| China has been quietly nurturing ties with democratic and ethnic groups at odds with Myanmar’s military government. China has been a steady friend of the generals, standing by them after they crushed a pro-democracy uprising in 1988 and then swept aside a 1990 election won by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy. But behind the scenes in past months and even years China has held low-key meetings with minority ethnic and democratic opposition groups, said group representatives and a Western analyst. Zin Linn, a spokesman for the exiled National Coalition Government of the Union of Burma in Thailand, said his organisation had met Chinese representatives in the past year or so. “They didn’t accept us officially or say they wanted to have formal relations, but I think they are trying to understand the situation and our views,” he said of China. |