Can China tame the Burmese junta?

The Obama administration's new policy toward Burma follows a strategy of mixing engagement and pressure, much as the administration is attempting in other thorny areas of foreign policy such as Iran, Sudan, and North Korea, to name a few.      

Also like those examples, the new Burma policy will depend somewhat on cooperation from other countries that have significant involvement and interests there. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Kurt Campbell traveled to China last week and asked senior Chinese leaders to "play a positive role" in promoting reform in Burma.

"We will need to work with friends and partners to achieve our goals, including stepped up dialogue and interactions with countries such as China and India that have traditionally close relationships with Burma's military leaders," Campbell testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee Wednesday morning.

Campbell will travel to Burma with his deputy Scot Marciel in the coming weeks, where he plans to meet with regime leaders, prodemocracy advocates, and he might even sit down imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, a State Department official confirmed.

The committee's ranking Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-FL, a skeptic of engaging Burma's military junta, pointed out in the hearing that China been so far unwilling or unable to prevent the Burmese junta from waging war on ethnic minority militias, a major source of humanitarian strife and a problem for Chinese border areas, where the refugees from such fighting typically flee.

Moreover, the Chinese seem to be already preparing for more bloodshed before next year's Burmese elections, she pointed out, calling into question again the Obama administration's contention that China can or would be helpful on this issue.

"China has reportedly begun construction of refugee camps on the Burmese border in anticipation of a pre-election military offensive by the military junta against ethnic armed militias," Ros-Lehtinen said to Campbell, "If these militias reject the regime's demands to be incorporated into a border guard force and a bloodbath ensues, how will this impact our new policy of engagement with this bloodthirsty regime?"

Campbell could only respond that the U.S. deplores military actions against ethnic groups inside Burma and that he has asked the Chinese to urge restraint in their dealings with the junta.

"The truth is, as you well know, that some of these military actions are not on the horizon" he testified. "They've already occurred."

TIM SLOAN/AFP/Getty Images