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The Socialists recently objected when Thakin Nu announced that he would seek badly needed foreign technical aid and investment. To support his argument, Thakin Nu on Sept. 28 read to the Parliament two" quotations from Stalin and Molotov (which had been supplied him by the U.S. embassy in Rangoon):
"In 1930 Stalin said: 'We have never concealed and we do not intend to conceal the fact that in the sphere of technique we are the pupils of the Germans, the English, the French, the Italians, and first and foremost, the Americans.' Discussing the third Five-Year Plan in 1939, Molotov said: 'On suitable occasions we collaborate with bourgeois countries and think it quite expedient to do so.' "
The Socialists endorsed the new policy. Next day Thakin Nu told me with a twinkle: "I must quote the left to lead Burma to the right."
A Threat from the North. To the north looms a potentially greater danger than civil war—the Communist advance in China. War Minister Bo Ne Win knows that Burma has almost no good troops to put on the border. A recent talk he had with a British observer was revealing of the hopes, fears and daydreams of all Southeast Asia.
"We don't want a mechanized army," said Bo Ne Win. "What Burma needs is plenty of soldiers with a gun and a handful of rice, who can walk anywhere."
"That's all very well for tracking down dacoits [bandits] and to keep internal order," said the Briton. "But how would that kind of army stand up to invasion?"
"You mean from China?" said Bo Ne Win without prompting. "We couldn't hold out long against the Chinese Communists. But if they invaded, you British would be right back to fight for us."
"Not so fast," said the Briton. "We aren't prepared to come."
"Well then," said Bo Ne Win, "you're still clever enough to make the Americans come."