US "Aid" To Burma Covered In Strings

The Bush administration is no more motivated by humanitarian concerns in Burma than it is in Iraq or Afghanistan.

"The decision of the Burmese junta to selectively accept aid from sympathetic countries such as China, India and Thailand, and not the US, is hardly surprising. The Bush administration has made little secret of the fact that it favours “regime change” in Burma—the removal of the military regime and its replacement by a government, headed by opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, more amenable to Washington’s interests and to opening up the country to foreign investors.
The US targetting of the junta has nothing to do with concern for the democratic rights or the welfare of the Burmese people. Washington’s hostility towards the Burmese regime is driven above all by the latter’s close association with China, regarded by the US as its main potential rival. Over the past eight years, the Bush administration has pursued a strategy of strengthening military ties and establishing bases in a string of countries around China—from South Korea and Japan to the Philippines, Australia and Indonesia and around to India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Central Asia republics.
Burma is a significant hole in US efforts to “contain” China. The country sits next to the strategic Strait of Malacca—the major sea-lane linking North East Asia, including China, with the energy resources of the Middle East and Africa. Control of such “choke points” has long been central to American naval plans."