Introduction
During the Cold War, China's relations with its neighbours were critical to its foreign policy, which was subordinated to its triangular relations with the former Soviet Union and the United States. Beijing's relations with Burma were one of the highlights of this peripheral diplomacy between the 1950s and 1960s. Burma was the first non-communist country to recognise the People's Republic of China (PRC; China) in 1949. The two countries developed ties that came to be known as ‘Pauk Phaw’ (fraternal), lasting until 1967. During this period, both countries mutually enjoyed good relations and conducted frequent high-level bilateral visits. For instance, Premier Zhou Enlai visited Burma on nine occasions, President Liu Shaoqi on two, and Deputy Premier Chen Yi on at least sixteen. Conversely, during the same period, U Nu and Ne Win each visited China on six occasions.
Burma acted as a buffer state between China and the West as well as the Soviet Union later on. William Johnstone noted that Burma was ‘the only friendly non-Communist territory through which the Chinese Communists can come and go, and through which delegations and official missions from Africa, Latin America and the rest of Asia can come and go with ease’.Footnote 1 Winston Churchill had also aptly remarked that Burma was a gap in the West's encirclement campaigns against China.Footnote 2
After Ne Win seized power in 1962, China maintained its good relations with Burma, strongly supporting Ne Win's nationalisation of the economy and assisting him to consolidate his power by foiling an attempted coup d'état.Footnote 3 However, China's pragmatic and flexible foreign policy towards Burma began to shift after China set on a course of political anarchy in 1966 as a result of the Cultural Revolution. Their cordial relations were dramatically challenged by the 1967 anti-Chinese riots in Rangoon, which brought about the end of ‘Pauk Phaw’ ties.
The significance of the riots has not been thoroughly studied and understood, however. Chinese research undertaken on Sino–Burmese relations often ‘omit’ or ‘neglect’ this event in order to highlight the long-term friendship and harmonious relations between the two nations.Footnote 4 In mainland China, only a handful of scholars and returned Overseas Chinese from Burma conducted research on it. One Burmese–Chinese, Feng Lidong, has argued that the Chinese embassy in Rangoon as well as the Beijing government itself should be held accountable for the 1967 anti-Chinese riots, not the local Chinese community.Footnote 5 This is in contrast with the views of Chinese researcher Lin Xixing who wrote that the unrest was caused by Burma's own domestic anti-Chinese nationalism. Lin added that there was also reason to believe that the riots had been instigated by some Burmese who harboured ulterior motives.Footnote 6 Other scholars, such as Lin Zhu and Fang Xiongpu, synthesised the two arguments and ascribed the riots to Beijing's radical foreign policy coupled with Burmese domestic tensions.Footnote 7 Lin Zhu was a Chinese school headmaster in Mandalay who had returned to China just before the events of June 1967. Lin provides a valuable account of the background to the events as well as the subsequent response of the local Chinese community. However, these researchers have confined themselves to determining the facts rather than the impact of the riots.
The 1967 anti-Chinese riots have drawn more attention from Western and Asian scholars outside China; most of this research was conducted in the 1970s and 1980s, however. According to these researchers, the causes of the Rangoon incident could be classified into three categories. Most scholars concur that the main cause of the ‘6.26’ (26 June, the date of the first major anti-Chinese riot) event was the Cultural Revolution and China's attempt to export it through so-called ‘Red Guard diplomacy’.Footnote 8 Stephen Fitzgerald argued that incidents involving Overseas Chinese in Macao, Hong Kong, Mongolia, Burma, Cambodia and Indonesia were direct effects of internal struggles among Chinese officials themselves or possibly the result of unauthorised activity in Beijing.Footnote 9 Burma's case in particular was an illustration of this. Some scholars argued that the Chinese Foreign Ministry's loss of control to the Red Guards at its embassy in Burma in 1967 should be considered responsible for the riots.Footnote 10
On the other hand, others argued that a possible factor for the rift in Sino–Burmese relations was China's frustration over its efforts to gain Burma's support for its foreign policy.Footnote 11 Another explanation is provided by Kalyani Bandyopadhyaya, who argues that Ne Win's ‘socialistic’ policy cut off Beijing's channel of influence on the Chinese community and on Burma's internal politics. This development irked Beijing and led to its decision to export the Cultural Revolution to Burma.Footnote 12 Yet these arguments are not convincing in the context of China's foreign policy shift during the Cultural Revolution. China's export of the Cultural Revolution arose not from external circumstances but from domestic political developments. As Wayne Bert noted, ‘Burma's shift to a more isolated stance after 1963 cannot be construed as a contributing factor to the Chinese antagonism during the period of “Cultural Revolution”. The hostile policy towards Burma was similar to that toward other Asian countries.’Footnote 13 More importantly, China's declassified archives reveal that prior to 1967 Beijing actively supported Ne Win's policy to terminate foreign influence in Burma, even at the cost of China's own economic interests.Footnote 14 When 6,700 Chinese stores, two of Beijing's banks, and all Chinese schools and newspapers were nationalised between 1964 and 1965, China completely disregarded the interests and discontent of the Overseas Chinese in Burma and, instead, ‘took a supportive attitude towards Burmese fundamental domestic and foreign policies’.Footnote 15 When, in June 1964, China obtained intelligence that the military opposition in Burma was masterminding a coup to overthrow Ne Win, Beijing instructed its ambassador to Burma, Geng Biao, to personally inform Ne Win of the following three points: ‘1. The plot of [a] military coup against him; 2. Inquire on what kinds of aid Burma urgently need; 3. To inform Ne Win that Zhou Enlai or Chen Yi [were] willing to go to Rangoon to exchange views with him if necessary.’Footnote 16 This was followed by Zhou Enlai's secret visit to Rangoon on 10–11 July 1964, where he held three talks about Burma's domestic political and economic situation with Ne Win for a total of 11 hours. Zhou also provided advice on how to quell the turmoil in Burma.Footnote 17
At the same time, Ne Win was in China's ideological disfavour because it viewed the ‘Burmese Way to Socialism’ as not true socialism but bureaucratic capitalism,Footnote 18 and Ne Win's junta as a ‘bourgeois dictatorship in essence’.Footnote 19 China's Communist Party (CCP) recognised only Burma's Communist Party (BCP, the ‘White Flag’) as a fraternal Marxist–Leninist party. The contradiction between China's ideological perception of Burma and its foreign policy stemmed from the gap between its revolutionary ideals and political reality. China anticipated that if Ne Win lost power, Burma would tilt towards the West. ‘The upshot is detrimental to the Burmese people, to the whole struggle of anti-US imperialism in Southeast Asia and ultimately to China. As a result, we should lend our fullest support behind Ne Win.’Footnote 20 In addition, Beijing believed that the BCP and other revolutionary forces in the country were too weak to seize power: ‘If Ne Win is overturned, the reactionary strength would be stronger. If Ne Win's reign continues, the Burmese revolution would have more time to build up their strength.’Footnote 21
Some scholars saw a strong correlation between the anti-Chinese riots and Burma's domestic situation, and suspected that the riots were used to defuse an economic and political crisis, and divert domestic discontent away from Ne Win.Footnote 22 The impact of the unrest is obvious. It led to the deterioration of Sino–Burmese relations, which ‘was perhaps the most spectacular example of the detrimental effect of Peking's new, militant foreign policy posture’Footnote 23 and the shift in Chinese policy toward the Ne Win regime as Beijing openly entered Burma's civil war.Footnote 24 But its impact on the local Chinese community and Beijing's subsequent political influence on it has not been thoroughly understood.
