IN THE winter of 1960, Ne Win, then prime minister of Burma, visited China to sign a treaty of friendship. He felt instantly comfortable with the Chinese, partly perhaps because of a blood tie through a distant ancestor, but mostly because of the welcome he received from Zhou Enlai, the Chinese prime minister, who had the gift of charm, rare in China at that time. “We are almost brothers,” Zhou told him amid embraces. More importantly, Zhou seemed to dispense power effortlessly. His wishes seemed to be obeyed without question, with military-style thoroughness. He had only one master to consult, Chairman Mao Zedong. On his way home Mr Ne Win contrasted the system in China with that in Burma. He was irked by the tedium of the democratic ways of his country since it had been granted independence by Britain in 1948. He was primarily a military man, holding the job of army chief in addition to civilian duties. Why, he reasoned, could he not run the country in the efficient, no-nonsense way he had witnessed in China?

Mr Ne Win liked to watch, and watch again, a newsreel that had been taken of his meeting with Zhou. In 1962, he struck, leading an army coup that dismissed parliament, scrapped the constitution and jailed most government ministers. He adopted the title “chairman”. Only one party, Mr Ne Win's, was allowed. When university students objected he blew up their lodgings. All land, industry and commerce were taken over by the state, as they had been in China. Dance halls were closed, gambling was forbidden. Foreigners were expelled, tourism was abolished. No high-rise building was allowed; no neon signs, even for Coca-Cola. Burma became one of the most difficult countries in the world to enter. Mr Ne Win's one-man rule, during which the modern world was locked out, was to last for 26 years.

These foolish acts

The modern world was not too bothered about being excluded. Burma was not seen as strategically important, as Vietnam and Korea were. U Thant, the secretary-general of the United Nations from 1961 to 1971, was for many people the “decent” Burma, whatever was happening inside the country. Nor, it should be said, was Burma an easy country to govern. For years before Mr Ne Win came to power some ethnic areas had been in rebellion against the central government. However, his policy of state control, isolation and repression made things worse. Ethnic groups became bolder. Opium chiefs expanded their fiefs and corrupted the soldiers sent to close them down. Burma had been the world's largest exporter of rice, but by 1973 could hardly provide enough for its own needs. Income per person fell from $670 a year in 1960 to $200 in 1989. Despite having good farmland, high quality timber such as teak and minerals including oil, Burma was rated one of the world's poorest countries.

Mr Ne Win was not a fool. He was of middle-class stock and briefly attended university. But he was foolishly in the thrall of obsolescent ideologies, the communism of China, a country he visited a dozen times, and the former fascism of Japan. During the second world war he had been recruited by Japan to fight against the British in Burma, and became one of the leaders of a Japanese-run “independent” Burma, along with Aung San, the father of the country's present democratic leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Both men joined the British towards the end of the war when the Japanese were in retreat. Aung San was murdered in 1947. Miss Suu Kyi says in her book about her father that he had planned to devote his life to “his family and writing”. Mr Ne Win, though, was committed to power. When he became dictator his slogan was, “One blood, one voice, one command”. As dictators do, he adopted a new name. Ne Win means “brilliant as the sun”. His real name, Shu Maung, means “apple of my eye”.

Those who did penetrate the lost land of Burma emerged with a rare lot of travellers' tales. Astrologers advised the dictator that nine was his lucky number, and he decreed that only currency notes divisible by nine were of value. All others were declared worthless. He was said to have married nine times, although some reports said only seven. He liked to dress up to look like the ancient kings of Burma. He bathed in dolphin's blood, believing it kept him youthful. He was obsessional about English and fined editors whose newspapers had spelling mistakes.

In 1988 Mr Ne Win announced his retirement. A group of generals took over the dictatorship and marked the change by calling the country Myanmar, a traditional name. A surprisingly free general election was won by Miss Suu Kyi's democrats in 1990, but the result was not honoured. It was assumed that Mr Ne Win continued to be consulted by the generals into old age. But his power seemed finally to have withered this year when some members of his family were accused, on little published evidence, of plotting a coup. His last public appearance was at a lunch he gave to Buddhist monks, 99 of them. He died, apparently peacefully, in his villa on the palm-fringed shore of Lake Inya, not far from Miss Suu Kyi's own house. Whatever the power of numbers may be, he could count himself pretty lucky.