China failing on Myanmar, key US senator says

HANOI (AFP) – China has failed to show leadership in solving the political stalemate in Myanmar, a United States senator who made a landmark visit to the military-ruled country said in Vietnam Wednesday.

Senator Jim Webb arrived in Vietnam after securing at the weekend the release of an American man who swam to the house of Myanmar's detained democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi.

During his Myanmar visit, Webb became the first US official to speak with the junta's reclusive leader, Than Shwe.

The senator also met Suu Kyi without winning freedom for the Nobel laureate, whose house arrest was extended over the bizarre stunt by John Yettaw.

"When I returned to Bangkok from Myanmar I raised my view at that time, with respect to the issues in Myanmar, that the Chinese government should step forward and show leadership in assisting in solving that situation, and they have not done that yet," Webb told a Hanoi press conference on the last leg of a two-week Southeast Asian tour.




Beijing has long helped keep Myanmar afloat through trade ties, arms sales, and by shielding it from United Nations sanctions over rights abuses. China is a veto-wielding, permanent member of the Security Council.

The European Union, United States and other countries have targeted Myanmar with economic sanctions and travel bans but the military regime has so far proven impervious to these, partly due to support from nations including China.

While the US Congress has overwhelmingly backed trade restrictions against Myanmar, Webb has been a critic of sanctions and said in Bangkok that they had allowed Beijing to increase "dramatically" its influence in Myanmar.

The administration of President Barack Obama, particularly Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has indicated it is not keen on using sanctions as a diplomatic tool.

Webb, a Democrat and former Marine who served in Vietnam, chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia.

Yettaw flew home to the US on Wednesday after receiving medical tests in Bangkok but Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest, sentenced earlier this month to a further 18 months because of Yettaw's actions.

The ruling means she will be locked up during elections promised by the ruling junta in 2010.

Webb, who first returned to Vietnam 18 years ago, was to visit government officials and business leaders on his latest trip.

Asked whether he would seek the release of any Vietnamese prisoners, he said discussions over the political evolution of communist Vietnam are "an ongoing process" but he was not raising the matter on this trip.

In July, a group of US lawmakers said they were calling for the release of more than 100 non-violent Vietnamese political prisoners, some of them held for criticising the government, as part of an annual September 2 amnesty.

Vietnam says it does not punish anyone for political views and only prosecutes criminals for breaking the law.

Webb also visited Laos and Cambodia as part of his five-nation Southeast Asian tour whose purpose was "to emphasise how important Southeast Asia is to the United States".

He noted that Secretary of State Clinton has twice visited the region this year, showing "how we want to reinvigorate, from the United States' perspective, our relations in this region".

Clinton's signing in July of a friendship pact with Southeast Asia sent a strong signal of the US desire to deepen ties and counter China's increasing influence, diplomats said.