The first part of this paper presents a narrative of the anti-Chinese riots and the responses to it from both sides. The main part provides an analysis of its multifaceted causes as well as its impact on the Chinese community, Beijing–Overseas Chinese community ties, and China–Burma relations. What is clear is that while actions by China provoked the riots and that China bore primary responsibility for it, the conditions for the riots lay in the Burmese political economy and nationalism, the Chinese in Burma, and international politics.
Wrestling between Beijing and Rangoon: The June 1967 anti-Chinese riots
The ‘Cultural Revolution’ which began in China in 1966 began to slowly manifest itself within Burma's Chinese community. Some Chinese students and teachers started wearing Chairman Mao badges and reciting his sayings. Unhappy with this development and wary of the effects of the Cultural Revolution, the Burmese government forbade students from wearing any badges in school other than the Burmese national emblem and the Aung San badge; however, the number of Mao badge-wearers increased.Footnote 25 On 22 June 1967, a brawl occurred at Rangoon no. 3 National Elementary School (the former Chinese Girls Middle School) between Chinese students wearing Mao badges and their teachers. Although the brawl was settled, Chinese students continued to defy the government's ban and kept wearing Mao badges at school with the support of staff at the Chinese Embassy in Rangoon. On 25 June, there were a few reported incidents of mobs assaulting Overseas Chinese. These attacks began to escalate from 26 June onward, culminating in full-scale anti-Chinese riots, mainly at the Overseas Chinese Middle School, at Chinatown, and at the Chinese Embassy.
The offices of the New China News Agency (NCNA), China's Civil Aviation Administration, and the office of the Economic and Commercial Counselor at the Chinese Embassy in Rangoon were looted.Footnote 26 Dozens of local Chinese associations were burned or destroyed, and 31 members of these associations were killed; mobs invaded the Chinese Embassy, killed Liu Yi, an aid technician, and beat up several Chinese diplomats; Chinese shops, houses and properties in Chinatown and other districts were sacked, burned and destroyed. In addition, mobs struck at anyone sporting Mao badges or wearing trousers instead of the traditional Burmese longyi. Even the Japanese in Rangoon panicked for fear of being mistaken for Chinese — indeed, some had their cars stoned.Footnote 27 The government eventually enforced martial law in the Chinese Embassy area and Chinatown in Rangoon from 29 June, effectively containing the riots.
Beijing's response
Beijing issued its first official response to the unrest on 28 June, when Han Nianlong, the Vice Foreign Minister, summoned Burma's ambassador to China and presented him with a protest note. In it, the PRC government lodged the strongest and most urgent protest against Burma, charging the military regime with conniving in the violence and encouraging the anti-Chinese mobs. In addition, China demanded that the Burmese government take immediate emergency measures to prevent the escalation of the riots, to assure the security of the embassy and other Chinese institutions as well as the safety of Chinese citizens, return the pillaged Chinese national emblem, and punish the murderers.Footnote 28 This protest note appeared on the front page of the CCP's official newspaper, People's Daily [Renmin Ribao], on 29 June. On the same day, the chargé d'affaires at the Chinese Embassy in Rangoon, Hsiao Ming, submitted five demands to the Burmese government: to punish the murderers severely; to comfort and compensate the bereaved Chinese families; to publicly apologise; to assure the safety of the Chinese Embassy, other Chinese institutions and Chinese citizens; and to stop the violence against the Overseas Chinese at once.Footnote 29
On 29 June Beijing issued a statement claiming that the Burmese military regime had instigated and engineered the riots. The government decided that the Chinese ambassador, who had been recalled to Beijing before the start of the riots, would not be sent back to his post; it also repeated the five demands of 28 June and declared it would take further measures to put a halt to the chaos.Footnote 30 Between August and October 1967, Beijing sent more than 20 threatening messages to Rangoon. China asserted that ‘the Burmese government of Ne Win will definitely be severely punished by the Chinese people and their National Liberation Army’.Footnote 31
The Chinese media joined in these attacks on Burma. From 29 June 1967 through to December, there were 153 reports and articles attacking Burma in the People's Daily alone. The attacks peaked in July and August, with 75 and 33 news items and articles, respectively, after which the verbal offensive against Burma diminished gradually.
On 29 June, some 200,000 people rallied outside Burma's Embassy in Beijing against the anti-Chinese riots and in support of Beijing's note of protest. Over one million Chinese in all joined in successive rallies and demonstrations in front of the Burmese Embassy from 29 June to 3 July. The rally on the first day, 29 June, got out of control as Red Guards broke into the Burmese Embassy, tore up the Burmese national flag and smashed the Burmese national emblem. This episode became one of four notorious incidents against foreign embassies during the Cultural Revolution, along with the invasion of the Indian and Indonesian embassies, and the burning of the British chargé d'affaires' office in Beijing. During the same period, massive anti-Burmese demonstrations and rallies also occurred in Shanghai and Kunming.
