Contested The Sino-Indian Competition in Burma
by Ivan Lidarev
B.A. History, Asian Studies, Global and International Studies May 2008, Bard College
A Thesis submitted to
The Faculty of The Elliot School of International Affairs of The George Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of International Affairs
January 31, 2013
Thesis directed by
Deepa M. Ollapally Associate Research Professor of International Affairs
© Copyright 2013 by Ivan Lidarev All rights reserved
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Dedication
The author wishes to dedicate this thesis to his parents,
Dimitar Lidarev and Ekaterina Lidareva
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Acknowledgments
Many people have contributed to this thesis. I would like to thank Dr. David Steinberg who generously helped me understand the complexities of Burmese politics and Sino-
Burmese relations and encouraged me with my work. I also want to extend my gratitude to Dr. Matthew Walton who read through much of this thesis and helped me with invaluable edits, corrections and suggestions. Dr. Christina Fink was also very kind to help me get a better grasp of political transition that Myanmar has been passing through in recent years. I also would like to extend my thanks to Dr. Renaud Egreteau, Dr.
Namrata Goswami, Dr. David Shambaugh, Dr. Shawn McHale and Dr. Kenton Klymer, all of who helped me with ideas, suggestions and materials. I would also like to warmly thank my two advisors, without whose valuable assistance I would not have been able to complete this work. Dr. Michael Yahuda was indeed a great help to the writing of this thesis with his vast knowledge of China and Asia, his wise comments and his sharp attention to detail. Dr. Deepa Ollapally was an outstanding thesis advisor who, with her deep understanding of Indian foreign policy, helped me navigate the stormy waters of the
China-India-Burma triangle. I truly appreciate her smart and perceptive advice, her patience in reading through the endless drafts of this long thesis and her consistent moral support. I would also like to thank my parents for their constant support during the last year, particularly my mother, Ekaterina Lidareva, who proofread my entire thesis.
Naturally, all mistakes and omissions in the following pages are mine.
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Abstract of Thesis
CONTESTED: The Sino-Indian Competition in Burma
“This thesis analyzes the Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar by focusing on the drivers of this competition, how these drivers generate competition between the two sides and how the recent liberalization of Burma’s politics will affect the competition. The work argues that the Sino-Indian competition in Burma is driven, in order of importance, by the geostrategies of the two sides, their desire to exploit Myanmar’s energy resources and their drive to gain influence in the domestic politics of their smaller neighbor. Burma’s recent liberalization and its emergence out of international isolation have made the competition between Beijing and Delhi more complex, slightly more intense and a bit more even, although the balance is still tilted in China’s favor. The thesis reaches several conclusions about the competition. It concludes that, in its essence, the competition is a question of the security of both sides and their desire to exploit Myanmar’s potential, as a transportation corridor and as an economic and energy hub. It also identifies the United
States as an important influence in shaping the Sino-Indian competition in Burma.
Finally, this thesis also presents Myanmar not merely as an object of the competition but rather as a subject in its own right, whose policies have major impact of the contest between Beijing and Delhi.”
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Table of Contents
Dedication ...... iii
Acknowledgments ...... iv
Abstract of Thesis...... v
List of Figures ...... vii
Glossary of Terms...... viii
Chapter One: Introduction……………………...... 1
Chapter Two: Background…...... 41
Chapter Three: Geostrategy……..…………...... 73
Chapter Four: Energy Competition……...... 107
Chapter Five: Search for Influence in Burma’s Domestic Politics...... 124
Chapter Six: Recent Developments……………………………………………………………………..144
Chapter Seven: Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...171
Bibliography ...... 188
Appendices: Abbreviations...... 209
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List of Figures
Figure 1…………………………………………………………………………………ix
Figure 2…………………………………………………………………………………74
Figure 3…………………………………………………………………………………76
Figure 4…………………………………………………………………………………86
Figure 5…………………………………………………………………………………98
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Glossary of Terms
Haat: Local marketplace
Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai: A term used to describe the friendly relations between China and India in the 1950s.In Hindi it literally it means “Indo-Chinese brotherhood”
Kala: Pejorative term used against Indians living in Burma. The word literally means black
Pauk-Phaw: A term used to denote the close, brotherly relationship between China and
Burma. It literally means “kinsfolk”.
Panchsheel: The Indian name of the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence. In
Sanskrit it literally means five virtues.
Shanba: Term used to denote new Chinese immigrants to Myanmar, literally it means
“new Chinese”
Tatmadaw: Myanmar’s military
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Zhongnanhai: The residence of China’s top leadership. Often used to denote the Chinese government and the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party
Figure 1, Myanmar: Administrative Map. Courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin. Material is from the public domain.
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Chapter One: Introduction
“Geography is destiny!” This famous maxim, attributed to Napoleon, rings particularly true for Myanmar1 which is situated at the location where the cultural and political spheres of influence of China and India intersect. Geographically, Burma is part of Southeast Asia, the crossroad region where the Indian civilization encounters the
Chinese one by the waters of that great maritime highway, the India Ocean, which both
China and India strive to dominate. In short, Myanmar is indeed the place “where China meets India,” as Burmese author Thant Myint-U has proclaimed2. This geography has had great impact on Myanmar’s history, from Chinese invasions during the Qing
Dynasty, which turned Myanmar into a tributary state, through the incorporation of
Burma into the British Raj in India, to the migration of large numbers of Chinese and
Indians to the country, where their descendants live to this day.
As a result of this geography, modern China and modern India have seen Myanmar as part of their strategic periphery and have striven to influence it. Both sides have wanted to secure their interests in their smaller neighbor, affirm their regional preeminence and prevent other powers from gaining influence in Burma that can be used to threaten them.
Following the establishment of the PRC and of ROI in the 1940s, these interests
1 Please note that this thesis uses the names Myanmar and Burma interchangeably. However, it is important to note that the official name of the Southeast Asian country was formally changed in 1989 from Burma to Myanmar. The reasons for this change are unclear but it has been speculated that the country’s military rulers believed that the new name is more ethnically inclusive and not tainted with colonial associations as the name Burma is. It is also believed that it alludes to Myanmar’s historical greatness. Nevertheless, much of the opposition has refused to accept this name change imposed by the military regime and continues,to this day, to use the name Burma. 2 This a reference to the title of one of Thant Myint-U's books, Where China meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011)
1 generated some tension between the two great powers but Burma’s policy of neutrality between the two sides, the weakness of the two giants, and their preoccupation with more important foreign policy concerns prevented this tension from escalating into a full blown competition for influence.
All this changed in 1988, as a huge pro-democracy uprising against the ruling military regime drove Burma in Beijing’s hands and away from New Delhi, which had supported the uprising. The rapprochement between Beijing and Rangoon and the dramatic growth of China’s economic clout in Burma provoked a response from India which launched a bid to expand its own influence in the Southeast Asian country and counter China’s growing power. The result has been a Sino-Indian competition for influence in Myanmar which has progressively grown during the last two decades. This competition is the topic of my thesis.
The Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar is an important topic to study for three reasons. First, this competition involves the crucial relationship between China and India, arguably the two most important emerging powers on the world stage, and takes place at what is increasing becoming the world’s most important region, Asia. Thus, studying
Beijing and New Delhi’s competition in Myanmar would help us understand better the dynamics of their relationship, a relationship which has the potential to become a major factor shaping the twenty-first century. While Burma is just one part of a much larger and more complex China-India nexus, it affects the relations between the giants, and, as a result of the importance of these relations, has impact much greater than Myanmar’s size or international significance would suggest. Second, the Sino-Indian competition has serious influence on the future of Burma itself. While the opening of the Southeast Asian
2 country to the world, after decades of isolation, would temporarily reduce its reliance on its two neighbors, it cannot escape from its geography. As Myanmar develops its economy and tries to integrate in the political and economic structures of Asia, it would be inevitably affected by the continued rise of two colossuses on its borders. Third, there has been relatively little research on the Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar. In spite of the growing interest in Burma among scholars and commentators, the Sino-Indian competition there has received relatively little attention. All this means that it is important to study the competition between Beijing and Delhi in Myanmar.
This project strives to analyze the dynamics of the Sino-Indian competition in Burma in order to answer three broad research questions. The first question is: what factors have driven the competition between China and India in Myanmar in the last twenty years? As
Beijing and Delhi were not engaged in a full-blown competition for influence in Burma before 1988, it makes sense to ask what put both powers on the path of competition in
Myanmar and kept them on it for more than two decades. As this competition has persisted and even grown for more than two decades, it can hardly be explained by the aftermath of Burma’s post-1988 alignment with Beijing, its immediate cause. The second question is: how the factors which have driven the Sino-Indian rivalry in Burma generate competition between the two sides. While a lot of attention is usually paid to the issues which make India and China compete for influence in Burma, the question how these issues put the two great powers at odds with each other is rarely examined. Such an examination would reveal much about the mechanism of the competition. Finally, in the last four years, both Myanmar and the international situation in Asia have witnessed changes. Myanmar has experienced a political liberalization and opening to the world,
3 which have introduced great changes in Burmese society, although the effect of these changes is not yet fully clear. Internationally, Asia has witnessed more competition between China and the US and growing tensions over territorial disputes between Beijing and its neighbors, particularly in the South China Sea. The third question which this thesis studies is: how have these changes influenced the Sino-Indian competition in
Myanmar.
The following thesis answers the first question by arguing that Burma’s geopolitical location is the main reason for this competition, or put simply, Myanmar has such a high value for China and India because of its location. On this basis, the Sino-Indian competition in the Southeast Asian country has three drivers, in order of importance: the regional geostrategies of China and India, their desire to exploit its energy resources and their quest to gain influence in Burma’s domestic politics. Of these three, the regional geostrategies of China and India, which lead them to attempt to use Burma as a springboard to achieve larger political and economic objectives in the region, is the single most important driver of the competition. What unifies the three separate drivers of the competition is that each of them matters to China and India only because of Myanmar’s geopolitical position between them and the importance this position gives to the country.
To illustrate this point if Myanmar was located in South America instead of Southeast
Asia, neither country would try to dominate it because it would have little place in the regional geostrategy of both countries, its domestic politics would matter little to them and even its rich energy resources would be much less important, just one of many distant overseas sources of gas and oil. In such a case, there would be no Sino-Indian competition over Burma.
4 On the second question, how these three drivers generate competition, I argue that each of them represents an issue on which the interests of both sides are incompatible.
The regional geostrategies of both sides create a classical security dilemma as Burma has serious impact on the security of China and India and on their position in South and
Southeast Asia, thus increasing their stakes in having influence in the country. Burma’s energy resources are also a source of contention, not only because they are a limited resource but also because they are geographically close to both countries and therefore offer a cheaper and more reliable source of energy for either side that the alternatives.
The desire of both powers to gain influence in Myanmar’s domestic politics also generates contest, as this influence not only serves to protect one side’s legitimate interests inside Myanmar but also gives it a relative advantage over the other.
In response to the third question, I argue that as a result of the changes inside Burma and in the international affairs of Asia, the Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar has slightly accelerated and become more complex. These changes have also made the Sino-
Indian competition more equal, have introduced new important players on the stage, such as the US and Japan, have produced a backlash against China in Burma and have increased Myanmar’s value in Beijing’s eyes.
After answering these three questions, I briefly take a “big picture” view of the Sino-
Indian competition in Burma and outline what the findings of the thesis reveal about the dynamics of the competition and the relationship between this competition and the larger relationship between Beijing and New Delhi. On the dynamics of the competition, I argue that what is at stake in the contest for Burma is the security of both sides ( but especially of India) and their desire to make use of Burma’s potential as a transportation hub in
5 order to achieve future benefits such as regional influence, trade and domestic economic development. I also conclude that the independent policy of Myanmar, which tries to keep a balance between China and India, and Washington’s Burma policy have also been important factors which influence the dynamics of the competition. On the relationship between the competition in Myanmar and the larger China-India relationship, I conclude that the larger Sino-Indian competition is the reason why Beijing and Delhi compete in
Burma. Nevertheless, the Sino-Indian contest in Burma is one of the drivers of the larger competition between the two sides, as it deepens their mistrust and leads their geostrategic interests to clash. Hence, the two competitions reinforce each other.
However, before plunging into the arguments briefly outlined above, it is necessary to do three things: explain why Sino-Indian relations in Burma should be characterized as a competition, set up a theoretical framework for analyzing the competition, and review the modest literature on the subject.
Why competition?
This thesis is based on the premise that the interactions between China and India in
Burma constitute a form of competition. While it is inherently difficult to reduce as complex a relationship as the one between China and India in Myanmar to one characteristic, it is fair to argue that the main feature which defines this relationship is competition. Broadly speaking, there are four reasons for this claim.
First, it is very clear that there is competition in the broader relationship between China and India and that this competition inevitably affects Sino-Indian relations in Burma.
This competition is complex and multifaceted. On the security side, both countries have
6 massive militaries which have been expanding and modernizing for years, thus inevitably generating a security dilemma. This security dilemma has been manifested many times, in actions such as India’s reworking of its defense concept to allow fighting on two fronts against both China and Pakistan in 20093, the spiraling militarization of the Sino-Indian border in recent years4, and Beijing’s warnings against Delhi’s military buildup and alleged attempt at containing China in official publications such as People’s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party5. On the political side of their relationship, Beijing and New Delhi have clashed over bilateral issues such as their border dispute, the Tibet issue, the recognition of territories such as Sikkim and Kashmir and, increasingly, over the use of water resources in the Himalayas6. Tellingly, most of these issues are not new but have been contested by the two sides for decades, a testimony to the underlying competition in Sino-Indian relations. More broadly, the bilateral relationship has suffered from what C. Raja Mohan calls the “paradox of Sino-
Indian relations”7, the regular cycle of attempts to resolve the issues above and reset the relationship and their inevitable failure, every couple of years. To this, we have to add a
3 Rajat Pandit,“Army reworks war doctrine for Pakistan, China”, The Times of India , December 30, 2009, accessed on December 16,2012 http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-12-30/india/28104699_1_war-doctrine-new-doctrine- entire-western-front 4 Frank Jack Daniel, ”Special Report: In Himalayan arms race, China one-ups India,” Reuters,( Jul 30, 2012 ), accessed on February 18,2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/30/us-india-china- idUSBRE86T00G20120730 5 Please see He Zude and Fang Wei,” India's increasing troop may go nowhere”, China Youth Daily ,reprinted in People’s Daily, November 15,2011,accessed on February 10,2013 http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90777/7644825.html and Gautam Datt, “Chinese media warns India on military build-up”, India Today, November 11,2011,accessed on February 10,2013, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/chinese-media-india-beijing-opponent/1/159457.html 6 “Unquenchable thirst”, The Economist, November 19th 2011, accessed on Feb,12,2013 http://www.economist.com/node/21538687 7 C. Raja Mohan, Samundra Manthan: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific,(Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2012),14
7 difficult bilateral history which has seen one war between the two sides in 1962, decades of mistrust and the heavy burden of many failed attempts to turn the page.
