英文原版：
This week, state-run newspapers splashed Japanese ForeignMinister Fumio Kishida’s photo with Foreign Minister Aung San SuuKyi all over their front pages. But beneath the smiles andhandshakes, there is a history of discord.
After the political opening in 2011 and 2012, Japan movedquickly to resume aid and investment to Burma—including developmentof the Thilawa Special Economic Zone (SEZ), a 2,400-hectareindustrial zone in southeast Rangoon Division. Japan’s NipponFoundation also provided funds for Burma’s peace-building processand general aid to the previous government.
Suu Kyi was opposed to this aid and investment from Japanduring the junta’s reign because she saw it as bolstering therepressive regime that ruled over the country with an ironfist.
But like the Chinese government, which developed even closerrelations with the regime, Tokyo was not deterred by herstance.
Japan, however, is recognizing that it might have to changeits ways to deal with the new reality of Suu Kyi in power.
After Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy(NLD), won a landslide victory in the national elections, Japanesebusinesses were worried. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had notdeveloped close ties with Suu Kyi. But less than three weeks afterthe election, Abe invited a high-level NLD official to Tokyo.
On Nov. 27, Nyan Win, central executive committee member ofthe NLD, met with Foreign Minister Kishida in Tokyo. Nyan Win askedfor more investment and technological assistance from the world’sNo. 3 economy.
This week in Naypyidaw, Kishida first met with Suu Kyi, whoalso serves as Burma’s state counselor. They spent more than anhour discussing issues related to aid, business, developmentprojects and peace-building efforts with Burma’s ethnic armedorganizations. Afterwards, the Japanese foreign minister met withPresident Htin Kyaw, Suu Kyi’s confidant. That meeting lasted only15 minutes.
Given Suu Kyi’s personal ties to Japan, a relationship withthe East Asian power could blossom.
She was a visiting scholar at Kyoto University in 1985-86,where she made some Japanese friends, but none of them were fromthe business community. And when she returned to Japan in April2013 after Burma began opening up, she met Abe.
In the early 1940s, Suu Kyi’s late father, Gen. Aung San,Burma’s independence hero, received military training from theJapanese Army and even adopted a Japanese name, Omoda Monji.
He and his compatriots, the legendary “Thirty Comrades,”received arms and financial support from the Japanese Army to fightthe British, who were then ruling Burma. Under Japanese occupation,Aung San became war minister, but he subsequently decided to revoltagainst the draconian Japanese regime after joining forces with theAllies during World War II.
In the 1960s, Gen. Ne Win, one of the “Thirty Comrades,”sought to cultivate closer relations with Tokyo. Throughout his26-year rule, the Ne Win regime received aid and loans from Japan,as well as post-war reparations. At the time, the Japanese viewedBurma as a country with high economic potential.
But then came the tumultuous late 1980s, and Suu Kyi was putunder house arrest. While there in the 1990s, Suu Kyi was criticalof Japan’s economic engagement with the repressive Burmese regime.After she was freed from house arrest in 1995, the Japanesenewspaper Mainichi Shimbun published Suu Kyi’s “Letters fromBurma.” In her letters, she did not hide her opposition to Japan’sBurma policy.
Interestingly, Japan was the first country to be informed ofher release, and subsequently the Japanese government agreed toresume Overseas Development Assistance (ODA). It appears that SuuKyi’s release was somehow a bargaining chip in the aid deal.Nonetheless, publicly, she advised Tokyo to hold off on its aidpackage.
“If it is a reward for my release, I’m just one politicalprisoner, there are others still in jail,” she told a correspondentfrom the now-defunct Far Eastern Economic Review at the time.“Changing the conditions of one person is not enough to merit therenewal of aid.”
In addition to the traditional aid package, the Japaneseprovided a grant in the notorious Golden Triangle, where theywanted to promote eradication of opium poppy cultivation in theKokang region through crop substitution. They introduced thecultivation of buckwheat, which is used in Japanese soba noodleproduction.
Suu Kyi was frustrated. In April 1996, less than one yearafter her release, she wrote in the Mainichi Shimbun: “To observebusinessmen who come to Burma with the intention of enrichingthemselves is somewhat like watching passers-by in an orchardbrutally stripping off blossoms to appreciate their fragile beauty,blind to the ugliness of the despoiled branches, oblivious to thefact that by their action they are imperiling future fruitfulnessand committing an injustice against the rightful owners of thetrees. Among these despoilers are big Japanese companies.”
In June 1996, Suu Kyi sent a letter to then Prime MinisterRyutaro Hashimoto via the Japanese Embassy in Rangoon, asking Tokyoto exercise its economic power to push for democratization in Burmaas stipulated in the ODA guidelines. She received no reply.
Meanwhile, in Japan, there appeared a flurry of SuuKyi-bashing articles written by businessmen and governmentofficials close to the Burmese regime. It was obvious that somepowerful people in Japan felt Suu Kyi was an obstacle to doingbusiness and carrying out aid in Burma.
But now Suu Kyi is in power. Burma has seen dramatic politicalchanges over the past five years.
“We’ll cooperate with the Myanmar government to create aclimate that will benefit both the people of Myanmar and Japanesebusinesses,” the visiting Japanese foreign minister said,specifically pointing out his country’s ambition to spur jobcreation and bolster the development of Burma’s agricultural,education, finance, health care and infrastructure sectors.
“Japan will do as much as it can to help Myanmar in itsprocess of national reconciliation,” Kishida added, stating adesire to help the former pariah state re-engageinternationally.
In her role as foreign minister, Suu Kyi expressed herappreciation for the “support and kindness expressed by the peopleof Japan” for Burma. Through Kishida, Abe invited her to Japan andsent her a personal letter.
But Japan is not alone in courting the new powers that be inNaypyidaw.
Shortly after the NLD formed a government, it was ChineseForeign Minister Wang Yi who paid a surprise visit to Burma at theinvitation of Suu Kyi.
And last year, a few months before the election, Suu Kyi wasin China, where President Xi Jinping received her—some called it amassive diplomatic breakthrough because it was Beijing that hadinvited the then-opposition leader. No doubt China, one of the topinvestors in Burma, wanted to bet on Suu Kyi. The question for themis: Will she protect China’s business and strategic interests inBurma? Through Wang, Xi extended another invitation to Suu Kyi lastmonth.
The ministry has not yet announced Suu Kyi’s itinerary foroverseas visits, but look out to see which of the two countries shetravels to first, China or Japan. That decision could be a majorsign of things to come in Suu Kyi’s bumpy relationship withJapan.