Besides verbal attacks and mass demonstrations, Beijing used the BCP as a lever or countermeasure against anti-China activities in Burma itself. The BCP's Central Committee issued a statement on 28 June on the riots in Rangoon, expressing their full support for the ‘revolutionary, brave and just actions’ taken by the local pro-Mao Chinese. The BCP then called on all Burmese to overthrow Ne Win's reign.Footnote 32 At the memorial rally for Liu Yi on 5 July, Thakin Ba Thein Tin, first vice-chairman of the BCP Central Committee, repeated these sentiments in a speech titled ‘The military government of Ne Win, the Chiang Kai-shek of Burma, is bound to fail; the people are bound to win’. He enumerated instances of the ‘maleficence’ of Ne Win's regime and called upon the Burmese people to overthrow it. He reaffirmed the BCP's support for Burma's Chinese community.Footnote 33 This speech was published in its entirety in both the People's Daily and Red Flag [Hongqi], the CCP's monthly theoretical journal.
The BCP also staged rallies against Rangoon in areas controlled by it such as Bago (Pegu), Tharrawaddy and Pathein (Bassein), and distributed leaflets and posted notices in Rangoon, Myaung Mya and Taikkyi. In July 1967 the BCP executed one of the Burmese anti-Chinese protest leaders.Footnote 34
Rangoon's reaction
In the face of Beijing's vehement response, the Burmese reaction was equally strong in the immediate aftermath of the riots. During the anti-Burmese rally in Beijing on 29 June, Rangoon presented a memorandum to Beijing which ignored China's five demands and asked Beijing to quell the massive demonstration.Footnote 35 In addition, Rangoon refuted Hsiao Ming's accusation and stated that the anti-Chinese riot was not instigated by the Burmese government and that the Chinese Embassy had no right to interfere in the internal affairs of Burma.
Rangoon's uncompromising attitude elicited an even stronger response from Beijing, however. It should be noted that the first editorial about the Rangoon riots in the People's Daily appeared on 30 June, just two days after the BCP's statement of 28 June, which, however, was not published until 2 July. This suggests that at first Beijing adopted a wait-and-see attitude towards Rangoon's reaction. But as a result of Rangoon's failure to provide a satisfactory response to the five demands, China's reaction became more radical, hence the broadcast and publication of the BCP's statement to overthrow Ne Win's regime. In light of China's previous Burma policy, this was an unprecedented turn. As Melvin Gurtov puts it:
The Maoist leadership finally supported the BCP not because of any new finding of strength in the Burmese Communist movement, but because the situation in Burma had developed to the point where Beijing had to choose between backing down (by retracting or shelving its demands) or supporting its officials and Overseas Chinese, some of whom had lost their lives.Footnote 36
The Burmese media countered Beijing's verbal attacks. In order to dispel Beijing's accusations that the military regime was creating a ‘white terror’ in Burma, the press reported that some Chinese had joined the anti-Beijing protests and called on local Chinese to reject all ‘evil’ forces to defend their interests.Footnote 37 Burmese radio declared that the Chinese communist students who had sparked the rioting had been trained specially for the job in Beijing.Footnote 38
After the riots, the Burmese government took measures to weaken Beijing's influence on both the Chinese community and Burma's politics. The Burmese government restricted contacts between the PRC's Embassy and the Chinese community in Rangoon. Chinatown and the Chinese Embassy were placed under military control from 28 June, a measure Beijing also protested against. Some pro-Beijing activists in the Chinese community were placed under surveillance while others were arrested and given lengthy prison sentences, which led to a fresh series of protests and warnings from China. Additionally, the government took the opportunity to crack down on pro-Beijing Burmese left-wing leaders and silence their propaganda outlets. At least a hundred officials of well-known Communist front organisations in Rangoon, such as the Burma–China Friendship Association and the Afro–Asian Solidarity Committee, were arrested.Footnote 39
Burma's government rejected China's offer to help local Chinese in danger or difficulty by shipping alms, relief and medicines. In August, Rangoon recalled its ambassador to Beijing and terminated the Chinese economic assistance programme, requesting that China withdraw all its aid experts and technicians by October. A total of 412 Chinese aid experts and technicians returned to China by 4 November 1967. Four NCNA correspondents in Rangoon (Yu Minsheng, Teng Wenqi, Li Chengyi and Liu Dejin) were also expelled between July 1967 and January 1968. On 19 March 1968, the Burmese police detained leaders of Chinese associations and pro-Mao Chinese activists throughout Burma. Some pro-Beijing Chinese were deported as well.
Beijing's crude interference in Burma's internal affairs also elicited public protests in many parts of the country, where there were rallies and demonstrations attended by thousands of people, ‘at which the interference of the Peking leadership in the internal affairs of Burma has been resolutely condemned and all attempts to transfer to Burmese soil Maoist propaganda and the mores of the so-called cultural revolution have been rejected.’Footnote 40 According to an official Chinese report, parades and demonstrations against China occurred in at least 281 cities and towns in Burma.Footnote 41 Some pro-Taiwan Chinese also joined the anti-China protests and parades and delivered speeches against the CCP and the PRC.Footnote 42
Impact of the anti-Chinese riots: Disappointed and dazed Overseas Chinese
Members of the Chinese community in Burma as a whole were the immediate victims of the anti-Chinese riots; they and their properties were attacked and their living environment deteriorated. A large number of Chinese in Burma migrated after the riots. ‘Tens of thousands of Overseas Chinese returned to China, thirty to forty thousand into Hong Kong and Macao’, while others moved to Europe, America and Australia.Footnote 43
The longer-term impact of the riots should not be overlooked. An Overseas Chinese in Burma recalled her mood after the rioting: ‘Then we were scared and angry.’Footnote 44 The riots caused widespread alarm among the Chinese community and continued until the 1980s. After ‘6.26’ half of the Cantonese in Burma left for the United States,Footnote 45 Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore.Footnote 46
To avoid further attacks, more Chinese gradually naturalised and assimilated. Some Chinese began to conceal their identity, claiming not to be Chinese, but of Shan or other ethnic minority origin.Footnote 47 Many Chinese who were born in Burma during the 1970s and the 1980s do not have Chinese names. Such identity concealment was more prevalent in Rangoon, where, after the riots, most Overseas Chinese avoided speaking Chinese even at home.Footnote 48 Most Chinese in Rangoon under the age of 45 years cannot speak Chinese, a situation that can be partly attributed to the 1967 riots.
