Trade sanctions against Burma over many years have contributed to the severity of the effects of the recent cyclone in that country, according to an article by Michael Backman in yesterday’s edition of The Age. Backman contrasts the Burmese response to the Irrawaddy Delta cyclone with the Chinese response to the recent earthquake in Sichuan. Both were natural disasters on an enormous scale. Both Burma and China are “dictatorships propped up by the military”. But China has reponded much better, and Backman says that this is because of the extent of recent trade between China and the West.
Why aren’t the Burmese junta behaving in a more considerate manner? Backman says that it is “because they are not like us. The idea that they are servants of the people simply makes no sense to them. It is the other way round. This is a group that believes that the maintenance of its own power is integral to national survival and which takes its policy advice not from trained economists but from astrologers.” Economic sanctions have simply allowed the Burmese junta to “get on with their aberrant behaviour in private.”
The Chinese, on the other hand, have taken huge steps forward over the past 5 years. “The transparency that has accompanied the Sichuan quake is unprecedented. Until recently, the death toll and the true nature of the disaster would have been declared a state secret… The Chinese, it seems, are becoming more like us.” This difference, according to Backman, has been achieved through economic growth. Now that millions of Chinese have middle-class incomes, they also have middle-class expectations. They expect their government to provide competent help in times of crisis, and they expect to be told the truth about it in the media.