The People’s Republic of China was founded on October the 1^st 1949. This confronted the non-socialist states with the difficult question of whether diplomatically recognizing the “new China” or not. The United States advocated non-recognition, while the United Kingdom together with other more liberal states favored early recognition. How did, however, a small state like the Union of Burma respond to this epoch-making change of the international order?

Amongst the non-socialist states the UOB was the first that took the daring decision to recognize the PRC—on December the 16^th 1949. Preceding studies failed to illuminate why and how the UOB government took the decision to recognize the PRC on that particular date. Based on newly available archival materials of the ministries of foreign affairs of Myanmar, India, China as well as those of the US and the UK, this article tries to answer this question.

Chapter 1 overviews the diplomatic relations between the UOB and the Republic of China. Chapter 2 traces the China policy of the UOB from the end of 1948 to mid 1949. Chapter 3 examines the diplomacy of the UOB to recognize the PRC after its foundation. Chapter 4 illuminates the process of diplomatic contacts between the UOB and the PRC governments.

This paper argues that for two reasons the UOB government recognized the PRC on December the 16^th 1949: the first was that the civil war in neighboring Yunnan Province became imminent for Burma in early December; the second was the decision of the UK government to postpone the recognition of the PRC on December the 15^th. For the UOB the nightmare scenario was that the People’s Liberation Army of the PRC would intrude into Burmese territory to assist domestic communist insurgencies under the pretext of pursuing the Kuomintang Army.

Desperately trying to prevent an intrusion of its territory by the PLA, the Burmese government, based on wishful thinking, came to the conclusion that by being amongst the first non-socialist states recognizing the PRC, Burma could win the favor of the PRC and escape intrusion. Under these critical circumstances, the UOB announced the recognition of the PRC, even abandoning consultation with the government of India.

To the surprise of the UOB, the PRC, determined to take advantage of this opportunity, unilaterally stipulated that diplomatic relations could only be established after negotiations in Beijing. Thus the UOB unintentionally set a precedent for China of how to establishing diplomatic relations with other non-socialist states, opening a new window of opportunity for Mao Zedong.

The fourth Kashiyama-seminar, held as an international symposium at the annual conference of Japan Association for Asian Studies (June 2019, Keio University), focused on recent research trends of Southeast Asian Studies in the academic community in Asia, titled “Southeast Asian Studies in Asia: New Perspectives on Inter-Asia Relations.”

Southeast Asian Studies have become remarkably globalized, through a series of transformations including a significant geographic shift of major research centers from the West to Asia itself. The coverage of the studies to include within each Southeast Asian country is also expanding beyond single-country case studies to include wider regional perceptives, comparative studies, and international collaborations. Southeast Asian Studies is also an increasingly active field in a number of East Asian countries including China, Taiwan and Korea, as well as here in Japan.

The purpose of the symposium was to view these diversified research trends in the academic community, and to discuss the future possibility lead by four speakers. Professor BI Shihong, professor at Yunnang University in China, discussed about the characteristics of the recent research trend in Southeast Asian Studies in China, pointing out that the studies were recently activated by the policy of the Belt and Load Initiative, while remaining challenges could be found in the overemphasizing of political science studies and of China-oriented views, and insufficient experience of field research.

Professor Nualnoi Treerat, associate professor at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, focused on the trend in research and organization setup on economic development of the Indochina sub-region based in Thailand, pointing out that academic concerns tend to expand beyond simple infrastructure construction, toward the issues of information technology for the coming digital economy era, and of labour migration across the region.

Mr. Didi Kwartanada, managing director at Nation Building Foundation in Indonesia, talked on the recent development of ethnic Chinese studies in Indonesia, and its social background; while their culture had been repressed in the Suharto era, ethnic Chinese in Indonesia regained their identity and saw it further bloom after the new regime in 1998, and up to the present day.

Professor R. Michael Feener, now at Kyoto University in Japan (but at Oxford at the time of the 2019 seminar) spoke on the history of and contemporary developments in the study of Muslim societies of Southeast Asia, with particular attention to the current expansion of work in this area within the region.