Many in the community also became wary about appearing in public and participating in social activities lest their identity be exposed. Overseas Chinese associations gradually decreased their activities and kept a low profile.Footnote 49 This situation did not change until the 1980s. Before the 1967 riots, the Chinese commonly wore skirts and trousers, but after the events, Chinese adopted Burmese fashion (longyis and slippers).Footnote 50 As will be discussed further, Beijing began to openly support the BCP while the BCP showed its solidarity with the besieged Chinese community, and, as a result, more Overseas Chinese joined the BCP.Footnote 51 This chain of events made the general Chinese community speak and act more cautiously, however, since most of them had no relations with the BCP. Overall, the experience and lessons of the riots made most of the Chinese who remained in Burma indifferent to politics and orient themselves solely towards business. Hence, the events played a role in accelerating the process of the assimilation of the Burmese Chinese.
Decline of Beijing's influence in Burma
The main targets of the rioters and post-riot government measures were the local Burmese Chinese elite and leading Maoists. Other Maoists were monitored by the authorities. ‘Many Overseas Chinese were jailed; some had to flee overseas; some joined the BCP; and some were killed. It could be said that around seventy to eighty per cent of the Chinese community in Burma who were lost were Maoists.’Footnote 52 As a result, Beijing lost considerable influence in the Chinese community.
Chinese Maoists' angst after the riots was due to the fact that Beijing had no effective measures to help them out of the dilemma posed by the CCP's export of revolution. Zeng Xiuying, then a student, was detained during the 1967 riots; his reminiscences reveal that he and other Maoists had placed high hopes on Beijing. Zeng said in an interview: ‘When we heard the roar of airplane engines, we sang revolutionary songs because we thought that Chairman Mao had sent the airplanes to call for us.’Footnote 53 In such troubled times, the Chinese in Burma, and especially the Maoists, ‘complained that Beijing was inept and could not handle the trouble and crises’.Footnote 54 Some Chinese even charged that ‘Mao-thought harmed us and we were scapegoats.’Footnote 55 As a result, some Overseas Chinese either shifted their support to the Kuomintang (KMT) or alienated themselves from the CCP altogether.
Along with China's policy shift on Burma before and after 1968, subsequent rapprochement between Beijing and Rangoon as well as the normalisation of China–United States relations in the late 1970s thoroughly subverted the conviction of the Overseas Chinese that Ne Win and US imperialism were China's enemies — a belief that Beijing had inculcated in them. Many pro-Beijing Burmese Chinese were unable to accept the rapprochement between China and these earlier enemies. One Chinese student leader who had been arrested by the government during the riots even went crazy because he could not accept the normalisation between China and Burma and the United States.Footnote 56
The shock to China–Burma ties
In the aftermath of the riots themselves, on 29 June 1967, Beijing declared that the Chinese ambassador to Burma would not return to his post. Burma too recalled its ambassador to Beijing two months later. Diplomatic relations were actually kept at the level of chargé d'affaires until 1970. More importantly, the anti-Chinese riots changed China's policy toward Burma. Before the riots, China had emphasised the preservation of state-to-state relations between the two countries. National interest played a critical role in Chinese policy towards Burma and Beijing's support of the BCP had been cautious and covert. After the riots, however, China started to openly support the BCP.
The CCP's Central Committee sent a telegram to the BCP's Central Committee in August 1967, congratulating them on the party's twentieth anniversary, and declaring that China firmly supported the revolutionary armed struggle led by the BCP and had an international proletarian commitment to support the latter.Footnote 57 Moreover, the Chinese media published articles written by BCP leaders and cadres and broadcast their speeches, which instigated the Burmese to support the armed struggle against Ne Win's regime.
Before the riots, there had been less than 15 articles related to the BCP in the People's Daily; nor were the reports concerned about the BCP's antigovernment stance, showing Beijing's caution. After the anti-Chinese riots, however, Beijing began to continually release detailed news about the BCP's activities. At the same time, China began to support the BCP openly and provided them with weapons, training, advisers, logistics, etc.Footnote 58
On 1 January 1968, BCP troops in China led a military offensive across the Burma frontier along three routes. Each route included one People's Liberation Army's (PLA) democratic detachment (company), which consisted of China's southwest minority soldiers from various military areas.Footnote 59 These PLA soldiers were trans-border minorities such as the Shan and Kachin who were of the same ethnicity as those living across the border in Burma. Some Chinese Maoists in Burma were directed to join the BCP after the riots. In addition, a large number of young educated Chinese came to Burma to join the party. As a result, the Chinese once again made up a conspicuous proportion of BCP cadres.
The rift between the two countries also resulted in the sharp decline of bilateral trade after 1967. The bilateral trading volume in 1968 amounted to only US$4,000, a decrease of 93 per cent compared with 1967, the lowest point in post-war Burma–China trade. This trade stagnation did not change until diplomatic normalisation in 1971 (see Table 1).
China's Trade with Burma, 1966–72 (US$10,000)
Source: Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, PRC, The Comprehensive Foreign Trade Statistical Data: 1950–89 (1990), p. 51.
Causes of the anti-Chinese riots
The Rangoon riots were not an isolated incident; as mentioned, similar disturbances occurred in India and several other Asian countries in the same year.Footnote 60 ‘The incidents of 1967 had one element in common; they occurred in places where Peking has, or had, diplomatic or other representation.’Footnote 61 This commonality indicated, according to Fitzgerald,
A degree of tolerance of a Peking presence by the local authorities; the Chinese government, and local individuals and institutions, have had freedom to publicize Peking's policies. In those areas, therefore, where the local authorities had permitted pro-Peking activity among Overseas Chinese, and where the backwash of the Cultural Revolution arrived with greater speed and immediacy, it should not have been surprising that certain Overseas Chinese reacted by attempting to emulate the struggle which had seized the Chinese government and its representatives abroad.Footnote 62
Good diplomatic relations between the two countries can thus be considered, to some extent, the prerequisite of the anti-Chinese riots in Burma. On the other hand, the fact that incidents of this nature did not occur in all the countries maintaining diplomatic ties with Beijing suggests that this event must be considered in the context of the respective countries.
