The briefer examines the negative impact on China’s society that is the result of China’s cozy economic and political ties with the SPDC. The serious implications of China’s economic and political ties with the SPDC include:

1. Considerable harm to China because of illegal drugs entering China from Burma and because China’s HIV/AIDS epidemic can be traced to injecting drug users in cities bordering Burma.

2. Increased tension between the SPDC and Burma’s ethnic groups who have previously depended on direct trade with China. This will destabilize China’s border regions with Burma. Instability in Burma will further frustrate efforts by China to address its serious drug problems, HIV/AIDS epidemic and other problems related to migration, human trafficking, social ills and organized crime.

3. Assuming China’s blind support, the SPDC has intensified its crackdown on dissent by re-arresting student leaders and former political prisoners, and implying that harsher persecutions are on the way.