Beyond the strictly bilateral matters, the two sides have also clashed often on the larger international stage. Recent examples include China’s refusal to clearly support India’s bid to join the UN Security Council and India’s tacit support for Vietnam in the South China
Sea dispute. Beijing and Delhi’s international partnerships have also reinforced their competition on the international stage. While China has established an “all-weather” friendship with India’s arch-enemy, Pakistan, India has not only built a partnership with the US, which deeply worries China, but has also increased its cooperation with Japan and Vietnam amid their growing tensions with the Middle Kingdom. On top of this, each of the two sides has tried to penetrate the other’s backyard, in effect, attempting to encircle the other side: China has expanded its presence in the Indian Ocean and South
Asia, whereas India has ventured into the South China Sea and even in the Pacific.
Beyond this analysis of policy and capabilities, however, the ultimate testimony to the
Sino-Indian competition is the way the public discourse in each country perceives the motives of the other. While Chinese analysis often claims that India envies China and aims to contain its rise, Indian commentary frequently presents China as aggressive and frets about its alleged designs to encircle India through a “string of pearls”8. Polls have also carried out this mistrust. While the percentage of Indians with negative views of
China varies substantially through the years, they are consistently more than those with
8 Sonu Trivedi, “Myanmar and Dynamics of Sino-Indian Engagement” in Sino-Indian Relations: Challenges and Opportunities for 21st Century, ed. Sudhir Kumar Singh, (New Delhi: Pentagon Press, ,2011),349
8 positive views and the same is true for China9. In short, the public of each side judges the motives of the other as suspicious, at the very least, and even unfriendly. All this breeds a sense of competition which reflects on the policy of both sides toward Myanmar.
Second, the Sino-Indian interaction in Burma can be classified as competition because history demonstrates that there is a “seesaw effect” in in the relationship between China and India in Myanmar: the more influence there is for one side, the less there is for the other. Thus, in periods when the relationship between Burma and China was at its strongest, such as the early 1960s and the 1988-1993 period, Myanmar’s relationship with India was in a poor state, as exemplified by their tensions over the 1962 eviction of
200 000 Indians from Burma and the nadir that the Delhi-Yangon relationship reached in the aftermath of the “8888” uprising in 1988. More generally, the whole period between
1988 and 2009 has seen greater Chinese influence and less Indian one, which was one the main reason that prompted Delhi to try, unsuccessfully, to push the balance between the two sides back to where it was before 1988 and spark the competition which we discuss in this project. Similarly, when relations between Burma and India were at their best, admittedly this happened more rarely that in the previous case, the relationship between
Burma and China was not particularly good. Examples of such times are the early 1950s,
9 The Pew Global Attitudes Project indicates that, in 2011, 35% of Indians regarded China negatively as opposed to 25% who regarded it positively, while the figures for 2012 are 31% against 23%. Pew Global Attitudes Project, accessed on December 16, 2012 http://www.pewglobal.org/database/?indicator=24&country=100&response=Unfavorable The BBC/Globe Scan polls indicate that ,in 2012, 40% of Chinese had a negative view of India’s global influence, while 35% had a positive one. BBC/Globe Scan/PIPA Poll, accessed on December 16, 2012 http://www.globescan.com/images/images/pressreleases/bbc2012_country_ratings/2012_bbc_country% 20rating%20final%20080512.pdf However, it is important to note that figures very substantially over the years. For example, in 2011, the BBC/Globe Scan/PIPA poll found that the shocking 52% of Indians have a negative view of China’s global influence, as opposed to 25% who had a positive one. BBC World Service Country Rating Poll, GlobeScan/ Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), 2011, accessed on August 2, 2012 http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2011/03_march/07/poll.pdf
9 when the early U Nu government, which was close to India, had a very tense relationship with the young PRC and , in the late 1960s, after China and Myanmar broke relations following anti-Chinese riots in Burma in 1967. This “seesaw effect” has also been repeated more recently in 2011 and 2012, when a backlash against China’s influence in
Burma was combined with an upsurge in relations with Delhi which culminated in
Manmohan Singh’s visit to Burma, the first visit to Myanmar of an Indian prime minister in decades. Of course, the examples above represent extreme cases, as most of the time the “seesaw” is much better balanced even if one side has more influence than the other.
Third, each of the two sides has considered the growth of the influence of the other in
Burma as a threat to its security because they have both defined Myanmar as a country of great importance. India has seen Myanmar as a key country and as a result, according to the influential Indian strategic thinker K.M. Pannikar, “Burma in the hands of another
Power would….be a serious menace to India”10 .The leading Indian expert Mohan Malik concurs, claiming that Burma is a buffer zone between China and India, the disappearance of which would threaten the peace between the two nations11. Indian policymakers have also clearly embraced this logic, as the emergence of the China-
Burma entente in the early nineties prompted Delhi to send its foreign secretary in 1993 to extract guarantees from Myanmar’s junta that there would be no Chinese military bases in Myanmar12. Although he received such guarantees, India’s fears have not been alleviated. Delhi has consistently pressed for more assurances that Beijing would not use’s Burma’s soil to threaten India, to the point that Yangon allowed India , in 2005, to
10 Quoted in C. Raja Mohan, Samundra Manthan, 175 11 Malik, China and India,209 12 John Garver, Protracted Contest: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Twentieth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press,2001),270
10 inspect the site of a suspected Chinese intelligence facility on the Coco Islands to prove that it does not exist13. Beijing also regards Myanmar as a country of “special importance to China” according to Chinese scholar Zhao Hong who sees the two giants locked in a
“rivalry” in Burma over their regional influence14. Like India, China is unlikely to accept a massive foreign influence in Myanmar,as it would be “suffocated” if it loses Burma, in the words of the leading Chinese newspaper Global Times15. While Chinese commentary usually emphasizes potential US influence in Burma as a counter to China’s, the same logic extends to India, as suggested by another editorial in Global Times penned by the leading Chinese Myanmar expert Bi Shihong16. Just as important, as many Chinese experts see India as a US partner in containing China, they, by default, consider Delhi’s influence in Burma as equally detrimental to Chinese interests as that of Washington.
This conceptualization of the role of the other side in Burma, in security terms, inevitably breeds competition.
Fourth, one can speak of Sino-Indian competition in Burma because much of China and
India’s activities in the Southeast Asian country are aimed at establishing a long-term strategic or economic advantage in Burma and the region, something which invariably puts their strategic interests at odds. As Burma has great potential to become a regional energy source and an important transportation hub, both countries strive to place themselves in a position to exploit this potential in the future. As a result, China and India compete for the chance to develop this potential in the best way that serves their interests.
13 Andrew Selth, “Burma’s Coco Islands: Rumors and Realities in the Indian Ocean,” Working Paper Series, Southeast Asia Research Centre, The City University of Hong Kong (2008),11 accessed September 29, 2012, http://www6.cityu.edu.hk/searc/Data/FileUpload/294/WP101_08_ASelth.pdf 14 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar relations,318 15 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar relations,378 16 Li Shihong, ”India’s past ties to Myanmar not forgotten”, Global Times ,Nov.29,2012, accessed on December 16,2012 http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/747304.shtml
11 This is especially true with transportation infrastructure, such a ports and roads, and gas infrastructure, both of which, once built, will determine the regional economic and strategic map and direct resources and traffic in one direction or another. Thus China strives to build fast the China-Myanmar transportation corridor which would connect
China’s relatively underdeveloped province of Yunnan with Southeast Asia and extend dramatically China’s economic links with the inland parts of Southeast Asia, tapping its rich resources in the process. India’s plan has been to build the so-called Trilateral
Highway which would connect its poor Northeast with Thailand through northern Burma and direct the flow of goods and resources toward India. While the two projects are not, theoretically, mutually exclusive, the one who manages to build the infrastructure first would be able to gain substantial economic advantage. Of course, all this is without considering the substantial profit to be made by Chinese or Indian companies in building such infrastructure.
However, two critically important points should be made here.
The Sino-Indian competition both in Burma (and actually on larger level) is a “limited competition”, not a full-scale one. There are three reasons for this. First, there are limits to how far China and India are ready to go in pursuing their competition in Burma, as each side knows that a dramatic escalation of this competition would have serious costs and might drive Myanmar in to opposite camp. Such an escalation would also seriously affect the already strained Sino-Indian relationship, threatening the security of both sides in the process. Second, while competition predominates in Sino-Indian interactions in
Burma, there is also some cooperation, for example in joint energy development which
12 benefits both sides, as it keep energy prices lower than would be the case otherwise17.
There is also a lot of room to expand this cooperation in border trade and infrastructure building, on the background of both sides’ growing economic links. Third, competition in
Burma happens on the backdrop of a substantial and growing cooperation at the larger relationship between Beijing and New Delhi which imposes limits to their competition in
Burma and beyond. In brief, whereas the Sino-Indian interaction in Burma is indeed a competition, this competition has limits.
It is also very important to point out that the Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar during the last two decades has been an asymmetrical competition for several reasons.
China, a more powerful and richer country than India, has been able to commit much greater resources to competing in Burma than India has. This has been particularly obvious in China’s ability to provide loans to Burma and sponsor large infrastructure projects in its Southeast Asian neighbor, activities which India would find difficult to match financially. Just as important, Burma’s military regime has usually preferred
Beijing to Delhi because of China’s willingness and ability to defend the military junta on the international stage, particularly at the UN, as was dramatically proved during
Burma’s 2007 protests when China vetoed a UN resolution condemning Myanmar. In comparison, India was neither willing to stand for the military regime on the international stage, nor capable to do so, to the same extent as China, as it does not have a permanent seat at the UN Security Council. Moreover, Burma’s military regime generally mistrusted
India for many years on account of its support for Myanmar’s opposition, which it
17 Rosalind Reischer,” Sino-Indian Energy Cooperation in Burma: Toward an Integrated Asian Energy Market?,” Asia Eye, Project 2049,July 5,2012, accessed on December 17,2012 http://blog.project2049.net/2012/07/sino-indian-energy-cooperation-in-burma.html
13 compared negatively with China’s staunch support for the tatmadaw18. Finally, while both China and India have been developing fast economically, China has emerged faster as a global economic powerhouse and thus has offered Myanmar greater opportunities for trade and investment. As a result of all this, China has often gained the upper hand in its competition with India in Burma and has managed to secure more influence in the
Southeast Asia country than Delhi has. However, this should not be misinterpreted to mean that China has won its competition with India in Myanmar; the competition is still ongoing and China is far away from dominating Burma.
As we have determined that there is competition, and clarified some important points about it, it is necessary to understand what such a completion is, an endeavor in which international relations theory can help us.
International Relations Theory
What does international relations theory tells us about the Sino-Indian competition in
Burma? As China and India are clearly two great powers, a term difficult to define but largely accepted in describing both countries, and the topic is power competition, it is reasonable to seek an answer in the realist school of international relations theory.
Realism generally regards competition as an inherent characteristic of an anarchic international system in which states seek to maximize their security, although its different strands explain its prevalence in different ways. Classical realism holds that competition for power is part of human nature19 while neoclassical realism (also known as structural realism) sees it as a function of the distribution of power among states, a distribution
18 Myanmar’s military 19 See Hans Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace ,Seventh Edition (US: McGraw,2005)
14 which makes them compete to ensure their security, either by balancing each other as a result of a security dilemma (defensive realism) or by seeking to maximize their own power and achieve hegemony (offensive realism). The realist analysis explains well why
China and India compete and, particularly, why India tries to balance against China’s superior power and the perceived threat it poses to India. However, its main flaw is that it considers this competition at the level of the international system, whereas our concern is competition in a specific country. Of course, it can be argued that the competition over a specific country is just a manifestation of a larger competition on international level.
However, such an argument hardly gives us a sufficient framework for analyzing the
Sino-Indian competition in Burma and does not differentiate between the different countries in which this competition takes place.
Beyond the realist theory, there is extensive scholarship which focuses on competition.
While this scholarship is beyond the scope of this study, it contains four important insights which we can use in analyzing the Sino-Indian competition in Burma. First, competition is often understood in terms of a dyad, a pair of two countries which compete with each other, as opposed to the realist competition which usually involves several competitors (except in bipolar systems)20.Second, literature explains this dyad in constructivist terms, as a way of thinking with which each side of the competition construes as its “principal rival”21.This is clearly useful in understanding the Sino-Indian competition in Burma because this competition has clearly been a two-sided rivalry, at least until Burma’s opening to the West, and its dyadic nature has dictated its competitive
20 Zeev Moaz and Ben D. Mor Bound by Struggle: The Strategic Evolution of Enduring International Rivalries, (Ann Arbor :University of Michigan Press, 2002),231 21 See William Thompson “Identifying Rivals and Rivalries in World Politics”, International Studies Quarterly Vol.45,N.4,(Dec. 2001):557-586
15 logic in zero-sum terms. Third, spatial proximity is crucial element of competition, as states fear their neighbors more than other states22, because, according to scholar Barry
Buzan, “threats often travel more easily over short distances than over long ones” and hence “insecurity is often associated with proximity”23. China and India are neighbors, a fact which not only fuels many of their tensions, but also inevitably involves Burma in them, as its geographical proximity guarantees that if either power comes to dominate the
Southeast Asian nation, it would pose a substantial threat to the other. Finally, often the root cause of competition is the future position or the vision for the future that rivals pursue, i.e. it is a competition more over conflicting futures than over the present, in what
Thompson calls “strategic rivalry”24. This insight is particularly important as it draws attention to the fact that the Sino-Indian competition in Burma is not focused only on immediate benefits but just as much on the future position of either power in Burma,
Southeast Asia and, by extension, the international relations of Asia. These insights help us understand better the Sino-Indian rivalry in Burma. However, they do not give answer to the principal issue: why China and India compete for influence in Myanmar.
Here it is useful to turn to the substantial scholarship on regional hegemony which, in general, is infused by the realist understanding of power competition25. This scholarship focuses on the attempt of a “primary power”, an established or aspiring hegemon within a
22See John A. Vasquez (1995). “Why Do Neighbours Fight? Proximity, Interaction or Territoriality” Journal of Peace Research Vol.32,N.3,(1995): 277-293 23Quoted in Renaud Egreteau, “L’analyse de la « rivalité » dans les relations internationales : Le cas de l’Inde et de la Chine”, Questions de recherche / Research in question, N. 23 (Dec. 2007) :14, accessed on February 1,2013 http://www.sciencespo.fr/ceri/sites/sciencespo.fr.ceri/files/qdr23.pdf 24 Thompson “Identifying Rivals and Rivalries in World Politics”:559-560 25 See David J. Myers, Regional Hegemons: Threat Perception and Strategic Response, ed. David Myers,(Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press,1991) and William Zimmerman, “Hierarchical Regional Systems and the Politics of System Boundaries”, International Organization (December,1972):18-36
16 region, to establish hegemony over “peripheral dependents” which are smaller, weaker states, and “bargainers”, states which are strong enough to bargain with the hegemon26 over their position within the order it has established. The regional hegemon in such scholarship is defined by John Mearsheimer as “a state that is so powerful that it dominates all other countries in the system”27 within a particular region. The hegemon exercises its hegemony over an orbit of smaller sates28, a hegemony that, according to
Destradi, can range from hard imperial dominance to soft leadership29. However,
Destradi points out that such hegemony is informal,a feature which differentiates hegemony from empire, an entity which formally occupies and dominates a smaller country30. Naturally, the hegemon strives to reject any attempt by an “external challenger” to project power in such a hegemonic system of states and to threaten its dominant position31. When such a threat materializes, the hegemon can choose from a menu of competitive options which includes a series of responses such as deterrence, self-strengthening and counter-threat32.
