Hillary Clinton arrives in Burma as Aung San Suu Kyi enters election race

Mrs Clinton’s plane landed at the airport in Naypyitaw, the remote, recently built capital, starting a three-day visit which will see her meet the new military-backed civilian leadership and hold talks with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The last US secretary of state to visit Burma was John Foster Dulles in 1955. Mrs Clinton’s visit caps a period of rapid transformation in the South-east Asian country which has been a pariah since the military seized power in a 1962 coup d’etat.

The visit, announced by president Barack Obama at a summit earlier this month in Australia, potentially puts America on a collision course with China, which is wary of Washington attempts to court its resource-rich southern neighbour as part of a strategy of increasing engagement in Asia.

Mrs Clinton will meet president Thein Sein and other senior officials in Naypyitaw over the next few days.

She was met at the airport by a small group of officials. A solitary welcoming banner was for the authoritarian premier of Belarus, expected to fly in today.

A senior US State Department official said Mrs Clinton would urge Burma’s new leaders – many of them until recently generals – to break off secret military deals with North Korea, whose rogue nuclear programme has drawn international sanctions.

US officials believe Burma has sought missile technology from North Korea, but played down concerns this co-operation had broadened to include a nuclear programme. Mrs Clinton will also hold two meetings with Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel peace prize winner and democracy activist who spent 15 of the past 21 years in detention before being released last November.

Ms Suu Kyi said yesterday she was ready to gamble that nascent reforms were real, seizing the chance for a transition to democracy. In a rare video conference call from home, she said she thought some officials had realised the need for change.

“We hope that they are meaningful,” she said of recent reforms. “I think we have to be prepared to take [a] risk. Nothing is guaranteed.”

In recent months, the new military-backed leadership has released some political prisoners – including Ms Suu Kyi – and given the media more freedom.

She said the establishment of the rule of law was even more important to prevent sudden imprisonment “tomorrow” .

She also revealed she would run in forthcoming by-elections which follow last year’s historic elections. Her National League for Democracy boycotted that vote but is now re-registering after rules that would have prevented her running for parliament were changed.

“I will certainly run for the elections when they take place,” she said. No date for that vote has been set. Her party won the 1990 elections but the result was ignored by the military.

Asked at the end of the 75-minute webcast whether democracy would come to Burma, she responded: “Of course.”