In an interview on Burma

Looking at this next book, Burma and Japan since 1940, were the Japanese any more sensitive to local culture?

No, they were worse. The reason why I included that book is because I wanted to include an academic study and this is the most readable one and the most relevant to the situation today. All they say about the British legacy, and the way the Burmese army was modelled on the British army, is true to a certain extent. But when it comes to military strategy and how the army is organised and how it behaves it is much more like the Imperial Japanese army. The Japanese trained the  ‘30 Comrades’, who led Burmese Independence army. They trained many other Burmese in the 1940s in Tokyo, and they also founded the Burmese army.

The Japanese also encouraged systematic brutality towards the ethnic minorities.

The so-called  ‘four cuts’ policy, which became the cornerstone of anti-insurgent campaigns since the 1960s; namely, to cut off insurgents from water, supplies, shelter and eventually to cut off their heads. This comes straight from Japanese military manuals.

How did the Burmese deal with the ethnic groups in pre-colonial times?

They didn’t deal with them much. There was tribute paid to the kings in Mandalay but this was more like a bribe system. Paying not to have Burmese incursions into their territories didn’t mean that they were subjects necessarily. There was never a Burmese nation state as some argue. Siam was far more advanced when it came to nation-building than Burma was even in the 19th century.

And the British exploited these ethnic divisions when they arrived.

Many of the ethnic groups felt quite relieved when the British came. In pre-colonial times, occasionally the Burmese would carry out invasions, the Karen people suffered especially from these wars. The Karen sided with the British as the lesser of two evils. So, yes divisions existed and the British did take advantage of them. If you look at the colonial army in Burma it was almost exclusively composed of Karens and Kachins. There were very few ethnic Burmans in the armed forces under the British. That all changed with the arrival of the Japanese. The Karen and the Kachin then went underground to fight both the Japanese and the Burmese Independence army.

The Burmese Independence army actually invaded from Thailand during the Second World War.

I interviewed one of the last surviving members of the 30 Comrades, back in the 1980s. I asked him:  ‘You were 30 young guys in Tokyo, and three didn’t even make it back to Burma, and you came back to Bangkok, set up the army and entered Burma.  Suddenly you are invading with an army; where did the army come from?’ He replied: ‘We set up in Thailand, we mixed our blood and drank it and so on. At that time there were quite a few Burmese in Thai prisons; those convicts were given the choice to stay in jail or go and fight. That way we raised a force of around 1,000 soldiers.’ Official Burmese histories never want to point out that the original independence army was actually made up of convicts.

Going back to Seekins’s book and Burmese/Japanese relations, what is this ‘quiet dialogue’ between the two nations?

Because of historical reasons Japan had very close relations with Burma up until the 1988 uprising. Again, this is that romanticism; it is not just Westerners falling in love with the country. Are you familiar with the book The Burmese Harp? Japan is in ruins after the war, in misery at their defeat and suddenly these happy guys come back playing a harp from Burma.  Burma became this almost dreamlike place for many Japanese. Many of the leading Burmese had been trained by Japanese and could even speak the language. Japan’s war reparations gave them the opportunity to have further influence in Burma, building hydro-electric power stations and the like. In fact after the military takeover in 1962, Japan was the only country that had any relations at all with the Ne Win regime. Everything fell apart after 1988. Japan was forced almost against its will to join the rest of the world in isolating Burma.  Now they have lost Burma to China, Japan is not an important player in Burma any more.

I have heard it said that Burma is almost a Chinese client state at the moment.

That’s pushing it a little too far. They are heavily dependent on China and China’s support is crucial for the survival of the regime. They get arms from China and the veto on the Security Council. It is not really a client state and there are people even within the Burmese military establishment who are feeling very uncomfortable with the close relationship with a powerful neighbour. Historically Burma has always played its neighbours against each other and managed to stay neutral. That neutrality is gone now. It is not so much a client as a close ally of China.