Dragon Fire

Briefing

Burma, or Myanmar, is a cultural and geographical buffer between East and South Asia. From 1885 until the 1930s, Burma was governed as part of British India. It was occupied by Japan from 1942 to 1945, and won independence in 1948. After just fourteen years of democracy, the army seized power and Burma went into a state of self-imposed isolation. Troops brutally repressed democracy demonstrations in 1988. The regime ignored a landslide election victory for the opposition party in 1990 and jailed its leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Increasingly shunned by the international community, Burma was courted by China. Chinese engineers built roads and military bases. The army was equipped with Chinese weapons. By the turn of the century, the Hanggyi Island naval base and the Cocos Islands were being built to take Chinese naval ships, threatening India’s predominance in the Indian Ocean region.