26 David J. Myers, “Threat Perception and Strategic Response of the Regional Hegemons: A Conceptual Overview” in Regional Hegemons: Threat Perception and Strategic Response, ed. David Myers,(Boulder, Colorado:Westview Press,1991), 5-6 27 John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: Norton, 2003),140 28 This has also been referred to as “the theory of great power orbits” which focuses on regional groupings of states. See Ronald Yalem, “Theories of Regionalism” in Regional Politics and World Order, ed. Richard A. Falk and Saul H. Mendlovitz, (San Francisco:Freeman,1973),223 29 Quoted in Zahid Shahab Ahmed, “Understanding the dynamics of regionalism and regional hegemony in South America and South Asia”, CLACSO (2012): 9, accessed on Dec 13,2012 http://biblioteca.clacso.edu.ar/clacso/sur-sur/20121108043205/OP7.pdf 30 Ibid 31 David J. Myers, “Threat Perception and Strategic Response of the Regional Hegemons: A Conceptual Overview,”6 32 David J. Myers, “Patterns of Aspiring Hegemon Threat Perception and Strategic Response: Conclusion and Directions for Research” in Regional Hegemons: Threat Perception and Strategic Response, ed. David Myers,(Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press,1991),308
17 How does this model apply to the Sino-Indian competition in Burma? In such a framework, Burma can be regarded as a “peripheral dependent” or as a “bargainer”33 , while China and India are either a regional hegemon (real or aspiring) or an external challenger. In this interpretation, the Sino-Indian competition can be regarded as a classical realist struggle for hegemony, with the caveats that neither country is a status quo power as both countries are presently rising and they are still aspiring hegemons, instead of real ones. Using such a framework has substantial strengths. It not only explains the Sino-Indian contest as a traditional great power competition for hegemony, which is fueled by a classical security dilemma, but also explicates why it has persisted for so long. Just as important, such a framework also puts the competition in Burma in the context of the wider, Pan-Asian struggle for influence between Delhi and Beijing and their desire to gain regional preeminence, questions on which a lot has been written. In addition, it does not mechanically treat Myanmar as an object of the competition, but defines it as an independent actor, a “bargainer”, which conforms to our knowledge that
Burma’s policy has affected the competition between Beijing and New Delhi. However, the regional hegemony framework also has two serious weaknesses: first, it presupposes that Burma belongs to the same region as China or India and, second, that one of the two powers is a real or aspiring regional hegemon while the other is an extra-regional
“external challenger”. On the first weakness, while Burma has been culturally influenced by both China and India, it is neither part of the South Asia, the home of Indian civilization, nor of East Asia which has been shaped by the Sinic civilization. Instead,
Burma belongs to a separate Southeast Asian culture which it shares with neighbors such
33 Within this framework, it would make more sense to consider Myanmar as a “bargainer” rather than a “peripheral dependent” because it is sufficiently strong to resist some pressure from the hegemon and bargain with it for the conditions on which it would accept its leadership.
18 as Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. Similarly, on the second weakness, as Myanmar does not belong to either China or India’s region, it is difficult to see which power is the aspiring hegemon and which is the ”external challenger” in the competition for hegemony over Burma.
However, these weaknesses are not insurmountable. If we change our definition of a region from a cultural and historical one to a geopolitical one, China, India and Burma end up sharing the same neighborhood. Before actually formulating a geopolitical definition of a region, let us first look at the concept of geopolitics. According to a definition by Zbigniew Brzezinski which presents the general consensus of most sholars on the subject, geopolitics is” the combination of geographic and political factors determining the condition of a state or region, and emphasizing the impact of geography on politics”34. To this, the noted geopolitical thinker Jacub J. Grygiel adds the importance of lines of communication and centers of resources as key elements of geopolitics which give geography a strategic and political value35 .Through the lenses of such a geopolitical understanding, a region is defined by its political and strategic interactions and its economic and transportation network, all of which integrate it as one geopolitical organism. Therefore, as China, India and Myanmar share such political and strategic interactions and a small but growing economic and transportation network, they are part of the same geopolitical region which also includes much of South and Southeast Asia. It is important to note that this region seems to be expanding in size as the increasing interaction between states in Asia leads to integration, something which would make the
34Zbigniew Brzezinski, Game Plan: A Geostrategic Framework for the Conduct of the U.S.–Soviet Contest ( Boston: The Atlantic Monthly Press,1986), xiv 35 Jacub J. Grygiel, Great Powers and Geopolitical Change ( Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,2008),22
19 competition for influence inside it stronger, as it encompasses more areas of interest for both China and India than it did in the past36. A good example of this geopolitical expansion is the growing discussion of China and India in terms of an Indo-Pacific region37, although it is also important to caution that, at present, the emergence of such a geopolitical region is only in its early stages. Moreover, as Grygiel points out, lines of communication and centers of natural resources determine the geopolitical importance of places, a feature of geopolitics which makes Myanmar particularly important, on account of its location close to vital lines of communication for both sides and of its rich natural resources. It is in this shared region, of which Burma is just a part, that China and India aspire to establish regional hegemony. As a result, they see the other side as a potential
“outside challenger” who does not belong to the region but tries to challenge their aspirational hegemony
However, there is one more way in which the study of geopolitics can enrich our understanding of the Sino-Indian competition in Burma; with the concept of geostrategy.
A subdivision of geopolitics, geostrategy has been a highly contested term. Nevertheless, its essential meaning is well captured by Grygel who writes that “Geostrategy is the geographic direction of a state’s foreign policy. More precisely, geostrategy describes where a state concentrates its efforts by projecting military power and directing diplomatic activity.”38 This definition integrates geographical and geopolitical facts into a state’s foreign policy. Analyzed from this framework it is obvious that what makes
36 It is interesting to note that the gradual emergence of this geopolitical region began in the 1990s, thus coinciding with the emergence of the Sino-Indian competition in Burma 37 For example see C. Raja Mohan, Samundra Manthan: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Indo- Pacific,(Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,2012),212-216 38 Jacub J. Grygiel, Great Powers and Geopolitical Change,22
20 Burma an important element of Sino-Indian competition is not just its important geopolitical location, which was the same before the competition started, but its place in the foreign policies of Beijing and New Delhi. For example, if China did not seek to develop its influence in the Indian Ocean and increase its presence close to the oceans’
Sea Lines of Communication (SLOCs), Burma will be much less important for Beijing and there will be less competition over it.
The theoretical overview above helps us understand the Sino-Indian competition in
Burma as a classical realist competition for hegemony within a geopolitical region, of which Myanmar is just one part, although a particularly important one due to its key location and its place in the geostrategy of both sides. This enriches our analysis in several ways. It demonstrates that the very fact that Myanmar is located between China and India inevitably makes it a point of competition between the two sides. However, it does not tell us what particular issues drive this competition and make the interests of the two sides difficult to reconcile. After all, Burma has been located between China and
India for a long time but the competition has become prominent only in the last two decades. Moreover, this theoretical background indicates that the ultimate aim of both sides is to establish some form of hegemony over Burma, which inevitably frames their interaction in the country in zero sum terms (against the background of their larger competition, it is hard to imagine that the two sides will accept a co-hegemony in foreseeable future).The overview above also helps us comprehend Burma’s role in the competition. Myanmar emerges as a classical “bargainer”, an actor who bargains with both sides of the competition in order to secure its interests, contributing to their contest in the process. Finally, the overview above points to the fact that the geostrategy of both
21 powers is a key factor which determines their competition in Burma as it integrates each side’s understanding of the geopolitical importance of Myanmar into their wider foreign policy strategy and enshrines it in policy.
Literature Overview
The literature on the Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar in English is, regrettably, both modest in terms of amount and mostly generalist in scope. In spite of the recent surge in interest in Burma and in its relationship with Beijing, the topic is rarely studied and when it is, this is done either briefly, in articles and short reports, or only in passing, as a part of the larger Sino-Indian competition. Moreover, much of the writing on the subject originates from India, which is natural as the question of the competition and the
Chinese influence in Burma is a more important policy question for India than it is for
China or for any other country, except Burma itself. Let us now briefly outline the main points of discussion on the competition.
While the discussion on the Sino-Indian competition in Burma started in the 1990s with articles by David Steinberg39, Mohan Malik40 and Andrew Selth41, it has not produced a lot of analysis and, as of the time of this writing, has not resulted in a major book on the subject42, in English. Thus, most discussion comes in the form of book chapters and articles which usually offer a general overview of the topic and seem to focus more on
39 David Steinberg, ”Myanmar as Nexus: Sino-Indian rivalries on the frontier,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism (1993):1-8 40 Mohan Malik, “Sino-Indian rivalry in Myanmar: implications for regional security”, Contemporary Southeast Asia (September 1994),137-156 41 Andrew Selth,”Burma and the Strategic competition between China and India”, The Journal of Strategic Studies, (June 1996),213-230 42 Please note that Thant Myint-U's Where China meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia cannot be counted as a book on this rivalry, as it is mostly an exquisite travelogue rather than a foreign policy book.
22 facts than on analysis. A major exception to this rule is the work of Renaud Egreteau who, having written his Ph.D. thesis on the topic, has studied the competition in great detail for years. Egreteau has characterized the Sino-Indian contest in Burma as a “quiet rivalry”, without direct competition between the two sides, and has warned against the dangers of exaggerating its intensity or importance43. In his view, the rivalry is one-sided, as China, having the upper hand, does not compete with India, as India does with China.
Furthermore, Egreteau argues that Delhi’s efforts to counter China’s large influence in
Burma have not been sufficiently successful.
Several points about the Sino-Indian competition in Burma emerge from the discussion on the subject. First, most authors consider the competition as part of a much larger regional contest between China and India, a view which was most comprehensively iterated by John Garver in his 2001 book, Protracted Contest, which, among other things, examines the history of the Sino-Indian competition in Burma44.More recently, authors such as Mohan Malik45, C. Raja Mohan46 and Renaud Egreteau47 have considered this competition primarily in the context of the larger Indo-Pacific balance of power which involves China and India. Second, most authors who write on the subject seem to conceptualize the competition primarily as a one-sided contest in which an assertive
China increases its influence in Burma, while a defensive India strives to counter and
43 Renaud Egreteau,”India and China Vying for Influence in Burma - A New Assessment, ”India Review,(2008),38-72 44 John Garver, Protracted Contest: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Twentieth Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press,2001), 243-274 45 Mohan Malik, China and India: Great Power Rivals ( Boulder, Colorado: First Forum Press,2001), 199-23 46 C.Raja Mohan, Samundra Manthan: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific,(Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,2012) 47 Renaud Egreteau, “The Breakout of China-India Strategic Rivalry in Asia and the Indian Ocean,” Asian Survey 48, (2008): 937
23 limit it48.This conceptualization, while largely accurate, pays relatively little attention to the ways in which China competes against India in Myanmar and to Delhi’s other interests in Burma. Third, much of the literature, especially in the last several years, focuses on China’s interest in gaining access to the Indian Ocean as a major component of the competition49.Such literature usually regards Myanmar as a platform for China to expand its influence in the Bay of Bengal, in proximity to the Strait of Malacca and the
SLOCs of the Indian Ocean which lead to the Persian Gulf50. A closely related issue, which features prominently in the discussion, is the claim that China is building a naval facility in Burma to project power in the Bay of Bengal, as part of its “string of pearls” strategy around India, although this claim has been criticized as scaremongering by analysts such as Andrew Selth51. Fourth, much of the literature focuses on both countries’ search for energy in Burma, namely gas, oil and hydro energy, as an element of the competition which is rapidly growing in importance52. Fifth, much of the discussion on the competition also revolves around Myanmar’s traditional reluctance to be dependent
48 For example see the discussion Li Chenyang, “The Policies of Chin and India Toward Myanmar” in Myanmar/Burma: Inside Challenges, Outside Interests ed. Lex Rieffel (Washington: Brookings Institution Press,2010) and Zhao Hong, China and India's Competitive Relations with Myanmar, ICS Working Paper No. 2008-7, Institute of China Studies, University of Malaya, Retrieved September 29, 2012, http://ics.um.edu.my/images/ics/workingpaper/2008-7.pdf 49 For example see Andrew Selth, “Burma’s China Connection and the Indian Ocean”, Working Paper N.37,Strategic and Defense Studies Center, Australian National University (2003) ,accessed on December 16,2012 50 See C.Raja Mohan, Samundra Manthan: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific,(Washington:Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,2012),13-17 and Steinberg, David and Hongwei Fan, Modern China- Myanmar Relations: Dilemmas of Mutual Dependence, (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2012),313-323 51 Selth, Andrew, Chinese Military Bases in Burma: The Explosion of a Myth, Regional Outlook Paper No. 10, 2007 Chinese Military Bases in Burma: The Explosion of a Myth, Regional Outlook Paper No.10 ,Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University, (2007), accessed on Nov.16,2012 http://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0018/18225/regional-outlook-andrewselth.pdf 52 For example see Lee, Pak K., Gerald Chan & Lai-Ha Chan, China’s ““Realpolitik” Engagement with Myanmar, “ China Security, (Winter 2009): 105-126 ; Kolås, Åshild” Burma in the Balance: The Geopolitics of Gas” , Strategic Analysis, 31:4, (2007) 625-643; Marie Lall, “India-Myanmar Relations – Geopolitics and Energy in Light of the New Balance of Power in Asia,” Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore,(2008):2 and 22, accessed September 29, 2012, http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs09/Geopolitics&Energy-Lall-red.pdf
24 on foreign powers53. This reluctance is conceived as a factor in the competition because it affects Burma’s alignment with China and implies that Naypyidaw might try to break its dependence on China by turning to India or a group of states that includes India.
