ABSTRACT
China has been viewed as a loyal ally of the other notorious regime in East Asia, Myanmar. Myanmar had been under the dominance of a military regime from the political coup in 1962 until 2011, when an elected administration led by Thein Sein took over office from the military junta. Myanmar has been criticized by Western states for its infamous human rights record. The application of extreme oppression over its people, the exploitation of Burmese civilians’ freedom of speech and political rights, and the detention of political prisoners have intensified calls for imposing international intervention on the military regime of Myanmar. China has been blocking such appeals on all occasions, most notably in the UN Security Council. This chapter aims to investigate the reasons for China’s insistence on a nonintervention policy toward Myanmar. The six hypotheses outlined earlier will be adopted again as the pillars for analysis of the logic of China’s nonintervention in Myanmar’s case.