The Beijing context
Since the late 1950s, China had begun to gradually renounce its previous realist foreign policy in pursuit of its national security and interests and instead introduced a hard-line and irrational foreign policy, which gave prominence to ideology, especially ‘proletariat internationalism’, as its guiding principle. In the mid-1960s, China elaborated a radical and revolutionary foreign policy characterised by the struggle against imperialism and actively aided revolutionary movements in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
As has been mentioned, it was the extension of the Cultural Revolution to Burma that provoked the anti-Chinese riots in Rangoon. Two episodes demonstrate this connection. First, Beijing propagandised Mao Zedong-thought internationally. The ‘Propaganda Outline of the Cultural Revolution’ circulated in June 1966 emphasised that ‘the Cultural Revolution is of vital significance, bearing on the destiny and future of our Party and state as well as World Revolution’.Footnote 63 In October 1966, the Publicity Department of the CCP's Central Committee approved distributing the Little Red Book all over the world,Footnote 64 and articulated that the main mission of China's embassies abroad was to propagandise Mao Zedong-thought and the Cultural Revolution.Footnote 65 Consequently, the Chinese Embassy in Rangoon disregarded the objections of the Burmese government and launched the Burmese version of the Cultural Revolution.
Second, radical elements had seized diplomatic power in 1967. This phenomenon, which occurred in Hong Kong, Phnom Penh, Rangoon, and to a lesser extent elsewhere, had multiple causes. But it would probably not have occurred at all had the Chinese Foreign Ministry not itself been radicalised in mid-1967, and if Foreign Minister Chen Yi had not been subject to personal attack, and the destruction of some ministry records not taken place.Footnote 66 Mao Zedong confirmed in an interview with Edgar Snow in 1970 that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been in a mess, and that ‘it was out of control for one-and-a-half months causing its power to be seized by some counterrevolutionaries’.Footnote 67 Chen Yi was not acting as the foreign minister virtually since early in 1967, and lost power to Wang Li in August. On 24 October 1967, Zhou Enlai asked the visiting President of Mauritania to pass on three messages to Kim Il-sung, Norodom Sihanouk and Gamal Abdel Nasser: ‘We always instruct Overseas Chinese that they should abide by the local laws; but we can't control their actions; we don't conceal that our Embassies abroad made some mistakes but we can correct them at any moment.’Footnote 68
In fact, it was Mao himself who had opened the diplomatic Pandora's box in the summer of 1967, enabling the rebels to take over the Foreign Ministry: on 9 September 1966 Mao had commented that ‘all China's diplomatic establishments abroad should be revolutionized’.Footnote 69 He recalled all the republic's ambassadors (except the ambassador to Egypt) and forced most of the top embassy staff to join the Cultural Revolution in stages.Footnote 70 These actions severely impaired Beijing's ability to perceive and analyse events abroad. But an equally important consequence was that it radicalised both the embassies, once the staff returned, and the Foreign Ministry's departments at home.Footnote 71 ‘The recall of Ambassadors was to have important consequences several months later, for it probably facilitated the manipulation of several Embassies by fanatic followers of Mao.’Footnote 72 In the same way, the Chinese Embassy in Rangoon was completely entangled in domestic political turmoil. In March 1967 China's ambassador to Burma, Gengbiao was recalled, along with his 21 colleagues. Some radicals came to Rangoon subsequently, and seized control of the Embassy. In support of the Cultural Revolution amongst the Chinese community in Burma, a large quantity of Mao badges and copies of the Little Red Book were air freighted to Rangoon.Footnote 73
The seizure of power in the Foreign Ministry by radicals contributed to the anti-Chinese riots in Rangoon as well as the subsequent rift in bilateral ties. In 1971, Zhou Enlai told the visiting Ne Win that ‘China's government tried its best to confine the Rangoon event to the negotiation between the two governments then’.Footnote 74 Obviously, the state of affairs could not be controlled by Zhou, and the radicals who had taken over the Foreign Ministry and China's Embassy in Burma continually aggravated tensions. Zhou explained that
At that time, our embassies directly sent notes to foreign countries on some vital political issues. It was unprecedented that our Embassy in Rangoon presented notes of protest to your Foreign Ministry without the permission of China's Foreign Ministry. By now, we have not ascertained how many notes were delivered to your Foreign Ministry without the approval of our Foreign Ministry.Footnote 75
Zhou admitted that ‘we disapprove of the action of some Overseas Chinese schools in Burma during 1967 …. Overseas Chinese should obey local laws of their respective countries. They should work and live there according to local custom.’Footnote 76 Hence, it is very unfair to attribute the riots to the reckless behaviour of the local Chinese.