However, authors disagree on the extent to which Burma can free itself from Chinese dependency, with Mohan Malik arguing that this would be extremely difficult54 and
David Steinberg and Fan Hongwei claiming that this is already happening55.Sixth, the question how intense and ,indirectly, how consequential the competition has been, also features frequently in the literature. Some authors like Renaud Egreteau56 and Li
Chenyang have argued that neither the intensity of this competition, nor its stakes are as great as it is often claimed and therefore, in the words of Li Chenyang57, there is no
“great game” in Burma. However, Mohan Malik has seen a much more intense competition in Myanmar, a contest in which the encirclement of India is at stake, albeit also one which has been increasingly won by China58. Finally, the nature of the relationship between China and Myanmar is a popular topic both in the literature on the subject and in the larger debate about Burma’s future. Often in the media discourse, at least until recently, Myanmar was presented as a Chinese puppet, a client state which has become so dependent on Beijing that it had lost much of its political independence. While almost all scholars on the subject reject this simplistic narrative, they nevertheless differ on the extent of China’s influence in Burma. At one end stands Mohan Malik who argues that Beijing’s influence in Myanmar is so great that it seriously impacts Naypyidaw’s
53 See Garver, Protracted Contest,274 54 Mohan Malik, China and India,227-228 55 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,372-378 56 See Renaud Egreteau,”India and China Vying for Influence in Burma - A New Assessment,” and Li Chenyang, “The Policies of Chin and India Toward Myanmar”,130 57 Li Chenyang, “The Policies of China and India Toward Myanmar”,130 58 See Mohan Malik, China and India,199-228
25 freedom of action59 and, on the other, is Jürgen Haacke who sees the Sino-Burmese relationship as a limited alignment in which Burma has preserved its independence and has cooperated with China primarily on issues in which cooperation serves its own interests60.
Most of the points above are valid and offer us insights on the Sino-Indian competition which will be included in the following pages. However, the views on the competition presented in much of this literature also suffer from several serious weaknesses.
To begin, most writings on the Sino-Indian contest in Myanmar do not study it in detail but instead offer general overviews which, although rich in information, are usually lacking in analysis. The literature on the subject also tends to present the competition as a one-sided contest in which India is competing against China but China is not competing against India (the second point above), as Beijing’s influence In Myanmar has been triumphantly expanding for years. While it is obviously true that India is much more concerned with China’s power in Burma that the other way round, the cost for China of seeing India-dominated Burma would be high. In such a case, China would lose its access to the Indian Ocean, have its transportation corridor through Burma endangered and might witness Indian military personnel and installations in Burma, something which would affect the military balance of power on the China-India border and in India’s strategically vulnerable Northeast. Moreover, as the Sino-Indian competition in Burma is a leverage contest, the very fact that India is competing gives Naypyidaw leverage against Beijing. In addition, recent years have witnessed the development of a closer
59 Ibid 60 Jürgen Haacke, “The Nature and Management of Myanmar’s Alignment with China: The SLORC/SPDC Years,” Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 30 ,2(2011):105-140
26 partnership between India and the US which, in Chinese eyes, frames India’s influence in
Myanmar in terms of the larger US-PRC competition and hence raises its stakes.
However, arguably, the greatest weakness of the writings on the bilateral competition is the fact they do not ask what drives the Sino-Indian competition, what issues are critical to it and how they drive the competition. Instead, most literature simply lists all the interests that China and India have in Burma without evaluating their importance and ranking them. The result is a very general and somewhat vague discussion of the competition.
In addition, the existing literature does not clearly iterate how China and India’s interests in Burma are mutually exclusive and how their incompatibility generates competition. In the literature, there are only two security-related exceptionsof this omission: the potential Chinese naval presence in the Bay of Bengal, which all authors explain would threaten India’s maritime security, and the potential Chinese military presence around the Burma-India border, close to Arunachal Pradesh, which India administers but China claims. However, beyond security, when it comes to political or economic competition, most authors do not elucidate how Delhi and Beijing’s interests clash. Instead, it is assumed that, as both sides seek influence in Burma, they are, by definition, competing against each other. The result of this thinking is that the literature does not operationalize the Sino-Indian competition, i.e. it is unclear how it works in practice.
27 Finally, by the time of this writing there has not been enough analysis, particularly deep analysis, on how the recent opening and liberalization of Burma will affect the competition between the two sides in the Southeast Asian country61.
The following thesis strives to address these weaknesses but also to benefit from the insights of the literature on Sino-Indian competition in Burma. More specifically, this project hopes to offer a deeper, more comprehensive analysis on the China-India contest in Myanmar, an analysis which identifies the key issues which drive the competition and examines how the interests of both sides on these issues clash. In doing so, I hope to clarify how the Sino-Indian competition in Burma operates in practice. Just as important, this project aims to address how the recent opening and liberalization of Burma have affected the competition. My hope is that all this will contribute to the literature on the
Sino-Indian competition and help us gain a deeper understanding of this important but overlooked aspect of the China-India relationship.
Conclusions from the Discussion
What picture of the Sino-Indian competition in Burma emerges from the discussion presented above? Let us briefly summarize the conclusions to which we have arrived at this point.
We determined that the Sino-Indian interactions inside Burma can best be characterized as a competition which is part of a larger China-India relationship in which the competitive element predominates. On this background, the Sino-Indian competition in
61 This is not to suggest that there hasn’t been any analysis on the topic. For examples see Bertil Lintner, “The Kyi to the Great Game East”,Tehelka, November 20,2012,accessed on December 16, 2012 http://tehelka.com/the-kyi-to-the-great-game-east/?singlepage=1
28 Myanmar emerges as a geopolitical competition between two aspiring regional hegemons who seek to establish some form of hegemony over their smaller neighbor. In this competition, Burma acts as a “bargainer”, a state which bargains with both giants in order to secure its interests. The competition between the two sides is essentially a traditional realist contest for power and influence, a contest in which both sides are concerned not only with absolute but also with relative gains. However, what makes the Sino-Indian competition in Burma more complex and much more serious is its geopolitical character, i.e. it is determined by Burma’s geographical position as a country where the spheres of influences of Beijing and Delhi intersect. At a larger level, the geopolitics of the competition in Burma make it part of a much larger Sino-Indian contest for influence in a newly emerging geopolitical region which includes South Asia, Southeast Asia, and much of the Indo-Pacific. Nevertheless, it is important to caution against exaggerating this competition. We determined that the Sino-Indian competition is not a full-blown contest but a limited one because the interests of Delhi and Beijing rule out a direct confrontation over Myanmar.
The above discussion has also found that while there have been writings on the competition between China and India in Burma, there has been almost no major study of the competition. The limited literature on the subject explores several key issues connected to the competition but does not offer a comprehensive treatment of the subject.
More important, the literature fails to properly address three issues: what issues drive the competition, how they generate competition between the two sides and how the recent changes in Burma have affected the competition. For this reason and because these three issues are indeed very important, the following thesis focuses on them.
29 The Drivers of the Competition
Much of this thesis is focused on the principal drivers of the Sino-Indian competition in
Burma, i.e. the main issues which lead China and India to compete over Myanmar. These principal drivers of the Sino-Indian competition are the regional geostrategies of both powers, their drive to exploit their smaller neighbor’s energy resources and their search for influence in Burma’s domestic politics. One chapter is devoted to each of these drivers and they are ranked in order of their importance, with geopolitics being the most important driver, followed by energy resources and, lastly, the search of both powers for influence in Burma’s domestic politics.
The drivers have been ranked in this order, based on three measures which serve to evaluate their relative importance: to what extent China and India’s interests clash on each of the drivers; the potential benefits and costs associated with each driver; the significance of each of the three drivers in the larger foreign policies of Beijing or Delhi.
To see why the drivers have been ranked in this order, it is necessary to briefly assess each of them according to these three criteria and see how they rank on each benchmark.
On the first measure, the extent to which the interests of both sides clash on each driver, it is clear that the respective geostrategies of China and India are the most important driver. It is on this driver that the interests of the two sides conflict most powerfully and are most difficult to reconcile. The reason is that the geostrategy of each side aims to use
Burma as a means to increase its regional influence and help it achieve regional preeminence. Thus, the goals of China and India’s regional geostrategies are inherently in conflict. Moreover, in the geostrategies of China and India, Myanmar is a key land bridge
30 which gives them access to either the Indian Ocean, for China, or to Southeast Asia, for
India (a topic discussed in Chapter Three). As access would confer considerable benefits and advantages to one of the two sides, it affects the balance of power between India and
China. For example, Chinese access to the Indian Ocean would fundamentally change the balance of power in this body of water to India’s disadvantage, as it would allow Beijing to keep warships in the ocean and substantially expand its economic and political connections with countries in the ocean’s littoral. Furthermore, Burma’s geopolitical location makes the country important for both Beijing and Delhi’s military strategies as it can confer to one side substantial military and intelligence advantage over the other, in case of conflict on their disputed border, or in the waters of the northern Indian Ocean.
Finally, the geostrategies of Beijing and Delhi have a strong economic element and, as a result, whichever country manages to build the necessary transportation and energy infrastructure would be in a position to tap the lion’s share of the economic potential of
Myanmar as a regional hub. Hence, in the case of geostrategy, India and China have several important political, economic and security interests which clash and make it a critical driver of the competition. As some of these interests involve the security of the two sides, this geostrategic clash of interests has a strong zero-sum element.
The exploitation of Burma’s energy resources deserves to be ranked second on this count ,the extent to which the interests of both sides clash, because these resources are mostly finite62 and therefore the gain for one side is usually ,although not always, a loss for the other. There is clearly a clash of interests. However, this driver is less important than geostrategy because it does not present a clash of as many interests as the
62 Obviously, this is true for oil and gas, but not for Burma’s substantial hydroelectric potential which is renewable and thus, in theory, infinite.
31 geostrategies of both sides and these interests are not security-related, a relationship which immediately increases their importance to a critical level and introduces a powerful zero-sum element. Put bluntly, either side can tolerate a situation in which the other taps Myanmar’s energy resources, which anyway cannot fundamentally alter both countries’ energy situation, but can hardly accept a scenario in which the other has a military presence in the Southeast Asian state.
Finally, the desire of China and India to gain influence in Burma’s domestic politics is clearly the driver on which the interests of the two sides clash the least, as such influence is primarily aimed at guaranteeing the stability of the borders of both sides and protecting the security of their minorities in Myanmar. As it is obvious, these interests are not, in themselves, mutually exclusive and it is only the competition between China and India on other issues which paints them in competitive terms.
On the second benchmark, how the drivers rank according to the benefits and costs they generate, geostrategy again stands out as the most important driver. Geostrategically,
Burma promises China and India huge benefits, such as greater influence in their strategic periphery, progress toward the achievement of their desired regional preeminence, great economic opportunities and the economic development of some of the less developed parts of the two countries. In the case of China, the geostrategic driver also promises to enhance greatly Beijing’s economic security because, once established in Myanmar,
China would be able to increase the security of its energy and merchandise shipments through the Indian Ocean and decrease the chance that they would be blocked at the
Strait of Malacca, in case of conflict with the US. As the list above clearly demonstrates, geostrategy is such an important driver of the competition because it offers huge benefits
32 to the two great powers. The geostrategic costs of failing in the competition are correspondingly steep. Neither country would like to see the other establish regional preeminence or increase its influence in their shared periphery; as such developments might easily threaten its security and burden it with considerable economic and political costs. Just as important, the country which fails to take the upper hand in the geostrategic competition would not only tap much smaller economic benefits but would see its economic interaction with Burma and ,to some extent, Southeast Asia constrained by the infrastructure and the business relationships which the other power has built. Therefore both the benefits and the costs associated with the geostrategic driver of the competition are huge.
The driver which ranks second, according to the benefits and costs associated with it, is the search of Beijing and Delhi for influence in Myanmar’s domestic politics. Influence in Burma’s politics offers both sides the ability to protect their minorities in Myanmar, reduce the inflow of drugs from the smaller country and ensure the stability of their border with Burma by leveraging their ties with Naypyidaw. The last point is particularly important because the stability and security of the border affects provinces adjacent to
Myanmar, such as China’s Yunnan province and especially India’s Nagaland, which has long been the victim of a cross-border insurgency. The ability to promote their economic interests in Burma is another important benefit that both sides hope to gain from their influence in its politics. Conversely, a loss of political influence in Burma would face both sides with a situation in which they have to passively absorb the potential consequences of instability in Burma, such as the spillover of refugees or insurgents across the border or unrest among ethnic minorities on their own territory. In India’s case,
33 such a loss of influence in Myanmar’s domestic politics would be particularly disastrous as it can strengthen the insurgencies which destabilize India’s Northeast. In addition, if they lose influence in Burma’s domestic politics, both powers might face an increase in the flow of narcotics across the border or threats to their compatriots and economic interests in Myanmar, a particularly great concern for China which has both a huge economic presence and a large diaspora in Myanmar. Thus, this driver offers the two powers significant benefits but, more importantly, threatens them with serious costs.
However, both the benefits and the costs associated with this driver are limited in comparison to those of the geostrategic driver. Ultimately preeminence in the Northern
Indian Ocean or influence in Southeast Asia are much more important for the Chinese and Indian governments than the stability of their border with Myanmar or the status of the Chinese or Indian minorities in Burma.
The desire of Beijing and Delhi to exploit Burma’s energy resources offers the least important combination between benefits and costs for both countries and is consequently ranked third. Unquestionably, Myanmar’s energy resources would help both countries fuel their economic growth and enhance their energy security by importing energy from a close neighbor, instead of shipping it from distant countries as is usually the case.
Nevertheless, it is ranked third because these energy-related benefits are dwarfed by the combination of political, strategic, military and economic benefits that the geostrategic driver of the competition involves. Just as important, while significant in themselves,
Myanmar’s energy resources are too small to make a major difference in the energy situation of the two giants. India and China’s search for influence in Burmese politics is more important than energy as a driver of the competition because the costs for either
34 side of losing influence in Burma’s domestic politics might be very high, much higher than the costs of failing to exploit Myanmar’s energy resources. Just as important, the benefits that influence in Burma’s domestic politics offers gradually increase as
Myanmar opens for foreign business, while the potential benefits of its energy decrease, as China and India’s demand grows, reducing the relative value of Burma’s energy resources.
On the third measure for assessing the relative importance of the different drivers, the place of each driver in the larger foreign policies of China or India, geostrategy is also undoubtedly the single most important driver. For both Beijing and Delhi, their geostrategy toward Burma serves much larger goals which are a critical component of their foreign policies. For China, its geostrategy toward Burma aims not only to help
Beijing establish influence in Southeast Asia and the Northern Indian Ocean but also to bring Beijing closer to securing its vital energy supplies through the Indian Ocean and to help it break through what it perceives as a U.S. strategy of encircling China in East,
Southeast and South Asia. For India, its geostrategy toward Burma is aimed at enabling
India to increase its influence in Southeast Asia, preventing what many Indian analysts see as Chinese encirclement of India and ensuring that India emerges as the predominant regional power in the northern Indian Ocean, without Chinese competition. As these goals are a very important part of the foreign policies of both Asian giants, it is clear that geostrategy should be ranked as the number one driver of the competition on this count.
Using its place in the foreign policy of Beijing and Delhi as a measure, energy comes second as an important driver of the Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar. As both India and China have made the import of energy to fuel their impressive economic growth a
35 major objective, exploiting Myanmar’s rich energy resources plays an important role in their foreign policies. However, this driver of the competition is less important than geostrategy because Burma’s energy resources are not large enough to affect China or
India’s energy consumption while both powers’ geostrategies toward Myanmar are very important in helping to achieve some of their major foreign policy objectives. Both great powers’ search for influence in Burma’s domestic politics clearly comes third on this measure as it is of little importance for the larger foreign policies of Delhi and Beijing.
