Tue Oct 2, 10:17 AM ET

RUILI, China - His country was in the midst of a bloody crackdown, but Myanmar businessman U Aung Kyi had something else on his mind.

"I'm buying a motorcycle. I'm getting a motorcycle," chanted the grinning man in his 50s as he shuffled through this city on the mountainous China-Myanmar border, his wife a few steps behind in a brown sarong and orange flip flops.

Even as Myanmar's military government suppresses pro-democracy demonstrators, a steady stream of shoppers and traders flows from the Southeast Asian nation into Ruili. U Aung Kyi was preparing to drive his new motorcycle back home the same day he bought it.

People from both sides of the border knew about the ongoing clampdown unfolding in Myanmar's major cities several hours to the south. Chinese merchants complained the crisis had thinned the normal swarms of Myanmar customers over the past week, though few expect it would hurt business in the long-term.

"It's just Myanmar's affairs. It won't affect us as long as we stay out of it. We just want to do business," jade dealer Zhang Huiyou, a Shanghai native with a shop in Ruili, said as he sipped tea at a cafe with three of his Myanmar suppliers who sat quietly and chain-smoked.

Many have hopes that China, Myanmar's biggest trading partner, can be an outside catalyst to forcing change on the ruling junta and ushering in reforms. But China — along with India and Russia, who have been competing for Myanmar's bountiful oil and gas resources — do not seem prepared to go beyond words in dealing with the junta.

Even if China were willing to use its economic might to influence the junta, some say it wouldn't be enough.

"Much of the trade empowers the regime, it doesn't go to the people," said Derek Mitchell, an Asia expert at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Achieving political reform through economic engagement "takes a long time. The feeling is that Burma doesn't have that kind of time," he said, referring to Myanmar by another name it is known by.

Mitchell said that method would only be viable if there was an indication that the ruling junta were looking for ways to alleviate the crushing poverty in the country. On the contrary, "there seems to be very little interest on the part of junta," he said.

In Ruili, meanwhile, the business of Chinese-Myanmar relations is just business. Ruili (pronounced RAY-LEE) is China's busiest trading post with Myanmar and offers a vantage point that shows how commerce dominates relations between economically booming China and its impoverished but resource-rich neighbor.

Myanmar stokes the red-hot Chinese market, sending timber, gems, minerals, oil and other raw materials. Trucks rumble northward from Ruili past rice fields and up curvy mountain roads in Yunnan province, dodging farmers leading lumbering water buffalos.

Chinese consumer goods flood Myanmar's limping economy. The two-story shop fronts that line Ruili's streets are stocked with everything from needle-nose pliers, scooter parts and plastic wash basins to ink-jet computer printers, mobile phones and knockoff golf bags emblazoned with the Callaway and Taylormade brand names.

The brisk trade — some of it illegal — helped China leap over Thailand two years ago to become Myanmar's No. 1 trading partner. Two-way trade hit $1.46 billion last year and was on track to go much higher, soaring more than 35 percent in the first eight months this year compared with the same period in 2006, according to China's Commerce Ministry.

"We're completely dependent on China for almost everything. Everything we buy is from China and practically everything we sell goes to China," said Frank Ah Si, a Myanmar tour guide.

Though Chinese have stopped going on day trips across the border since the recent troubles began, Ah Si said he is busy leading groups of Chinese businessmen to Yangon, Mandalay and other large cities.

"They keep going. They don't care what the situation is like. Recently, most of the groups are in the minerals business," he said.

Just 25 years ago, Ruili was an isolated outpost — a victim of Burma's military dictator's isolationist policies and Beijing's support for Burmese communist insurgents. More pragmatic policies by China's reformist leaders sought to promote border trade, and by the 1990s, the gush of commerce quickly transformed Ruili into a wild frontier party town.

At Ruili's busy Jiegao border checkpoint, women in conical straw hats hawk postcards and crisp bank notes from Myanmar, while a group of five transsexuals from Thailand dressed in white and red low-cut gowns pose with Chinese tourists for a fee. In between snapshots, they discreetly proposition visitors for oral sex. Patriotic music blares from two large stereo speakers.

Ruili, however, is more of a neat shopping town. Its roads are lined with palm trees and arches that light up in neon at night. The city center features a huge strip mall with more than 80 shops selling nothing but jade and other jewelry from Myanmar. Shop signs in Ruili use both China's angular characters and Myanmar's round, loopy script.

Last year, 4.36 million people and 386,000 vehicles passed through Ruili's border crossings carrying about 475,000 metric tons of cargo, according to the Yunnan provincial government.

Motorcycles are among the hottest-selling item in Ruili. Most of the Myanmar customers buy the cheapest Chinese-made scooters for about $425 and sell them back home for about $530, said a scooter dealer who would only give her surname, Zhang, because her boss would not let her speak to reporters.

"See that guy, he comes here everyday and buys a motorcycle," Zhang said, pointing to a Myanmar man driving off her lot dressed in a longyi, the traditional sarong-like skirt worn by Myanmar men.

Some Chinese said the decline and chaos in Myanmar made them feel proud of the way China has been able to preserve stability and economic growth.

Dong Yuehe, 60, said he's an ethnic Chinese who was born in Myanmar, served in the country's military and moved to China after he retired. He said he was disgusted with the graft and stagnation in Myanmar. The subject was part of a lively discussion at a snack shop between Dong and his friends as they smoked unfiltered Myanmar cigarettes from a long gurgling water pipe made from a tin tube.

"Myanmar's government is too corrupt and lazy," Dong said, shaking his head. "It should be a well-off country. It's got everything: gems, jade, minerals, timber. But they don't want to bother with it."