The rule that forbade the wearing in schools of any badge, except the Burmese national emblem and Aung San badge, made some Chinese Embassy officials very disgruntled. They ‘deemed that the wearing of Mao's badge was the principle of supporting Beijing and could not be banned’.Footnote 77 Thus, Chinese students defiantly opposed the Burmese government with the support of the Chinese Embassy. The earlier brawl between the students and staff at Rangoon's Chinese Girls Middle School administration had been resolved on 22 June 1967, but some Chinese associations gathered the students' parents that same day and encouraged them to allow their children to go on wearing Mao's badges to school. Some Chinese students were made to watch the film ‘Red Lantern’Footnote 78 and encouraged to antagonise the authorities.Footnote 79 One teacher at the Rangoon Overseas Chinese Night School in 1960s recently recalled that:
We compelled students to wear Mao's badge and the students' parents worried about it. On June 25, the Burmese radio broadcast that students must not wear badges to school the next day. Some parents asked us whether their children would still wear badges. I then asked the Chinese Teachers Association for instructions and they replied ‘you go on fighting’.Footnote 80
China's president Li Xiannian during his visit to Burma in 1985 also implicitly recognised China's responsibility for provoking the 1967 Rangoon riots: ‘China–Burma relations were disturbed by China's domestic problems on one occasion but Burmese friends adopted a forward-looking policy. As a result of which we are greatly touched.’Footnote 81
The Rangoon context
The anti-Chinese riots in 1967 were Burma's countermeasure in defence of their national security and interests. ‘Interdependence, however delimited, has been a real touchstone in Burmese foreign policy, and Ne Win took this to its logical extreme by closing down the avenues through which outside states, and particularly China, pursued their own political objectives in Burma at Burma's expense.’Footnote 82 As a result, Burmese foreign policy was considered inward looking, xenophobic and immature.Footnote 83
The Burmese media had covered the anarchy that ensued in China after the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Rangoon was also afraid that the Cultural Revolution could possibly affect it. In November 1966, Ne Win gave a speech to the Burmese Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) assembly and reprimanded the Overseas Chinese for their ‘illegal revolutionary action’. Thereafter, Rangoon heightened security measures to control the China–Burma border and clamped down on illegal Chinese migration.Footnote 84 ‘It is conceivable that after the long series of Chauvinist exercises in the Chinese community [in Burma] the authorities wished to teach the Chinese a lesson and that cadres of BSPP were encouraged to stir up popular feeling.’Footnote 85
Rangoon's reactions were also closely connected to its ailing economy and domestic politics, in particular, the 1967 rice crisis and the increasingly xenophobic atmosphere that enveloped the country after Ne Win seized power.Footnote 86 Immediately after Ne Win came to power, the government carried out a programme of economic nationalisation — the ‘Burmese Way to Socialism’. The Chinese Embassy in Rangoon reported that nationalisation had caused price rises, the scarcity of goods, pervasive black marketeering and smuggling in Burma, leading to generalised domestic discontent.Footnote 87 For the whole period 1962–88 the centrality of rice to Burma's economic and social order cannot be doubted. The most glaring failure occurred in agriculture, and in rice production and procurement in particular. Basic necessities were scarce and there had been rice shortages even before 1967.Footnote 88 The Chinese Embassy believed that Burmese government statistics were unreliable and underestimated the decline of rice production and procurement in 1965 because Rangoon could not control the whole Irrawaddy Delta, the major rice basket, and the BCP was instigating the peasants to oppose the low price they were offered for their crop. To make matters worse, the amount of currency in circulation decreased during the rice procurement season.Footnote 89
Nevertheless, 1967 was the critical year; the chaotic rice market was aggravated by a poor harvest caused by bad weather and pests. ‘Rice riots broke out in Rangoon during the summer and the rising black market price, which according to official statistics was 700 per cent of the controlled price in Rangoon, drew more of the production into illegal trade channels.’Footnote 90 According to Josef Silverstein, ‘In 1967 Burma probably came closer to civil war than at any time during this period. There was a total breakdown in the distribution of cooking oil, rice and other basic necessities.’Footnote 91
In 1966–67, Burma's rice production dropped so remarkably that its export of rice decreased by 50 per cent.Footnote 92 The Philippines' Embassy in Rangoon reported that:
The average cut of three-fourths of the reserved tonnage was applied uniformly to all traditional buyers. Burma was forced to reduce her rice commitments to her traditional buyers because of the poor production during the year [1967]. The Burmese authorities, due to the critical supply for local consumption, later announced and implemented an additional 15% cut on all approved sales.Footnote 93
Facing serious rice shortages, the government permitted consumers to purchase directly from farmers in order to reduce panic spreading in the cities.Footnote 94 The leading Burmese official paper also reported on 25 June 1967 that crowds of people from Rangoon went to the delta villages in search of rice. One officer, Station Commander U Hlaing of the Myenigone PPF Station, drowned when the ship he boarded sank because it was so heavily overloaded with passengers and rice bags.Footnote 95
The nationalisation of basic industries had a heavy impact on foreign nationals and immigrants such as the Indians and Chinese. In the 1960s, hundreds of thousands left Burma and those who stayed were generally involved in the black market, ‘in which everyone from farmers to cabinet ministers participated [and] may have accounted for as much as 80% of the national economy’.Footnote 96 The riots occurred against this backdrop: ‘This event coincided with a rising anti-Chinese feeling among Burmese who were beginning to experience the shortage caused by a poor harvest and the rising prices charged by blackmarketeers — mostly Chinese — who were profiting from the situation.’Footnote 97 Thus, during the riots, many Chinese shops and restaurants were looted and demolished as a patriotic expression of resentment against China and hostility against those local Chinese who profited from their plight.