From evaluating the drivers of the competition on the three measures above, it is clear that the geostrategy of both powers is indisputably the single most important driver of the competition on all three counts. Geostrategy is the driver on which the interests of the two sides clash most decisively, the potential benefits and costs are the greatest, and the geostrategies of both powers toward Burma have the greatest impact on the larger goals of India and China’s foreign policies. Which driver comes second is more difficult to determine. The energy driver seems more important on two measures, its place in the foreign policy of both powers and the extent to which the interests of China and India clash on it, but the influence in Burma’s domestic politics driver is more important on another measure, the benefits and costs for both powers. However, as the energy driver has been ranked second on two of the three counts, it is reasonable to give it precedence over the search for influence in Myanmar’s domestic politics. Thus, we end with a ranking in importance of the three drivers which puts geostrategy as the single most important driver of the competition, followed by both sides’ search for energy in
Myanmar as number two and their drive to gain influence in Burma’s domestic politics as
36 the third most important driver. Each of these three drivers is examined in a separate chapter, with the chapters being arranged in order of importance.
Caveats
Before proceeding, however, it is necessary to make several caveats. It is important to point that much of the information about the competition and the dealings of China and
India in Burma is difficult to verify or clearly source. Due to the very closed character of
Burma’s military regime and the fact that many issues which concern China and India in
Myanmar are security sensitive or even classified, for example the relations of both powers with various insurgent groups, information is hard to find and often unreliable.
More generally, in spite of the recent interest in Burma, there is still relatively little written on the country and hence the information on many questions is limited.
Another important point is that this study adopts a unitary state model for analyzing the two great powers and therefore focuses on the foreign policies of the central governments of China and India. On each side there are subnational actors such as local governments63, businesses, cross-border ethnic groups and mafias which have their own policies and relations with Burma which are unquestionably part of the interaction of both countries with Myanmar. However, for practical reasons, the role of these actors will be considered in this thesis only as much as it has impact on the foreign policy of the central governments in Beijing and New Delhi.
63 This is particularly true for the government of China’s Yunnan province which has for many years pursued its own policy toward Burma and has been one of the main, if not the main, PRC proponent of greater Chinese involvement in the Southeast Asian country.
37 Furthermore, it is necessary to emphasize that this thesis focuses on the principal drivers of the Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar and excludes less consequential points of friction between Beijing and Delhi in Burma. Naturally, there are issues other than the three drivers under study which influence the policy of both countries to Burma and produce competition. Each country has had important ideological considerations in
Burma; Delhi, in promoting democracy, a deeply emotional issue for many in India, and,
Beijing, in preventing another authoritarian regime from falling under international pressure and domestic opposition spearheaded by Buddhist monks. While important, these considerations are hardly pivotal; either side would try to influence Myanmar regardless of the regime in power because it has substantial interests in the Southeast
Asian country. The last two decades abundantly prove this; India actively courted the tatmadaw after 1993, whereas China has put a lot of effort to sway Burma’s new democratizing government and even the opposition in the last three years. Both countries also have interests in promoting border trade with Burma and might have a reason to compete on this account, although this border trade is miniscule by the standards of their mammoth economies. China and India also have interests in developing and mining
Burma’s mineral resources and have begun to invest in this sector, a source of some competition, although hardly a key issue that can shape the policies of both governments.
None of these issues is a true driver of the competition because, being relatively minor, their impact on either side is limited and hence they produce much less competition. Just as important, on many of these issues the clash between the interests of both sides is much more limited. For these reasons, I have not expanded on these issues in the
38 following pages, although they are sometimes briefly discussed as they influence some of the three principal drivers.
Finally, this study does not analyze in depth the policy of Burma toward its two large neighbors but rather their own policies and attitudes toward the Southeast Asian country and toward each other. In short, the emphasis in this work is more on China and India than on Burma. Nonetheless, Myanmar is not portrayed as a toy in the hands of its giant neighbors but as an independent actor with considerable bearing on the Sino-Indian rivalry. Thus, while this thesis does not study Burma’s complex policies and attitudes toward China and India, it considers their impact on the Sino-India competition in the country.
Organization of the Thesis
The rest of this thesis is divided into six sections. Chapter Two overviews the context of the Sino-Indian competition by examining the historical background of the strategic triangle between China, India and Myanmar and the larger Sino-Indian relationship of which it is one part. The next three sections analyze the different factors which have driven the Sino-Indian competition in Burma, the so-called drivers. Chapter Three identifies regional geopolitics as the single most important driver of the Sino-Indian competition in Burma and argues that Myanmar’s key strategic location makes it very important for the economic and security interests of both powers. Chapter Four points to the contest to gain influence over Burma’s domestic politics as another driver of the competition and analyzes the complex reasons which make both China and India seek such an influence. Chapter Five further recognizes the rivalry for exploiting Burma’s rich
39 energy resources as the third main factor driving Sino-Indian competition there. After these three sections, Chapter Six examines how Burma’s opening and liberalization have affected the Sino-Indian competition in the Southeast Asian country. It argues that the
Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar has accelerated and has become more complex and more even since 2008, as a result of a series of developments. Finally, a brief conclusion section, Chapter Seven, summarizes the main argument of my thesis and offers some concluding thoughts. It concludes that security and both sides’ desire to exploit Burma’s potential lie at the heart of the competition. It also argues that the competition is shaped not only by the two contestants but also by the policies of U.S. and Burma itself.
To begin our study of the Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar, it makes sense to start with its context, the topic of the next section, Chapter Two.
40 Chapter Two: Background
In order to understand the Sino-Indian competition in Burma, it is necessary to study the background against which it has taken place and how this background has shaped it.
Broadly speaking, there are two factors which have set the stage for this competition: the historical relations between Myanmar and its two giant neighbors and the overall Sino-
Indian relationship. The following pages provide an overview of each of them, analyze the context in which they have put the Sino-Indian competition and examine how they have shaped this competition. The section on the trilateral relations between Myanmar,
China and India also provides a brief overview of the Burma’s domestic politics and how they have affected these relations. Of course, the following chapter does not offer a comprehensive presentation of the history of the China-India-Burma triangle or the relationship between Beijing and New Delhi but rather aims to introduce them briefly, outline some of their main characteristics and determine how they matter for our project.
History of Burma’s relations with China and India
Burma's historical relations with China and India have shaped both Burma’s policy and attitudes toward its powerful neighbors and the politics of the Sino-Indo-Burmese triangle in the decades before the competition emerged in the aftermath of the 1988 uprising.
Burma’s political and cultural relations with both China and India have a long and often troubled history. The relationship between India and Burma dates back to antiquity
41 when Buddhism, which originates in India, spread to Burma, shaping the culture and national identity of the Burmese in the process. However, the relationship turned more political when the British conquered Myanmar and made it a province of the British Raj in India ,after three wars in the nineteenth century. This led to a massive migration of
Indians64 to Burma and the emergence of an Indian elite in Burma which dominated key sectors of the political and economic life of the country such as the civil service, commerce and finance (especially moneylending)65. The result was a deep suspicion toward Indians among Myanmar’s Burman majority, a suspicion which erupted into anti-
Indian riots in the 1920s and the 1930s66. While China’s historical relations with
Myanmar were more political and economic than cultural, they were no less tense as they were defined by a series of invasions and smaller incursions which the Chinese dynasties of Yuan (1279-1368), Ming (1368-1644) and especially Qing (1644-1912) launched in
Burma67. In the aftermath of the last series of invasions in the eighteenth century, Burma became a tributary of the Qing empire68 and the Chinese gained the allegiance of many tribes around the modern Yunnan-Myanmar border69. All this made Burma suspicious and apprehensive of its powerful northern neighbor. At the same time, due to unrest in
Yunan province and in search of economic opportunities, a large number of Chinese
64 Please note that, when discussing the colonial period, the term Indian refers to all citizens of the British Raj in India which eventually formed the modern states of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. 65 Steinberg, Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone needs to know,28-30 66 Renaud Egreteau,”India’s Ambitions in Burma: More Frustration Than Success?” Asian Survey (November/December 2008):938 67 Steinberg, Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone needs to know,20-21 68 To this day ,there is a debate whether Burma actually became a Chinese tributary, as Qing sources claimed, or the diplomacy between the two sides was conducted on equal terms. 69David Steinberg and Fan Hongwei, Modern China-Myanmar Relations: Dilemmas of Mutual Dependence, (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2012), XXII
42 settled in Burma and formed a sizable community which was nevertheless smaller than the India one70.
On this background, the relations between China, India and Burma can be roughly divided in three time periods: from independence in 1948 to the rise of General Ne Win’s regime in 1962, from 1962 to the 1988 Uprising, and the period after 1988, which will be only briefly introduced in this section as the next four chapters deal with it in greater detail.
1948-1962
After Burma gained independence from the British Empire on January 4th 194871, the country established a fragile parliamentary democracy under the leadership of U Nu.
However, the young state faced a long list of formidable challenges such as communist insurgencies, increasing political fragmentation, economic mismanagement and, above all, growing ethnic conflict, as minorities , such as the Karen, gradually began an armed struggle for independence or greater autonomy72. The result of these ethnic tensions was a political climate of instability and violence in much of the country. This state of affairs dictated a cautious foreign policy of neutralism73.Such a policy was devised to limit destabilizing foreign interference in the country’s domestic armed conflicts and avoid dragging Myanmar into larger conflicts such as the Cold War which might threaten its territorial integrity, distract it from its domestic agenda and make it dependent on foreign
70 Ibid 71 Michael Aung-Thwin and Maitrii Aung-Thwin, A History of Myanmar since Ancient Times: Traditions and Transformations(London: Reaction Books,2012) 238 72 David.I. Steinberg, Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone needs to know (New York:Oxford University Press,2010), 40-61 73 For an overview of the Burma’s policy of neutrality in the 1950s see Willian C. Johnstone, Burma’s Foreign Policy: A Study in Neutralism, ( Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,1963)
43 powers, a major issue for a country traumatized by the experience of colonialism74.The essential logic of this policy was laid down by Prime Minister U Nu who proclaimed that
"Our circumstances demand that we follow an independent course and not ally ourselves with any power bloc" as "Our tiny country cannot have the effrontery to quarrel with any power"75.
This neutralism was particularly applied to China and India, between whom Burma tried to keep a careful balancing act76 while both powers tried to exert influence in its smaller neighbor. India, the inheritor of the British Raj, regarded Burma as part of its periphery and sought to increase its influence by helping Burma fight against domestic rebellions in 1948 and 194977 and by granting it a flow of economic aid in the 1950s78.
Moreover, Indian Prime Minister Nehru had a close personal relationship with U Nu and strongly supported many of Myanmar’s domestic policies ,such as land reform, in spite of the fact that this reform adversely affected Burma’s Indian minority79.Rangoon reciprocated by joining the Indian-initiated Non-Aligned Movement and signed a treaty of friendship in 1951 which stipulated regular consultations between the two
74 Steinberg, Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone needs to know,40-61 75 Steinberg, David and Hongwei Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations: Dilemmas of Mutual Dependence, (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2012) 11-12 76 For a discussion of Burma's policy of neutralism see John Garver, Protracted Contest,252-254 77 Garver, Protracted Contest,251 78 Thin Thin Aung and Soe Myint, ”India-Burma relations,” Challenges to Democratization in Burma: Perspectives on Multilateral and Bilateral responses, International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA),(2001):89-90 http://www.idea.int/asia_pacific/burma/upload/challenges_to_democratization_in_burma.pdf 79Thin Thin Aung and Soe Myint, ”India-Burma relations,” :89
44 countries80.However, suspicious of real or perceived Indian designs for regional hegemonism, Rangoon tried to keep a certain, reasonable distance from Delhi81.
China presented a much more difficult challenge to the Burmese government than
India did as Beijing initially saw Burma through a negative, ideological prism which made Rangoon very apprehensive of PRC’s rise82, a fear powerfully enhanced by China’s territorial claims to much of Upper Burma83. In addition, the communist ideology of the new regime in Beijing and its large military muscle deeply worried Rangoon.
However, soon relations warmed as Burma became the first non-communist country to establish diplomatic relations with the PRC84, after successfully pleading with India to wait several days, before it establishes diplomatic relations with Beijing85 . Myanmar also adopted a neutral position after China entered the Korean War86 and Beijing soon realized that antagonizing Myanmar would only serve to increase the PRC’s international isolation. Relations further improved when both sides adopted the Five Principles of
Peaceful Co-existence87 as the guide to their relations88. After several years of high tensions over a border dispute which had seen China claim much of Upper Myanmar and even briefly occupy some border areas, the two sides resolved the territorial dispute
80Thin Thin Aung and Soe Myint, ”India-Burma relations,” :90 81 Garver, Protracted Contest,251 82 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,10-15 83 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,56-57 84 Garver, Protracted Contest,252 85According to the memoirs of the Indian Ambassador to China, quoted in Steinberg, David and Hongwei Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,16 86 Ibid 87 The Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence are: mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty, non-aggression, mutual non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful co-existence. See “Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence”, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, accessed on Feb 14,2013, http://www.mofa.gov.mm/foreignpolicy/fiveprinciples.html 88 Maung Aung Myoe, In the Name of Pauk-Phaw: Myanmar's China Policy Since 1948 (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2011),23
45 in1961.The likely reason for the resolution was China’s desire to gain leverage in its growing border dispute with India which, ultimately led to war, the next year89.
Furthermore, the two sides also signed a non-aggression treaty90. As a result, the Sino-
Burmese relations entered into a golden period in which the relationship was officially described as that of “Pauk-Phaw”, “kinsfolk”, a term which has remained a favorite description of the relationship to this day91. This new partnership led to joint ,military action92 on an issue which had continuously disturbed Sino-Burmese relations93, the presence of a small remnant of Guomindang troops in Burma. These troops which had retreated to Burma after the end of the Chinese Civil War , had established themselves close to the border with support from Taiwan94 and the US95 and posed a threat to PRC’s position in Yunnan. The joint action largely removed the issue as an irritant in bilateral relations.
Nevertheless, under the surface some tensions remained. China continued its substantial support for the revolutionary Communist Party of Burma96 (CPB) which operated on the border while Rangoon continued to harbor suspicions of China’s plans and the loyalty of its own Chinese minority. At a larger level, Burma’s policy of neutralism created obstacles in Burma’s relations with both Beijing and Delhi as Sino-Indian relations became tenser. This situation came to a fore in the late 1950s and the early 1960s when
89 Garver, Protracted Contest,253 90 Ibid 91 Maung Aung Myoe, In the Name of Pauk-Phaw,8 92 Garver, Protracted Contest,253 93 Ibid 94 David Steinberg,”Burma-Myanmar: The U.S.-Burmese Relationship and Its Vicissitudes” in Short of the Goald: US Policy and Poorly Performing States, Nancy Birdsall, Milan Vaishnav, Robert L. Ayres (eds.),Brookings Institution Press,2006,224 95 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,22-24 96 Garver, Protracted Contest,254
46 Myanmar chose to stay neutral in the growing Sino-Indian dispute over Tibet and the border between the two sides97.
1962-1988
Following a military coup in 1962, Burma’s domestic politics changed as a military government led by General Ne Win emerged and tried to build a “Burmese Way to
Socialism”, a mixture of Buddhism, statism and socialism98 which defined Burma until
1988. The regime, deeply chauvinist against non-Burmans, nationalized much of the economy and adopted a strongly nationalist policy, exemplified in its citizenship law99 which openly discriminated against minorities, including the Chinese and the Indian ones100.It also tried to impose its authority over much of the country through a mixture of force and diplomacy which, predictably, resulted in substantial escalation in ethnic conflict. The regime not only continued its policy of neutrality for the same reasons as its predecessors did but increasingly pursued isolationism as a way to prevent Burma from becoming dependent on foreign powers or getting embroiled in the Cold War.
