SCMP : China aids Pyongyang weapons

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South China Morning Post
Tuesday  August 4  1998

China aids Pyongyang weapons sale 

WILLIAM BARNES in Bangkok 
Burma has been sold 20 artillery pieces by North Korea in the first trade
deal between the two countries since Pyongyang assassins killed four
members of the South Korean cabinet during their visit to Rangoon in 1983.

China is believed to have brokered the deal for the 130mm field guns as
part of its efforts to bring about a rapprochement between the two
authoritarian regimes.

"There is no point in having a group of three if two of its members aren't
talking to each other," said this week's Jane's Defence Weekly, quoting a
diplomat in Rangoon.

Before the 1983 blast, reclusive former junta leader General Ne Win and his
daughter were said to be regular visitors to Pyongyang.

"The size of the deal is not really important. China is trying to bring the
two sides together and this is the first substantive evidence that this is
happening," said Jane's correspondent Bruce Hawke.

China is understood to have tried last year to encourage Burma to move
closer to its pariah-status twin - at least in much of the world - with a
large soft loan as, effectively, a bribe. The Burmese are thought to have
taken this offer round to the South Koreans, who countered with a US$120
million (HK$929 million) credit line to purchase petroleum.

The credit line was arranged through one of the chaebols (Korean
conglomerates) with extensive interests in the country.

China is still believed to be pressing its attentions on Burma, while the
regional crisis has deprived South Korea of any spare cash to throw around.

Military analysts believe two Chinese arms shipments may have already gone
to Burma this year.

Rangoon broke off ties with North Korea a month after agents from Pyongyang
planted a bomb in the capital that killed 15 people, including four
visiting South Korean ministers. The Burmese security forces later killed
one agent in a shootout and captured two more.

Diplomatic ties have not been reinstated.

The artillery pieces, with a range of 27km, are of the same highly
manoeuvrable Russian design that proved so irritating to the American and
South Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War.

They can be dragged behind a truck, mounted on a tracked vehicle and even
manhandled by soldiers over short distances.

It is not clear if the guns were made in Russia or North Korea. Nor is it
obvious what immediate military use the Burmese Army might have for the
guns as the regime's few remaining ethnic rebels have long abandoned
fighting in fixed positions in favour of limited guerilla war.