A Little Discourtesy
WELCOME GREAT CHINAMAN PLEASE
SPARE OUR TINY LAND!
With such double-edged greetings blazoned on placards, the people of Burma last week greeted Tourist Chou En-lai to their shores. It was a cruel come-uppance for the Red Chinese Premier, whose sweep through neutralist Asia during the past few weeks had been marked throughout by the smiling affability of a hungry cat in a fish store. India had smiled right back at him, as had Cambodia. On his previous tour to Burma a year ago, Chou had been greeted by well-organized but nonetheless enthusiastic crowds. But since the Red Chinese forays across Burma's border last summer and their expenditure of large sums in the last Burmese elections, the atmosphere has changed. Many knowing Burmese were forced to hide a snicker when they heard that Chou had filed an official complaint about discourtesies appearing in the Burmese press. Burmese Premier U Ba Swe, it was said, had himself suggested that a little pointed discourtesy might not be out of order. Even state dinners broke up early.
For the most part, Chou himself struggled valiantly to sustain his own air of modesty and hearty good-fellowship. "A newly established big country like China," he assured his hosts with a wide smile, "is apt to cause suspicions and fears among smaller countries. Therefore, China must make even stricter demands upon itself and fight against the tendency toward great nation chauvinism."*
Ostensibly Chou was in Rangoon to ratify the settlement of the Sino-Burmese border dispute, which he and former Burmese Premier U Nu worked out recently. This guaranteed that China would relinquish her claims to the Wa States in return for Burma's surrender of three Kachin villages annexed by Burma in the days of British rule. The Kachin villagers are ardently opposed to this plan.
At week's end the hottest rumor in Rangoon held that Chou was so anxious to make friends that he would even give up his claim to the villages. But the rumor was promptly scotched by at least one knowing agriculturist. "Red China will never give up a claim to that area," he prophesied. "It produces the best coffin wood in the world."