During Ne Win’s long rule, Burma kept its delicate balancing act between China and
India101 but saw relations become more strained with relatively brief periods of great
97 Garver, Protracted Contest,252 98 Steinberg, Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone needs to know,64-65 99 The Citizenship Law, adopted in 1982, recognized three different categories of citizens: citizen, associate citizen and naturalized citizen, each with different status and rights. The law grants full citizenship only to those individuals whose ancestors inhabited Burma before its annexation by Britain began. Thus, Burma’s Chinese and Indian populations are not full citizens of the country and do not enjoy the same rights as the indigenous Burmese. For the text of the law see “Burma Citizenship Law [Myanmar]”, UNHRC, (Oct.1982),accessed on March 4,2012 http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6b4f71b.html For more on the law see Steinberg, Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone needs to know,73 100 Michael W. Charney, A History of Modern Burma,Oxford University Press, 142-143 101 As New Win himself told to Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1969 ,“In our relations with our neighbors we have assiduously sought to avoid taking sides” in Garver, Protracted Contest,252
47 tension. Myanmar’s overall positive relationship with India remained but was strained by the expulsion of 200 000 Indians102 from Burma103 and Rangoon’s close ties with
China104 which irked Delhi, especially after its military defeat at Beijing’s hands in 1962.
Nevertheless, relations with Delhi improved in 1964, as a result to the growing strains in the relationship between General Ne Win’s government and the PRC over Beijing’s support for Burma’s communist insurgency105. India and Burma even achieved the signing of the important Land Boundary Agreement of 1967 which demarcated most of their border106.On the background of the rapid deterioration in relations between China and Burma after the anti-Chinese riots in 1967, Rangoon strengthened its ties with India to the point that ,in 1968, General Ne Win even discussed with Indian Prime Minister
Indira Gandhi strategies to address the “common danger” from China during a private visit to India which China fiercely condemned107.
The 1970s and the early 1980s were a relatively passive period for bilateral relations, although the ethnic insurgencies on the Indo-Burmese border continued to trouble Indi-
Burmese relations. In response to Burma’s policy of persistently turning a blind eye to different anti-Indian groups (probably in order to gain leverage over Delhi), India funded
102 Egreteau,”India’s Ambitions in Burma”:938 103 Please note that some authors give the number of expulsed Indians as 300 000.Please see Martin Smith, “Burma(Myanmar); The Time for Change”, Minority Rights Group International (2002):16,accessed on March 2,2012 http://www.nrc.ch/8025708F004CE90B/%28httpDocuments%29/BB43E7A181898834C12573DF00729601 /$file/BurmaRpt%5B1%5D.pdf 104 Fahmida Ashraf, “India-Myanmar relations,” Institute for Strategic Studies Islamabad ( ISSI), accessed December 10,2012 http://www.issi.org.pk/publication-files/1303370395_33739096.pdf 105 Thin Thin Aung and Soe Myint, ”India-Burma relations”:91 106 Yhome, K. ,”India-Myanmar Relations”, ORF Occasional Paper #10, Observer Research Foundation(2009):1, accessed December 10,2012 http://www.observerindia.com/cms/export/orfonline/modules/occasionalpaper/attachments/ind-myn- OP_1236338801296.pdf 107Thin Thin Aung and Soe Myint, ”India-Burma relations”:92
48 and trained anti-Burmese insurgents around the border108. In spite of all this, bilateral relations remained decent as trade slightly expanded and the two sides eventually made some progress in jointly combating cross-border insurgency109.However, Rangoon was cautious in its military contacts with India for fear of antagonizing China110.
Burma’s relations with China during this period also kept the same shape as before but were marked by greater suspicion and tension. Initially, after the 1962 coup, relations remained good as China decided to recognize Ne Win’s regime after Delhi recognized it, for fear that India’s influence in Rangoon might grow111. While the nationalization of many Chinese businesses by the new regime led about 100 000 Chinese to leave
Burma112, the relations with Beijing remained relativelygood. However, a crisis erupted in 1967 when riots and pogroms erupted against the Chinese community in Burma, on account of its pro-communist radicalization, which Beijing promoted as part of its revolutionary foreign policy during the Cultural Revolution113. China responded with demonstrations against Burma114 and a dramatic increase in its support for Burmese communist insurgents, which even saw People’s Liberation Army (PLA) forces fight alongside the insurgents in Myanmar115.Armed with this support, the insurgency made huge advances and seriously threatened with existence of the Burmese junta. The
108 Egreteau,”India’s Ambitions in Burma”:940 109 Thin Thin Aung and Soe Myint, ”India-Burma relations,”:91-93 110 Bertil Lintner,”Burma and its Neighbors,” (paper presented at a conference in February 1992 at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi):11, accessed on December 18,2012, http://www.asiapacificms.com/papers/pdf/burma_india_china.pdf 111 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,73 112 Martin Smith, “Burma(Myanmar); The Time for Change”, Minority Rights Group International (2002):9,accessed on March 8,2012 http://www.nrc.ch/8025708F004CE90B/%28httpDocuments%29/BB43E7A181898834C12573DF00729601 /$file/BurmaRpt%5B1%5D.pdf 113 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,93-102 114Steinberg, David and Hongwei Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations, 98 115 Steinberg, David and Hongwei Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,104-105
49 prominent scholar of Sino-Indian relations, John Garver, has even suggested that this policy represented a direct Chinese attempt to establish dominance over Burma by installing a pro-Chinese communist regime in all or part of the Southeast Asian country116. Relations between the two sides remained frozen until 1971. Naturally, these tensions led Burma to choose closer relations with India exemplified in Gen. Ne Win’s private visit to India during which he discussed China with Indira Gandhi, a meeting which Chinese media condemned117.
Throughout the 1970s, China had adopted a double-track policy of keeping good state- to-state relations with the Myanmar government, on one hand, and very active support for the communist insurgency with funding, training and recruits, on the other. This policy lasted until Deng Xiaoping abandoned China’s revolutionary foreign policy in the late
1970s and the early 1980s118.This Chinese support to the Burmese communists cast a deep shadow on bilateral relations, in spite of the continuing cooperation between the two sides and the substantial financial aid which Beijing gave to Burma119. Nevertheless,
Burma made a concerted effort to keep good relations with China, going to such lengths as having Ne Win become the first foreign head of state to visit Cambodia’s pro-Chinese
Khmer Rouge government in 1977120.
1988 and Beyond
Burma’s carefully balanced policy of neutrality came to a crashing end after 1988, when the “8888 Uprising” erupted. Faced with a large student-led, pro-democracy
116 Garver, Protracted Contest,257-258 117 Thin Thin Aung and Soe Myint, ”India-Burma relations,”92 118 Garver, Protracted Contest,254 119 Garver, Protracted Contest,253 120 Bertil Lintner,”Burma and its Neighbors”:6
50 uprising, the military regime, which had replaced Ne Win’s junta, answered with brutal force and after spilling the blood of thousands of protesters managed to crush the uprising. In the elections that followed these events, in 1990, the opposition National
League for Democracy (NLD), led by the charismatic Aung San Suu Kyi won. However, the regime refused to hand power, cracked down on the opposition and put Aung San Suu
Kyi under house arrest. All this provoked a very strong international response and Burma soon found itself internationally isolated and targeted with sanctions which remained in place until Burma’s opening in the last 2-3 years.
These events had a profound effect on the triangle between China, India and Myanmar, as India actively supported the opposition and thus, unwittingly, pushed the military regime in China’s embrace. To make things worse, after the uprising, Delhi hosted members of the opposition121, allowed them to use the All India Radio to spread their message122in Burma, treated leniently anti-junta airplanes hijackers123 and actively supported Aung San Suu Kyi, who had close links with India and the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and had studied and lived in India in her youth124. With the uprising crushed,
Indo-Burmese relations went into a period of deep crisis as Yangon fiercely opposed
Indian interference in its domestic affairs and the international pressure mounting on the regime. This thinking is clearly iterated in a leaked top secret internal letter written by
Army commander General Than Shwe who wrote that India “encourages and supports internal insurgents” against Myanmar and “interferes in [Burma's] internal affairs, acts
121 Delhi even allowed the opposition which, following the elections of 1990 claimed to be the legitimate government of Burma, to open an office in India. Ashraf, “India-Myanmar relations” 122 Steinberg, Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone needs to know,122 123 Bertil Lintner,”Burma and its Neighbors”:12 124 ”Aung San Suu Kyi wants India to play a key role in democratization of Myanmar”, India Today,November 15,2012, accessed on February 15,2012 http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/aung-san- suu-kyi-india-democratisation-myanmar/1/229150.html
51 which are not compatible with the expected behavior of a friendly neighbor.”125 Probably fearing Indian support for insurgents or even military action, the junta deployed troops on the border with India126. In this context, China, which soon after experienced its own protests, the Tiananmen Incident, was the only country to which Yangon could turn. The result was the inauguration of a de facto entente between China and Myanmar and the initiation of a period of close Sino-Burmese cooperation which has lasted until recently.
Haunted by insecurity and internationally isolated, the Burmese regime launched a massive drive for military modernization with Chinese arms127. Realizing that it might
“lose” Burma to Beijing and face Chinese military penetration in its smaller neighbor,
Delhi pushed to restore normal relations in 1992 and 1993 and soon the two sides exchanged delegations128 ,an exchange that saw Indian foreign secretary J.N. Dixit visit
Myanmar to restart relations. During his visit, Dixit expressed India’s fears that Burma was negotiating an agreement with Beijing to establish a naval base in the Bay of Bengal, claims that were vehemently denied by Yangon129. Nevertheless, Burma continued its massive arms purchases from Beijing which helped it modernize its military and build one of Southeast Asia’s strongest armies. In short, the damage to Indo-Burmese relations was done and China’s influence in Burma had grown beyond that of India.
This historical background set the stage for the Sino-Indian completion in Myanmar in the last two decades in several ways. First and most important, the collapse of the
Burmese policy of neutrality, after the 1988 uprising, led to a Sino-Burmese entente
125 Ibid 126 Ibid 127 Haacke, Jurgen,”Myanmar’s foreign policy towards China and India,” The Adelphi Papers,46:381, (2006):26 128 Thin Thin Aung and Soe Myint, ”India-Burma relations,”94 129 Garver, Protracted Contest,270
52 which permanently offset the strategic triangle between the three sides by pushing
Myanmar much closer to China than to India. This development set the stage for a full blown Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar as Delhi desperately needed to catch-up with
Beijing’s enhanced influence in Burma. Second, as the overview above amply reveals,
Myanmar, a nationalist country, has historically held deep suspicions toward both China and India and has feared that its powerful neighbors would try to dominate it. These concerns have inevitably made Myanmar reluctant to become too dependent on either neighbor, a critical element of Rangoon’s neutrality policy and a key factor in Burma’s desire to avoid being dominated by China, in recent years. Nevertheless, Burma also cannot afford to confront either of the two giants for a long period of time. As a result, the country has adopted a policy of simultaneously accommodating and resisting130 its neighbors so that it neither provokes a clash with them, nor allows them to dominate it,
Third, history demonstrates that Myanmar has historically strived to play its giant neighbors one against the other, in order to have them balance each other, hence adopting the role of a “bargainer” between two aspiring hegemons, as described in the introduction to this thesis. This game, which has contributed substantially to the Sino-Indian competition, has successfully continued even after the Southeast Asian state tilted toward
China after 1988. Fourth, this historical background has set the relations between Burma and its giant neighbors with a Janus-like dynamic of good state-to-state relations and much more complex and even tense relations on the ground, especially in border areas.
The legacy of this policy has not only created much mistrust on the Burmese side but it has also straddled the policies of India and especially China with relations with different
130 See Mohan Malik, China and India,202 Please note ,however, that Malik holds that this policy applies only to Sino-Burmese relations
53 groups within Myanmar which complicate their Myanmar policy. Fifth, the above overview suggests that with its policy of neutrality, Burma has historically played the role of a buffer in Sino-Indian relations, as neither side can dominate Myanmar and thus bring its influence directly to the borders of the other side to threaten it more directly.
Naturally, this state of affairs has been eroded after 1988, although it has not entirely disappeared, since Burma has not become a platform for Chinese military presence as
India has feared. Finally, the above overview suggests that while Burma fears both its gigantic neighbors, it has good reasons to be more afraid of China. China not only claimed substantial parts of Burma, along their disputed border, but proved much more dangerous at time of confrontation, as evidenced by the powerful communist insurgency it supported after 1968, an insurgency which seriously threatened to overthrow the
Burmese regime. More important, to the historically minded Burmese leadership, these activities are part of a pattern of periodic Chinese invasions in Burma which stretches back hundreds of years. In comparison, while both Burma and India were part of the
British Empire, India had never invaded Myanmar (it was the British who conquered
Burma) and Burma’s clash with India after 1988 was not only light but ended with Indian accommodation to Yangon.
Let us now turn to the other major factor which has shaped the Sino-Indian contest for influence in Burma, the overall China-India relationship.
Sino-Indian Relations
To understand the Burma policies of India and China and their contest in the Southeast
Asian country, it is critical to evaluate these in the context of the overall Sino-Indian
54 relationship. While it is beyond the scope of this brief introduction to do justice to a very complex and increasingly multifaceted relationship, the following pages will overview the history of this relationship, its contemporary state and what it means for the India-
China-Burma triangle, in this order.
While the cultural and trade relations between China and India, the two great civilizations of Asia, date to antiquity, the political relations between the two sides are relatively young and date, mostly, to the nineteenth century when the British Raj in India and China’s Qing dynasty for the first time rubbed shoulders across the Himalayas131.
Their undetermined borders and overlapping spheres of influence in Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan and Burma created some tensions but these remained limited. Over time, India’s national liberation movement and Chinese political reformers, especially the Guomindang132, also established contacts, as they shared a determined opposition to imperialism and favored the emergence of a pan-Asian community.
While it is difficult to divide the complex Sino-Indian relationship in neat periods, the following overview distinguishes four periods in Sino-Indian relations: the Hindi-Chini
Bhai Bhai period in the 1950s, the period of confrontation between 1959 and 1988, the post-Cold War period in the 1990s and the present stage of relations during the last decade.
