Good afternoon, I’m very honored to be here to make this presentation: what I would like to talk about is a new topic. Why I talk this topic today is because yesterday morning we signed an agreement between the center of Myanmar studies in Yunnan University and the center for strategic and international studies on the MDI. So today I want to talk about the framework and the main arguments in our joint report in the future. I will talk about three arguments. First one is the nature of China Myanmar relations during 1988 to 2010. The second is how to assess the impact of China’s political transformation on China Myanmar relations. The third point is how to restructure a new model of China with other countries of different sizes and conditions. First is about some background. Since 1988, there were many disagreements on China-Myanmar relations, so CSIS under MDRI headed by Saya U Ko Ko Hlaing and CMS of Yunnan University will carry out a joint research project, and the title is China- Myanmar Relationship during a New Era: Current Situation, Challenges, Prospect and Policy Recommendation. We will release the report in next January or February in Yangon, and our goal is very simple, to clarify various opinions on China-Myanmar relations. For CMS side, we will invite some scholars from CICIR and other universities and organizations to join the research team. CSIS and CMS will draft the same reports separately according to the below Synopsis:

1. The Change of China-Myanmar Relation since the Inauguration of the New Government since March 2011

2. Current Situation of China-Myanmar Relation

3. Future Challenges, Prospect for China-Myanmar Relation

4. Policy Recommendation for Chinese Government, People and Enterprises; Policy Recommendation for Myanmar Government, Media, NGOs and People.

Then the two sides will review each other's reports, we will try our best to achieve more consensus, but finally we will respect each other’s’opinions. Finally we will combine the two reports and publish them.

About the nature of the China-Myanmar relations during 1988-2010, maybe everyone considered China and Myanmar had very good relations from September 1988 to March 2011, but we had different viewpoints on the depth and level of close relations between China and Myanmar.

For example, Some India scholars and media thought China had naval bases and intelligence collection stations in the great Coco Island, the Hainggyi Island and other islands along Myanmar coast in the Bay of Bangal. Someone even though Myanmar was the satellite country of China, and Myanmar was becoming one province of China. But the facts indicated that was a myth.

Some scholars such as Poon Kim Shee and Tin Maung Maung Than based in Singapore, and Andrew Selth from Australia thought China's presence in Myanmar and the influence on Myanmar Junta was seriously overstated.

Most Chinese people also thought China had special relations with Myanmar in the past two decades, and Myanmar military government was one of the closed ally as Pakistan. But some scholars pointed out that Myanmar did not relied on only one country at any time, and the Junta decided the important domestic affairs independently, for example, the relocating of Capital, the deposition of Primier Khin Nyunt, and Myanmar Junta rejected to sign the agreement of land-watertransportation between China and Myanmar in 2001.

All in all, from 1988 to 2010, China was Myanmar's most important partner, with more frequent exchanges of visit between top leaders and closer cooperation compared with Myanmar's relations with other countries. But Myanmar was not China's satellite state. There were divergences and contradictions between China and Myanmar as well. China's influence on Myanmar has been overestimated by the international community. It's very important to realize this when we analysis the present Sino-Myanmar relations and its development trend.

About how to assess the impact of Myanmar's political transformation on China-Myanmar relations, First of all, we must recognize the political transformation has impacted China-Myanmar relations very much, and we can view it from below aspects:

1.    The public opinions of Myanmar towards China sounds worse than before. Not only the opposition but also ordinary people of Myanmar were not satisfied with China, and this is the biggest challenge for China-Myanmar relations.

2.    Along with the improvement of Myanmar relations with Western countries, Myanmar new government seems to balance China's presence in Myanmar.

3.    Chinese investment in Myanmar was highly politicized, and China's economic interest in Myanmar was affected.

The suspension of Myitsone hydropower station may be the turning point of China-Myanmar relations after the U Thein Sein administration came to power.

4.    It becomes more difficult than before for China government to coordinate with Myanmar.  During the past decades, China government only needed to coordinate with the Junta, but now China has to coordinate with various political forces of Myanmar. Except the government and military forces, opposition party, media, NGOs, ethnic groups, think tanks and ordinary people cannot be ignored.

5.    The development trends of China-Myanmar relations look iffy in the future. Now we do not know what will happened after the new general election in 2015.

In addition, the people of China and Myanmar have different thoughts, which are a tragedy for example, Chinese people consider that DEVELOPMENT is the ABSOLUTE TRUTH, but most of Myanmar people cannot accept it. Chinese people emphasize to protect the FDI and make the FDI can get profit, but Myanmar people focus the environment protection and local people's interest, and not mind the FDI's profit. But I think Myanmar people will gradually change because Myanmar opened just for three years and China has been opened for 33 years. We must be more patient to Myanmar.

Has China lost Myanmar? This title was first written by Yun Sun on January 15, 2013. I want to say many similar reports can be found in Chinese media in recent years, and some scholars and many businessmen also think so.This is an incorrect assessment on China-Myanmar relations because Myanmar is a sovereign state and it does not belong to any countries.

From my own opinions, China-Myanmar relations since 2011 were transiting from a special one to the normal state-to-state relations, and keeping the good relations with China will be the important task for any Myanmar governments. So, I am very confident on China-Myanmar.

About how to restructure a new model of China with other countries in different sizes and conditions, this is big new project for China's diplomacy, and my colleagues and I will do some research taking China-Myanmar relations as an example in the next few months, and we will talk more in the joint research report which will be released in next January or February. Because we have different territorial areas, population, values and culture, we have to reconstruct a new model for China to deal with relations with other countries.

Thank you.