Lessons of the Burma and China Disasters: Crises Shed Light on Regional Issues

“There are universal values we want to subscribe to – the value of human life – but there is also the question of the sovereignty of the country. If you break down the sovereignty principle, the world would be in a much bigger mess than it is today,” he said.

The contrast between the ways rapidly changing China and isolationist Burma have responded to their tragedies illustrates how that sovereignty problem can be resolved.

China, Cheema suggested, is rapidly becoming sure enough of its own place in the world to accept international help, while Burma has yet to reach that level of comfort.

“Providing assistance in this kind of situation, particularly in a totalitarian situation, is extremely difficult,” he said. “But a totalitarian regime with internal capacity and with a forward, outward-looking leadership can respond.”

Lewis noted that China’s response was different in part because the underlying conditions in the two countries are markedly different, particularly when it comes to health status.

In everything from levels of inoculation to the basic health of the population (as measured by life expectancy), China is ahead of the game compared with Burma, Lewis said.

The biggest health concern that divides victims of disaster in China from those in Burma, Lewis said, is food. The ravaged portions of the delta area in Burma normally produce the bulk of that nation’s food supplies – including fully 60 percent of its rice crop – but that has all been destroyed by the storm.

“The future food security issue for Myanmar is very serious indeed,” Lewis said. (Myanmar is the name given to Burma by the country’s military government, but never recognized by many nations, including the U.S.)