131 Please note that this does not mean that there weren’t any political relations between the two sides before the establishment of the British Raj ,but rather that these relations were very limited. For example, the Qing empire and the Sikh state in India fought a brief war in the 1840s. See Dinesh Lal, Indo-Tibet- China Conflict,(Delhi: Kalpaz Publications, 2008),19 132 Please note that in the following text all Chinese personal and place names as well as words are transcribed using the pinyin system of transliteration. The only exceptions are quotations from other sources which might include other transliterations.
55 Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai (1949-1959)133
The establishment of the Republic of India (ROI) and the People’s Republic of China
(PRC) in 1947 and 1949, respectively, for the first time faced both sides with the need to establish a comprehensive, state-to-state relationship. Even before they formally established diplomatic relations in 1950, the two giants confronted a number of potentially problematic issues. Two stood out as particularly important and have been a constant source of instability in the bilateral relationship ever since. First, there was the
Tibet issue which has plagued Sino-Indian relations to this day. Tibet was historically an area where China and India’s political and cultural spheres of influence overlapped and while it had accepted the predominance of the Qing Empire for centuries134, it had also been supported as a buffer against northern threats by the British135 who had established close contacts with the Tibetan government in the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Tensions rose in 1950 as China, which held that Tibet is part of its territory, send troops to Tibet to unify it with China. India, which felt a special cultural and religious connection with the Himalayan kingdom136, looked with suspicion at Beijing’s moves and briefly toyed with intervention, providing some very limited military aid to the Tibetan government137. Second, the border issue was another Tibet-related question which had the potential to upset relations as China did not recognize the McMahon
133 While it is difficult to say precisely when this period ends, it is clear that it was definitely over in the aftermath of the Tibetan uprising in 1959 and the Dalai Lama’s flight to India. For this reason, 1959 is well- qualified to be the end-date of the Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai period 134 Garver, Protracted Contest, 34 135 Garver, Protracted Contest, 43 136 This connection stemmed not only from Tibet’s history of adopting Indian Buddhism, but also from the fact that a number of sites such as Mount Kailash , holy to both Indian Hindus and Buddhists, are situated in Tibet. See Diana Eck, India: A Sacred Geography( New York,Harmong Books, 2012),197-201 137 Gautam Das, China-Tibet-India: The 1962 War and the Strategic Military Future ( New Delhi: Har-Anand Publications,2009),82
56 Line138 on which India’s northern border with Tibet was based. All this opened the door for rival territorial claims which later focused primarily on the disputed territories of what came to be known as Aksai Chin, next to Kashmir, and Arunachal Pradesh ,in the northeastern section of the Sino-Indian border. These were the origins of the territorial dispute which ultimately led to the brief Sino-Indian border war in 1962. These two issues emerged on the background of the decolonization in Asia which saw the emergence of a number of new states in China and India’s periphery and the desire of both giants to gain preeminence in Asia. This development was accompanied with an escalation of the Cold War in Asia that witnessed the US strive to encircle and contain the Soviet-allied PRC which it had not recognized as the legitimate government of China.
This situation increased the risk that China and India might find themselves locked in a regional competition for influence or a Cold War-related confrontation.
Aware of this potential for conflict, China and India embarked on a course of establishing good relations and managing problems. The two sides did not focus on the border issue139 and strove to reach a mutually acceptable outcome in Tibet in which India would ensure autonomy for Tibet and guarantee a minimum of its economic and religious interests there, while Beijing would have Delhi recognize its sovereignty over Tibet140.
An agreement along these lines was finally reached in 1954 and both sides pledged to guide their relations by the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence (Panchsheel) and establish cooperation on the international stage141. India supported PRC’s claim to join the UN as the official representative of China (and hence replace the Guomindang
138Srinath Raghavan, War and Peace in Modern India, (London: Palgrave Macmilan,2010), 229-230 139 Raghavan, War and Peace in Modern India,245 140 Garver, Protracted Contest,51-52 141 Ibid
57 government based in Taiwan)142 and the two sides displayed their friendly relationship in front of newly independent states during the Bandung conference in 1954. The friendly relationship came to be known in Hindi as the Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai, the Indo-Chinese
Brotherhood. Each side had its own reasons to pursue this friendly course. India hoped to counter any potential threat from China through engagement, avoid the spread of the
Cold War to its borders, improve Tibet’s situation and establish a joint Sino-Indian leadership in Asia and the Third World, thus transcending the Cold War. For China, the partnership with India gave it a way to ensure its strategic backyard against the US, avoid
US encirclement and isolation, as well as have India recognize its ownership of Tibet.
Confrontation (1959-1988)143
However, under the surface of the Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai, serious problems in the relationship began to appear. Instability in Tibet increased, rebellions in the late 1950s broke out and were suppressed by the Chinese government, leading the Dalai Lama to flee to India in 1959144. While India protested what it saw as the suppression of Tibetan autonomy and culture, China accused India of supporting Tibetan separatism and undermining its rule in Xizang145 with help from Washington146.The border issue also reemerged and ,after several unsuccessful attempts to reach a settlement by negotiation, clashes broke out on the border amid growing accusations and counter-accusations
142 Garver, Protracted Contest,48-49 143 The period of conflict can be dated from the Tibetan Uprising ,which strained Sino-Indian relations in 1959, to 1988 when Indian Prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to Beijing marked the full restoration of relations,after years of gradual improvement. 144 Raghavan, War and Peace in Modern India,249-252 145 The Chinese name of Tibet 146 John Garver, “China’s Decision for War with India in 1962”in New Directions in the study of China’s Foreign Policy, eds. Robert Ross and Alastair Iain Johnston ( Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2006),92-93
58 between the two sides. All this happened on the background of intensifying competition between China and India both for influence in their periphery, in Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan and Burma and for the leadership of the Third World movement. The end result was conflict. In response to Indian PM Nehru’s Forward Policy, in which Delhi established military presence in disputed territory147 , China launched a brief punitive attack on India, in 1962. After a brief war, which Beijing decisively won but which did not seriously alter the territorial status quo, from friends China and India became enemies.
The war unleashed a period of enmity between China and India during most of the
1960s and 1970s.The Tibet issue, the border dispute, the competition for influence in their periphery, which only grew in the aftermath of the war, and the legacy of 1962 cast a long shadow over bilateral relations and clearly defined them as highly competitive, although Delhi and Beijing kept formal relations. This competition was expressed in the foreign policies of the belligerents of 1962 in several ways. China pursued close relations with Pakistan in order to balance India and keep it insecure, a policy which started even before the war but was enhanced afterwards to a full-scale alliance. Beijing supported
Pakistan with military aid, came close to getting into war with India over Pakistan during the Indo-Pakistani conflict of 1965148 and provided Islamabad with substantial aid in its
1971 war with India149. Beijing also substantially helped Islamabad’s nuclear program150.
Moreover, in the aftermath of the 1962 war, each side established closer relations with the opposite poles of the Cold War, India with the Soviet Union after the 1971 Treaty of
147 Steven A. Hoffman, India and the China Crisis, (Los Angeles: University of California Press,1990),99-111 148 Garver, Protracted Contest,5 149 Garver, Protracted Contest,210 150 Sindharth Ramana, “China-Pakistan Nuclear Alliance”, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies( August 2011):4-5 accessed on December 13, 2012 http://www.ipcs.org/pdf_file/issue/SR109.pdf
59 Peace, Friendship and Cooperation151 and China and the US after their rapprochement in
1971-72.In addition, both sides continued to vie for influence in the Himalayas where
India annexed Sikkim, annexation which Beijing opposed and did not recognize152, and in
Nepal,where there was constant struggled to gain leverage. Finally, the competition took a nuclear flavor after China produced nuclear weapons in 1964 and India developed its nuclear program in the 1960s and ultimately tested a nuclear device in 1974, at least partly in response to PRC’s nuclear program153.
Post-Cold War (1988- 2003)154
The late 1970s and the 1980s saw a gradual improvement of relations between China and India despite renewed border clashes in 1986 and 1987155and tensions over
Afghanistan in which the two Asian giants supported different sides in the war in
Afghanistan. This improvement gained decisive momentum during Indian Prime Minister
Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to China in 1988, with which both sides tried to establish a better
151 Gulshan Sachdeva,”India’s relations with Russia” in Handbook of India’s Foreign Relations, ed. David Scoot,(London:Routledge,2011),214 152 Garver, Protracted Contest,170-175 153 While it has been extensively debated to what an extent the Indian nuclear test in 1974 was a response to the Chinese one, one decade earlier, it is fair to say that it played a background role. It is clear that ,after 1964, India substantially accelerated its nuclear program, the domestic political pressure on the Indian government to develop nuclear weapons increased and nuclear China’s alliance with Pakistan worried Delhi, all of which paved the way for the 1974 test. However, the ultimate decision to conduct the nuclear tests was likely taken in response to other events, such as the dispatch of the USS Enterprise during the Indo-Pakistani war of 1971.For an in-depth analysis of India’ decision to test a nuclear device in 1974 please see: George Perkovich, India’s Nuclear Bomb: The Impact of Global Proliferation(University of California Press,2001), Bharat Karnad, India’s Nuclear Policy,(Praeger Security International,2008), Ashok Kapur, Pokhran and Beyond: India’s Nuclear Behaviour (Oxford University Press,2001) and Rajesh. M. Basrur, ”Nuclear Weapons and Indian Strategic Culture,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol.38.No.2,(March 2001) 154 This period can be dated from Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to China, in 1988, to Prime Minister Vajpayee’s visit to China in 2003 at which point Sino-Indian relations entered into the phase in which they are to this day. 155 These clashes were particularly worrying to India because that coincided with a major escalation of Indo-Pakistani tensions. See John Garver,”The Evolution of Inida’s China Policy” in India’s Foreign Policy: Retrospect and Prospect, ed. Sumut Ganguly (Oxford University Press,2010), 95
60 relationship. PRC and ROI signed an agreement to seek a fair and mutually acceptable resolution to the border dispute and set up a Joint Working Group to look for a solution of the dispute156. Both sides had good reasons to seek better relations: India feared that with USSR’s weakening it would face China and Pakistan alone, while China’s growing uneasiness with its American ally toward the end of the Cold War and its difficult economic reforms necessitated better relations with its neighbors. In response to Gandhi’s visit, China reduced, but did not cease, its support for Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh.
The end of the Cold War, the economic reforms in both countries and Beijing’s search to escape from isolation, following the international outcry and sanctions after the
Tiananmen Incident in 1989, all contributed to enhance the impetus toward cooperation after 1988.
In the 1990s, both sides were trying to come to terms with the consequences of the end of the Cold War and the emergence of a new international order dominated by the US.
They also faced a number of serious domestic economic and political challenges which distracted them from their bilateral relations and limited their room for maneuver. China had to reform its economy, a process with deep social implications, ensure political stability in the aftermath of the Tiananmen events and manage the explosive Taiwan issue. For its part, in the 1990s, India began to reform its troubled state-dominated economy, suffered from a serious political crisis which saw the weakening of the
Congress party and the rise of Hindu nationalism and suffered from the growing insurgency in Kashmir ,which was supported by Pakistan.
156 Harsh V. Pant, ”India’s relations with China” in Handbook of India’s Foreign Relations, ed. David Scoot,(London:Routledge,2011),234
61 Nevertheless, the competition between the two sides did not disappear and many of the issues which kept it going were not resolved. India continued to host the Dalai Lama, who had been running a Tibetan government in exile, and pushed to counter the growth of Beijing’s influence in Nepal157 and Burma. Similarly, Beijing did not abandon its support for Pakistan. Moreover, PLA’s push for military modernization in the 1990s also haunted the relationship, as Delhi feared the growing imbalance between its capabilities and Beijing’s. Much of these tensions came to the fore in the aftermath of India’s 1998 nuclear tests which India’s Prime Minister Vajpayee claimed, in a secret letter to US
President Clinton, were motivated by India’s fear of the threat China posed 158. While the crisis that followed was ultimately overcome, suspicions remained.
2003 and Beyond
In the last decade, China and India have seen their relations go from an attempt to establish a new relationship to tensions , an example of what C. Raja Mohan calls the
“paradox of Sino-Indian relations”159. China and India tried to reset their relationship in
2003, during Prime Minister Vajpayee’s visit to Beijing , as a result of which the two sides iterated a framework of principles for resolving the boundary dispute and set up a series of high level talks for this purpose160. However, soon relations began to strain again. Beijing looked with suspicion at the 2005 US-Indian nuclear deal which it saw as the inauguration of an US-Indian alliance aimed at containing China. The PRC unsuccessfully tried to undo the deal by blocking India’s waiver at the Nuclear Supplier’s
157 The countering act was expressed in India’s imposition of an economic blockade on Nepal, in 1988.Garver, Protracted Contest,155-157 158 Harsh V. Pant,”India’s relations with China”,234-235 159 C.Raja Mohan, Samundra Manthan: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific,(Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,2012),13-17 160 C.Raja Mohan, Samundra Manthan,17-18
62 Group (NSG) and, in response, stepped up its nuclear cooperation with Pakistan161. India was also unhappy with China. Beijing had not only tried to block the nuclear deal but had not endorsed India’s drive to gain a permanent seat at the UN Security Council162. In the meantime, the massive military modernization of the two powers continued, just as each side expanded its presence close to their disputed border163, built strategic infrastructure around it164 and engaged in a buildup of their naval capabilities. China constructed a series of, mostly commercial, naval facilities in South Asia, known as the “string of pearls”, which Delhi regarded with suspicion as an attempt to encircle India. For its part,
India has expanded its security cooperation with the US165 and Japan166 which China suspects is implicitly directed against it. Delhi has also inserted itself in the South China
Sea dispute and has developed ties with Vietnam, one of Beijing’s major antagonists in the dispute.
The boundary talks did not produce any results and tensions around the disputed border rose again, leading to a renewal of the cycle of claims, counterclaims and mutual suspicions. These tensions were galvanized by a string of diplomatic incidents, such as
161 “Why China struck N-deal with Pak 4 days after Indo-US deal”, Hindustan Times, June 29,2010, accessed on December 18,2012, http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/India/Why-China-struck-N- deal-with-Pak-4-days-after-Indo-US-deal/Article1-564747.aspx 162See Mohan Malik, “Security Council Reform: China Signals Its Veto”, World Policy Journal (Spring, 2005), Volume XXII, No 4.Please note that China’s position has not changed by the time of this writing. 163 Josy Joseph, “Second phase of China border upgrade project to start in mid-2013,” Times of India, October 21, 2012, accessed on December 18,2012 http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-10- 21/india/34627164_1_china-border-military-chiefs-chinese-border 164 Namrata Goswami,” Strategic Road-Building along the India-China border”, June 7, 2012, accessed on December 17,2012 http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/StrategicRoadBuildingalongtheIndiaChinaborder_NamrataGoswami_0 70612 165 See “Report to Congress on U.S.-India Security Cooperation”, U.S. Department of Defense, (November 2011),accessed on December 18,2012 http://www.defense.gov/pubs/pdfs/20111101_NDAA_Report_on_US_India_Security_Cooperation.pdf 166 See K.V. Prasad,” India-Japan to step up security cooperation”, The Hindu, November 3, 2011, accessed on December 18,2012 http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article2593792.ece
63 China’s frequent denial of visas to Indian personnel from Arunachal Pradesh167 and its blocking of loans for road construction in Chinese-claimed territories in India168. At the same time active militarization of the border and infrastructure building in disputed territories continued, creating a framework which might easily produce a clash. In addition, the Tibet issue remerged on the background of the 2008 Uprising in Tibet, and produced more tensions as Beijing’s attention was redirected to India’s hosting of the
Dalai Lama and his activities in India169. The result was a strained and generally competitive relationship. Although conscious of the risks of escalation, both sides have made concerted efforts to manage these tensions through diplomacy. Ironically, all these tensions happened against the background of rapidly increasing economic ties and growing international cooperation between the two sides on transnational issues such as climate change. This demonstrates that competition and cooperation in Sino-Indian relations can easily coexist.