Silverstein argued that during 1962–74 Ne Win's government faced opposition from several quarters — the indigenous minorities, political parties, religious groups and individuals. During the first years of military rule, the most vocal and active aboveground opposition came from university students and Buddhist monks.Footnote 98 An article in Time claimed that ‘Nervous Ne Win frequently carries a pistol, and antiaircraft guns stand ready at Government's House. Yet, even though opposition to his regime is massive throughout the country, he still has the bulk of the army with him.’Footnote 99 A more threatening source of opposition, that from the military, was neglected. In 1964, Sein Win, the commander of the Central Military Region, was planning to launch a coup to overthrow Ne Win when China informed him about it.Footnote 100 In 1965 Ne Win defeated another attempted coup against him.Footnote 101
In fact, Ne Win was struggling to strengthen his regime throughout the 1960s. By 1967, the worsening economy, however, caused Ne Win's credibility and popularity to decline. In order to divert the dissatisfaction of the Burmese masses, Ne Win took advantage of the riots set off by the Chinese students' defiance. This helped to revive Ne Win's popularity as a nationalist hero once more. ‘The clever political stance he took against Mao and China in connection with this incident was an example of using the xenophobia of the Burmese as a weapon for his political legitimacy […] Ne Win came out triumphant as nationalist hero in standing up against mighty China, the historical threat to Burma.’Footnote 102 This argument, which is shared by some scholars, holds that Ne Win used the incident to stir Burmese nationalism, reduce the considerable discontent over his drastic nationalisation policies and a bad harvest, and redirect domestic antagonism away from his government onto the Chinese.Footnote 103
A declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report supports this view:
US embassy on the scene were impressed that the police and army, although visible on the streets, made no attempt to prevent the destruction of Chinese property or the killing of Chinese citizens. In effect, the Chinese government began a chain of events which the Burmese government allowed to accelerate.Footnote 104
Interviews with contemporary eyewitnesses support this interpretation. China's former ambassador to Burma, Cheng Ruisheng, contended that Ne Win was irascible and was a strong nationalist, whose temperament was partly to blame for what happened, although Cheng asserted that it was China's domestic turmoil that was the fundamental cause.Footnote 105 Sakuma Hirayoshi, a Japanese diplomat then in Rangoon, confirmed that Burma's military and police had allowed mob attacks to go unchecked from the beginning. He argued that the Burmese government took advantage of the riots to preserve a regime tottering due to public discontent over rice shortages.Footnote 106 Another witness, Ono Toru, a Japanese foreign language teacher in Rangoon, recalled that ‘the 1967 crisis faced by the Ne Win regime was provoked by food shortages and the Chinese Cultural Revolution in Burma, at first. […] the Rangoon incident helped to draw popular dissatisfaction away from Burma's government towards China.’Footnote 107
A returned Overseas Chinese recalled that on 26 June her relative saw several military trucks carrying Burmese soldiers into a prison beside her house, where they changed out of their military uniforms into longyis and then rushed out to attack the Chinese. However, although some soldiers wore longyis, their short-sleeved uniform shirts were not taken off, so they still could be easily recognised.Footnote 108
Chen Zunfa, a former reporter for a Chinese newspaper in Rangoon, escaped being killed because he spoke fluent and accentless Burmese and wore local dress. He had received a message from a relative who was a member of the BSPP 10 days before the outbreak of the anti-Chinese riots that the BSPP had held a meeting and decided to organise a mob of 5,000 to loot and make trouble in the Chinese blocks.Footnote 109 Another reporter for a Chinese newspaper in Rangoon had also received similar intelligence and reported it to the Chinese Embassy, but he was ignored.Footnote 110
The Chinese community context
The anti-Chinese riots are also attributable to China's political objectives and its misjudging of Burmese domestic politics. Given the increasingly close Sino–Burmese relations since the mid-1950s, with Chinese delegations frequently visiting Burma, Beijing constantly exerted its influence on the local Chinese community and tried to win them over through political, cultural, educational and economic means. Beijing's power and influence over the Chinese community increased continually. Before the Chinese schools were nationalised, there were over 250 Chinese schools with nearly 40,000 students in Burma,Footnote 111 many of whom were pro-Beijing. Some ex-activists told the author that although they were born in Burma, they grew up singing quotations from Mao.Footnote 112 After the Cultural Revolution began, some Overseas Chinese showed their support by reciting Mao quotations and wearing Mao badges; indeed, the Chinese Embassy awarded students badges if they could successfully recite a quotation.Footnote 113
In this context, it was difficult to control the pro-Maoists' allegiance and their manner of displaying it.Footnote 114 In their active support for the Cultural Revolution some pro-CCP Chinese ‘forgot their status as foreign subjects … and had a blindfold superiority complex that a powerful homeland was backing them’.Footnote 115 Some Chinese asserted that ‘it is the legitimate right of Overseas Chinese to wear Mao badges. No one can deprive us of that right. We fight against anyone who dares oppose our badge-wearing.’Footnote 116
The Overseas Chinese who antagonised Rangoon authorities underestimated the government's possible reaction. A pro-Maoist Chinese teacher in Rangoon said that:
As a couple, my husband and I prepared clothes for the worst — imprisonment. We thought that China had a population of 700 million and [the] Burmese government dare not take action against us because Burma was so weak and small. Our estimate was far from sound. If we had kept calm, the incident would not have happened.Footnote 117
The students had the same opinion: ‘I prepared my clothes and shoes for being taken to prison at any moment,’Footnote 118 said a pro-Beijing Chinese student in Mandalay. As a survivor of the riots, Guo Huilan's recollections may be more persuasive. She said:
We didn't anticipate the violent action taken by the government and at first thought that we were similar to Indonesian Overseas Chinese, who were wounded and repatriated to China. We were all willing to return to China. Our worst estimate was that we would not be killed but just hurt.Footnote 119
The international community context
The wave of anti-Chinese sentiment across the world in the late 1960s was a model for the anti-Chinese riots in Burma. Following the deterioration of Sino–Indian relations in the early 1960s, anti-Chinese sentiment and actions emerged in India. In Indonesia, after the anti-Chinese movement in 1957, massive violence against the Chinese again took place in 1966, when Chinese consulates were besieged and destroyed repeatedly. Even the Chinese consul-general in Indonesia was held under duress and Overseas Chinese were killed, attacked and their shops looted. In February 1966, Ghana severed diplomatic relations with China; Cuba issued an anti-Chinese statement in the same month; the senate of Kenya approved an anti-China proposal in March; anti-PRC turbulence erupted in Hong Kong in May 1967. At the same time, Chinese diplomats and NCNA reporters were hurt and detained and Overseas Chinese were persecuted in Mongolia. These anti-Chinese actions around the world and the diplomatic rift between China and other countries were a direct result of Beijing's ‘World Revolution’ foreign policy. When Beijing began to export the Cultural Revolution to Burma, Rangoon arguably realised that the country might follow the same disastrous path.
In particular, the termination of counter-Chinese movements in India, Indonesia and Hong Kong, and Beijing's reaction to these anti-Chinese activities before the ‘June 1967’ incident further strengthened Ne Win's determination to confront China. When Chinese embassies, consulates, diplomats or Overseas Chinese were attacked, Beijing dealt with the troubles by protesting repeatedly before finally evacuating some Chinese from those countries. On the whole, however, Beijing had no effective instrument to protect the Overseas Chinese in trouble and settle the disputes caused by its disruptive foreign policy except by organising massive domestic protests and parades in China, and lodging protests. For example, anti-Chinese violence in Indonesia peaked in early to mid-1966 with attacks, raids, forced searches, the sacking of the Chinese Embassy in Jakarta and consulates in several other Indonesian cities, and the expulsion of Chinese diplomatic personnel. However, China could still do little but protest, withdraw official persons and students, and cut off economic assistance.Footnote 120
Burma's rulers probably noticed the weakness of Beijing and weighed up the costs and risks of antagonising China. Thus Burma dared to counter China; no mean feat as Burma had always been wary of Red China for fear of being invaded and subverted from within.
