Think Piece - Burma and Tibet

Shan Agency for News

Similarities:

• strategically located
• rich natural resources
• long-standing repressive rule
• resisting hard power with soft power
• influx of Han settlers
• leaders Nobel peace prize winners
• ethnic Burmans are of Tibetan stock

Differences:

• Repression in Tibet is by an occupying power
• Crackdown in Burma led to international indignation and a new round of sanctions,
  but no call for any penal action, however mild, against China

Autonomy in China:

• China grants local autonomy to just two areas, Hongkong and Macau. Other autonomous regions, prefectures, counties and townships are autonomous only in names.

_{Brahma Chellaney,
a professor of strategic studies
at Center for Policy Research
in New Delhi, Japan Times,
9 April 2008}