports, bridges, railroads, pipelines — to make it easier to transport raw materials and natural resources from Russia to China.

俄罗斯加入了中国的“一带一路”倡议（BRI），希望吸引中国投资重建远东地区的重工业，这些重工业在第二次世界大战期间出于国防原因从欧洲俄罗斯转移过来，然后在苏联及其经济解体后闲置。但中国对投资此类项目不感兴趣。“一带一路”在俄罗斯远东地区意味着对基础设施的投资——港口、桥梁、铁路、管道——使原材料和自然资源更容易从俄罗斯运输到中国。

Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin, who is determined to “Make Russia Great Again”, has found a willing partner in Myanmar’s military regime. At the very least, he can show that Russia is a world power, and not just a mismanaged country that has suffered a dramatic economic and social collapse. And Russia can play a role in post-earthquake Myanmar in mending relations between Washington and Naypyitaw. Past US governments were vocal in their support for Myanmar’s democratic movements and opposed to the current and previous juntas, but the Trump administration appears to be paying less attention to such democracy-related issues and is more focused on countering the growth of Chinese power and influence across the world. But a sudden policy shift would provoke outrage among the Myanmar population at large, at home and in exile, and would also most likely be met with utmost skepticism — and suspicion — on the part of the Myanmar military. Nonetheless, the US pledge of aid to earthquake recovery efforts could open the door to more contacts.

决心“让俄罗斯再次伟大”的俄罗斯领导人弗拉基米尔?普京（Vladimir Putin）在缅甸军政府中找到了一个愿意合作的伙伴。至少，他可以证明俄罗斯是一个世界强国，而不仅仅是一个管理不善、经济和社会急剧崩溃的国家。俄罗斯可以在震后的缅甸修复华盛顿和内比都之间的关系方面发挥作用。过去的美国政府曾公开表示支持缅甸的民主运动，反对现任和前任军政府，但特朗普政府似乎不太关注这些与民主有关的问题，而是更专注于对抗中国在全球的实力和影响力的增长。但是，突然的政策转变会激起缅甸国内和流亡民众的愤怒，也很可能会遭到缅甸军方的极度怀疑和怀疑。尽管如此，美国对地震恢复工作提供援助的承诺，可能会开启更多接触的大门。

It has been suggested by analysts that the Trump administration wants to use the Russians as interlocutors for re-establishing links to North Korea. Trump tried during his previous term in power, from 2017 to 2021, to get some kind of understanding going with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. He failed, but in March Trump expressed his desire to reestablish that relationship, boasting that he “got along great” with Kim Jong Un and still has a “great” relationship with him. It is hardly any secret that the North Korean leaders get on well with their Russian counterparts while relations with China remain distant and even frosty. Myanmar could also be in the cards, the sources suggest. Trump is no doubt pleased to see how Russian investment in Myanmar serves as a counterweight to China’s influence — and if anyone could restore the United States’ collapsed relationship with Naypyitaw, it would be the Russians.

分析人士认为，特朗普政府希望利用俄罗斯人作为与朝鲜重建关系的对话者。特朗普在2017年至2021年的上一届执政期间曾试图与朝鲜领导人金正恩达成某种谅解。他失败了，但特朗普在3月份表达了重建这种关系的愿望，吹嘘他与金正恩“相处得很好”，并且仍然与他保持着“很好”的关系。朝鲜领导人与俄罗斯领导人相处融洽，而与中国的关系仍然疏远，甚至冷淡，这已不是什么秘密。消息人士称，缅甸也可能在考虑之列。毫无疑问，特朗普很高兴看到俄罗斯在缅甸的投资如何制衡中国的影响力——如果有人能恢复美国与内比都崩溃的关系，那就是俄罗斯人。

The policies of Trump’s regime are vastly different from those of any previous administration in Washington, and it could be argued that Putin’s Moscow and Trump’s Washington represent a more appropriate alliance than the present, uneasy pact between Russia and China. These are still early days, but the signs are clear. The Trump administration is reaching out, albeit cautiously, to the junta and most likely wants to get closer in order to counter China’s influence in Myanmar. In the race to be the most effective and best partner in earthquake relief efforts for Myanmar, the rivalry between Russia and China is on full display. And the US would certainly be sympathetic to the Russian efforts. As far as Trump is concerned, it is all about closing ranks against China.

特朗普政权的政策与华盛顿之前的任何一届政府都大不相同，可以说，普京的莫斯科和特朗普的华盛顿代表了一个比目前俄罗斯和中国之间不安的协议更合适的联盟。现在还为时尚早，但迹象已经很明显了。特朗普政府正在谨慎地与缅甸军政府接触，很可能希望与之拉近关系，以抗衡中国在缅甸的影响力。在成为缅甸地震救援工作中最有效和最佳合作伙伴的竞赛中，俄罗斯和中国之间的竞争充分展现出来。美国肯定会同情俄罗斯的努力。就特朗普而言，这一切都是为了团结起来反对中国。

Bertil Lintner is a Swedish journalist, author and strategic consultant who has been writing about Asia for nearly four decades.

贝蒂尔·林特纳是瑞典记者、作家和战略顾问，近40年来一直在撰写有关亚洲的文章。

作者：伊洛瓦底江          来源：伊洛瓦底江