Conclusion
The ‘6.26’ incident in Rangoon came to be known as one of the worst outcomes of the CCP's ‘Revolution Diplomacy’. In the summer of 1967, communist riots swept through Chinese communities in some Asian countries, including Hong Kong, where ‘in complete contradiction to the Bandung Agreement Overseas Chinese were called on “to make revolution”’.Footnote 121 It marked the end of ‘Pauk Phaw’ between China and Burma, which was established in the mid-1950s. Nevertheless, ‘some regard it as a blessing because it revealed the myth of fraternal and good neighbour affection that Red China professed to offer Burma, the true Chinese intentions to dominate Burma and overthrow General Ne Win's Revolutionary Government’.Footnote 122 A careful assessment of the essence behind the ‘Pauk Phaw’ relations and the nature of China's Burma policy prior to 1967 reveals that the disappearance of ‘the myth of fraternal and good neighbour affection’ was not so surprising after all.
Before 1967, cordial China–Burma ties rested on two preconditions: Burma's neutral foreign policy and friendly attitude towards China; and China's ‘Peace and United Front’ policy in Burma. In 1954 both countries jointly advocated the ‘Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence’ and adopted it as the ‘rudder of China–Burma relations’.Footnote 123 After 1954 Beijing and Rangoon maintained closer contacts and embarked on the ‘Pauk Phaw’ era of friendly diplomatic relations.
It is worth noting that the two countries had, however, distinctive orientations towards the ‘Principles’ and friendly ties. Regarding Burma's China policy, Rangoon articulated its basis of policy formulation. In 1954, Sao Shwe Thaik, the Head of the Upper House of the Burmese parliament, said to Zhou Enlai, ‘Burma is a small country and has to maintain friendly relations with its neighbours.’Footnote 124 U Nu explained that his government adopted a neutral foreign policy because of the following considerations: Burma was located in the sphere of influence of both rival camps in the Cold War; Burma's military and economic powers were weak; and it had to defend itself.Footnote 125 China contributed significantly to these reasons: ‘Burma's non-alignment is primarily to assure China of non-aggression from Burmese soil and to avoid destruction of Burma in another war.’Footnote 126 In 1957, Burma's vice-prime minister, U Ba Swe, on a visit to China, told Mao that ‘our fear is very natural because in history big countries always were bullies. Burma lay among powers.’Footnote 127 Consequently, the first priority of Burma's China policy was national sovereignty and security. Burma stood firmly by neutralism and the ‘Five Principles’ in order to ensure that China had no reason to intervene despite increased support for the BCP after the Rangoon riots. In 1969, Ne Win clarified the Burmese position:
We shall undertake never to allow any piece of our territory to be used by any force, indigenous, or coming from abroad as a base or foothold from which aggression may be committed or any trouble made against any of our neighbours. Even though our relations with a neighbour are at this juncture embarrassed, we shall not resort to the short-sighted policy of looking elsewhere for aid in the solving of our problem.Footnote 128
To account for the cordial relations as well as the rift in Sino–Burmese relations in 1967, first we should clarify Beijing's policy shift towards Burma in 1954. After the CCP had seized power in 1949, it regarded the non-socialist nations as ‘stooges’ or ‘running dogs’ of imperialism. Beijing's worldview contemplated two antagonistic camps,Footnote 129 and declared ‘CCP and Chinese people's duty-bound international responsibility, and one of the most important means to strengthen China's revolutionary victory in the international arena is to use all possible means to aid the Communist Party and people in oppressed Asian nations, and their struggle for liberation.’Footnote 130 However, domestic needs and the international environment in the early 1950s impelled Beijing to alter its ‘with-us-or-against-us’ approach to world politics. In the development of foreign relations, Chinese policy shifted gradually away from attempting to drive Western influence out of Asia by direct confrontation or open support for revolutionary wars toward efforts to win Asian neighbours away from alliances with the West through offers of peaceful coexistence.Footnote 131 In 1954, China changed its attitude towards neutral countries in order to break through US containment and encirclement, and unite all countries that wished to maintain peace with China to create a peaceful, stable regional environment for its domestic economic development and recovery. The new policy was characterised by building ‘collective peace and security’ and expanding the ‘peaceful area’ in order to form a safe buffer zone between China and the West. As a result, during 1954–66, ‘while China, as a communist state, might have [had] sympathies with Burma's communist minority, who aimed at a communist Burma, it subordinated this sympathy for the sake of good relations with the government of a neighbouring country.’Footnote 132
Behind the shift of the PRC's policy towards neutral capitalist countries, there lay the Western bloc's security threat, China's self-perception of its national strength, and judgement on the timing of world revolution. Therefore, for Beijing ‘peaceful coexistence’ was opportunistic, and did not mean the abandonment of China's aim of world revolution.
As Mao Zedong's secretary, Wu Lengxi, disclosed, Mao said at the meeting of the Standing Committee of the CCP Central Political Bureau in November 1957:
Now, the international community generally recognises the ‘Peaceful Coexistence Five Principles’ but whether the principles can be adhered to is another problem …. In respect of [the] international communism movement, the general line of foreign relations of one communist party, nevertheless, can't be restricted in scope to ‘peaceful coexistence’ principles … we should fulfill the obligation of proletarian internationalism. Therefore, ‘peaceful coexistence’ can't become the general line of one communist party.Footnote 133
Mao's speech reflected China's foreign policy within a contradictory conceptual framework: aiming for ‘peaceful coexistence’ on the one hand, and opposing imperialism and supporting world revolution on the other. The duality of China's foreign relations was characterised by its party-to-party and state-to-state relations. Consequently, the earlier emphasis on ‘peaceful coexistence’ would be replaced by a more militantly anti-imperialist policy when Chinese leadership judged that ‘the east wind prevails over the west wind’.