This history has influenced the relations between China and India in four ways. First, it has straddled both countries with a number of issues, such as Tibet and the border dispute, which, unresolved to this day, have been a major source of contention in bilateral relations. Just as important, these two issues are not static background questions which can be left for future resolution; on the contrary, they regularly generate fresh tensions in
167 “China denies visa to IAF officer, India cancels defense team visit”, Indian Express, January 6,2012,accessed on February 15,2013, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/china-denies-visa-to-iaf- officer-india-cancels-defence-team-visit/896663/ 168 Sudha Ramachandran, “Chinese antics have India fuming", Asia Times, May 5,2009,accessed on February 14,2013, http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KE05Df01.html 169 A good example is the row between China and India over the Dalai Lama’s attendance of a Buddhist conference in Delhi which Beijing tried to prevent by pressuring the Indian government. The result was a cancellation of the important Sino-Indian border talks. See Jason Burke, ”India and China scrap border talks after Dalai Lama row,” The Guardian November 27,2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/27/china-india-dalai-lama-border-row
64 the form of border clashes or tensions in Tibet , the latter often involving the India-based
Dalai Lama and the sizable Tibetan minority in India. Second, history has imbued Sino-
Indian relations with a deep sense of competition and mutual suspicion. This sense has been caused by the brief war in 1962, decades of regional contest between the two sides and the disappointment of the failure of the Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai in the 1950s, as well as similar but smaller attempts to establish a permanent good relationship. Naturally, this has produced negative judgments about the intentions of the other side, enshrined in nationalist narratives about the negative history of bilateral relations. Predictably, this has increased the chance for deadlock. Third, China’s “all weather friendship” with Pakistan,
India’s arch-enemy, has been another legacy which has continued to poison bilateral relations. Fourth, this history has left both sides, but especially India, with a sense of frustration over the unfulfilled potential of Sino-Indian relations which started with huge promise in the 1950s but then foundered. This has contributed to the regular attempts by both sides to reset their relationship and fulfill its potential, as well as to a powerful rhetoric of cooperation170 inherited from the 1950s which inevitably has some influence on the thinking in Delhi and Beijing.
The Sino-Indian Relationship at Present
How should we characterize the Sino-India relationship at present? I believe it can be described best as a limited competition, as it is a mix between competition and cooperation in which, however, the competitive element predominates.
170 A good example of this rhetoric is the frequent reference to the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. For example, Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence were recently noted as important to the relationship in a meeting between China’s State Councilor Dai Bingguo and India’s National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon, in December 2012.Yang Lina,”China and India agree to maintain peace in border areas”, Xinhua, accessed on December 10,2012 http://www.chinamedia.com/2012/12/04/china-india-agree-to- maintain-peace-in-border-areas/
65 To comprehend this relationship, it is necessary to point out to several background factors which, together with the historical context outlined above have defined it. First, the present China-India relationship has evolved within the framework of a unipolar international order dominated by the US and cannot be analyzed without this framework.
This means that the relationship between China and India is not only bilateral but also part of a strategic triangle between Washington, Delhi and Beijing, something which is particularly true after the US and India began to expand their cooperation in 2005.
However, this framework also means that Sino-Indian relations are shaped by the extremely complex US-China relationship which has become more competitive in the last several years. Second, the emergence of China and India as great powers has internationalized their relations and expanded their competition from their immediate neighborhood to the much larger stage of Asia, much of the Indo-Pacific and, in some cases, even the world. As a result, China and India now interact in new arenas such as
East Asia, the South China Sea and on the Sea Lines of Communication (SLOCs) of the northern Indian Ocean that lead to the oil rich Persian Gulf. On the other hand, however,
China and India’s growth has also brought the two countries together in their desire to remake the international system in a fashion that would accommodate their rise, essentially the goal of BRICS171, the club of aspiring powers, in which both powers participate. Third, China’s rise has shifted the balance of power between the two sides in
China’s favor, in spite of the fact that India’s capabilities have also grown substantially in the last decade. As a result, Delhi has been increasingly apprehensive of China’s growing might. Fourth, the relationship between the two sides has been framed by the stereotypes about each other that China and India hold. While it is difficult and risky to generalize
171 BRICS-Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa
66 about the thinking of two and a half billion people, and stereotypes are inherently fluid, some key elements and images stand out. China often seems to see India as a weaker power which is not equal to China ,although in the last decade the Chinese public has noted that India has also grown into an important power ,albeit one which is still lesser than China. From the Chinese perspective, India desperately wants to catch up with
China and together with the US tries to contain China’s rise. While India has a more diverse range of opinions on China, the predominant view is that China is an aggressive country which denies India its well-deserved status of a major power. At the same time,
India is haunted by the sense that, in many realms, China has been more successful than itself, a sense which breeds rivalry. Fifth, with the advent of globalization in Asia, the international interdependence has increased, a trend which has also affected Sino-Indian relations. Thus, not only China and India’s economic trajectories are increasing interconnected (albeit far from parallel) but the two sides have come to share a number of global interests on issues such climate change.
On this background, the relations between China and India can be understood as a complex mixture of competitive and cooperative dynamics.
On the competitive side, five dynamics have driven the Sino-Indian contest. First,
China and India are powerful countries with growing military capabilities, often contradictory national interests and rival territorial claims which inherently pose a real or potential threat to each other’s security. Because in such circumstances the balance of power between them is very important, both Asian giants are locked in a classical security dilemma in which more security for one side means less security for the other.
Second, there are a number of outstanding issues such as Tibet, the border dispute and,
67 increasingly, the use of finite water resources originating from the Himalayas, which generate competition between the two sides. Third, Beijing and New Delhi compete for influence in their overlapping strategic peripheries, which include most of South Asia and
Southeast Asia. Such a competition for influence is driven by the desire of each side to secure national interests, prevent real or potential threats and achieve a status of preeminence in its periphery. Due to the rise of both countries, their competition for influence has grown in geographic scope, as noted above. Fourth, there has been a small but growing naval competition between the two sides, primarily focused on the Indian
Ocean and its SLOCs. However, as China builds naval facilities in countries such as
Pakistan (the Gwadhar port172) and India ventures into the South China sea and plans its own naval bases around the Indian Ocean (the project for the Chahabar port173), the potential for this competition to grow is substantial. Finally, the history of mistrust and competition which has characterized the relationship also promotes greater rivalry between PRC and ROI, as noted earlier.
On the cooperative side, there are three dynamics which have promoted the improvement of Sino-Indian relations. First, the economic interaction between the two sides has increased dramatically in recent years. Bilateral trade between China and India has boomed, reaching $73 billion dollars in 2011 from 43 billion in 2009, while bilateral investment has also gradually increased174. This enhanced economic interaction has not only improved cooperation between the two sides, but has also made the two
172 Robert D. Kaplan, Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the future of American Power,( New York: Random House, 2010),70-78 173 Robert D. Kaplan, Mansoon,12-14 174“Trade and Commercial Relations,” Embassy of India, Beijing, accessed on December 12 ,2012 http://www.indianembassy.org.cn/DynamicContent.aspx?MenuId=3&SubMenuId=0
68 governments work together to improve economic ties through mechanisms such as the newly-launched China-India Strategic and Economic Dialogue175.Second, there are a number of issues, such as climate change, world trade negotiations and the reform of the international financial system, on which both sides have shared interests and have therefore cooperated. Third, as newly emerging powers, China and India have a strong shared interest to reform the existing international infrastructure to accommodate their growing interests, something which has found expression in their cooperation in the
BRICS.
While both dynamics have impact on the relationship, at present the competitive dynamic is clearly dominant, as was elaborated in the introduction to this thesis. As a result, the Sino-Indian relationship can be described as competitive. However, it is a
“limited competition”. There are two reasons for this claim, the cooperative dynamic outlined above and the very high cost of a full-scale competition between the two sides.
A full-scale contest between China and India would not only damage their flourishing economic relations but would also force them into a dangerous confrontation. In case of such a confrontation, India would see China dramatically increase its support for
Pakistan, forcing Delhi to confront a threat from two sides, expand its military presence around India’s borders and, maybe, even extend support to separatists inside India. In such a scenario, Delhi would likely be forced not only to spend huge resources to match a country richer and more powerful than India, but also to ally itself with the US and lose
175 “China and India hold first strategic economic dialogue in Beijing”, Global Times, September 26, 2011, accessed on December 7,2012 http://www.globaltimes.cn/NEWS/tabid/99/ID/677075/China-and-India-hold-first-strategic-economic- dialogue-in-Beijing.aspx
69 its prized “strategic autonomy”. For China, a confrontation with India would force Delhi to strengthen enormously its security cooperation with Washington and Asian powers such as Japan and Vietnam, which would all concentrate on containing China, thus fulfilling Beijing’s worst fears of encirclement. As Beijing already confronts substantial challenges in the East China Sea and the South China Sea and might face again tensions over Taiwan, a confrontation with India would further aggravate China’s complex security environment. Moreover, a “hard” competition with Indi might easily lead to
Indian support for Tibetan independence or, at least, Indian support for Tibetan pro- independence forces.
Conclusion
What does all this mean for the Sino-Indian competition in Burma? It means several things. The competitive dynamic in the China-India relationship means that the Sino-
Indian interactions in Burma are seen by both sides through the lens of their larger competition and are, therefore, defined by both sides as competitive. The very fact that both sides see Burma through the prism of their overall competition inevitably intensifies their contest for influence in the Southeast Asian country, as the stakes become much greater than mere influence in Myanmar, a mid-sized neighbor. Moreover, the above discussion suggests that the Burma policy of both sides would be affected by the constant ups and downs which characterize the Sino-Indian relationship. Of course, the opposite is also true, what happens in Burma between China and India inevitably affects their broader relationship. The latter means that both the issues that cause strains in the China-
India relationship and the persistent attempts to reset this relationship would also affect the Sino-Indian competition in Burma. On a more positive note, the above discussion
70 means that there is room for much greater cooperation in Burma between the two sides. If we assume that the Beijing-Delhi interaction in Burma is shaped by the overall China-
India relationship, it is striking how decisively the latter is characterized by competition and how little cooperation there is in it, in sharp contrast with the overall relationship which is much more balanced. Hence, there is much room for cooperation.
But why is the competition between he two sides in Burma so much more intense than the competition in the broader Sino-Indian relationship? The obvious explanation to this is that the logic of competition which defines Sino-Indian interactions in Burma is much stronger than the same logic in their larger relationship.
Beyond this, it should also be noted that there is a relationship between the intensity of the competition in Burma and in the wider Sino-Indian competition. As the competition between China and India is a “limited” one, so is their competition in Burma. However, if the competition in Burma escalates to a higher level, inevitably this would increase substantially the tensions between China and India, with all the risks and costs that this would entail (This relationship between the broader Sino-Indian relationship and their relationship in Burma in discussed in more length at the conclusion of this thesis).
Finally, it is worth observing that the growing importance of the Sino-Indian competition in Asia, makes the competition in Burma a concern for other powers, such as the US and Japan, which might interfere in it, as the events of the last two years vaguely suggest ( this point would be further elaborated in Chapter Six).
In conclusion, the history of the triangle between China, India and Myanmar and the complex Sino-Indian relationship are the two main factors which have set the stage for
71 the Sino-Indian competition in Burma. The influence of this background in shaping the
Sino-Indian competition in Burma cannot be overstated and its effects would be explored throughout the rest of this thesis.
Armed with this understanding of the Sino-Indian competition in Burma, we can proceed to examine the three factors which have driven this competition: the geostrategies of Beijing and Delhi, both sides’ contest for influence over the domestic politics of the Southeast Asian country and their competition for exploiting Myanmar’s energy resources.
72 Chapter Three: Geostrategy
What drives the Sino-Indian competition in Burma? This thesis argues that there are three chief drivers of this competition: the geostrategy of both sides, their desire to gain political influence over Myanmar’s domestic politics and their drive to exploit Burma’s abundant energy resources. Of these three, geostrategy is the single most important driver of the contest; the one without which there will be no competition. It is in the realm of geostrategy that the goals and policies of China and India toward Burma clash most powerfully, their interests are most difficult to reconcile and their security dilemma is most severe. Geostrategy plays such a role in the Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar because Burma is a nexus of the regional geostrategies of Beijing and Delhi due to its strategic location. As a result, the stakes of the contest between China and India in
Myanmar increase dramatically with serious security and economic implications for both sides.
What is geostrategy? As we determined above, geostrategy is the “geographic direction of a state’s foreign policy,” formulated and implemented within the framework of geopolitics, the relationship between geography and politics. A crucial element of geostrategy is the concentration of a state’s policy on a place of key strategic importance.
For China and India, Myanmar is such a place.
73 Even a cursory look at Burma’s unique geography suggests its political and strategic
potential (please see Figure 2). Burma is a neighbor to both China and India, with which
it shares long land borders, 1640km with India176 and 2185km with China177, and borders
India’s Northeast region and the China’s provinces of Yunnan and Tibet ( formally the
Tibet Autonomous Region.)
Figure 2, Myanmar. Courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin178
176 Gurmeet Kanwal, “A Strategic Perspective on India-Myanmar Relations” in Myanmar/Burma: Inside Challenges, Outside Interests, ed. Lex Reiffel (Washington, Brookings Institution Press, 2010), 135 177 Kanwal, “A Strategic Perspective on India-Myanmar Relations”, 136
74 Myanmar’s other land neighbors are Bangladesh, the Kingdom of Thailand and
Laos (also known as the Lao People's Democratic Republic). Burma also controls a substantial part of the littoral of the Bay of Bengal, which gives it an outlet to the Indian
Ocean, close to the strategic Strait of Malacca through which about 40% of the world trade179 and about 80% of world oil pass180. At a larger level, Burma is the place where three regions, South Asia, East Asia and Southeast Asia meet by the waters of the Indian
Ocean (Please see Figure 3).
This geography endows Myanmar with great geopolitical importance for both China and
India and makes it a geopolitical pivot in Asia. There are four principal ways in which
Burma is geopolitically important to China and India: the access it gives both countries, the economic opportunities it offers to border regions within China and India, its impact on the military security of both sides and its participations in regional organizations. All of these four ways have made Burma important for the larger regional geostrategies of
Delhi and Beijing, which have striven to use Myanmar’s geopolitical location as a springboard to achieve wider regional objectives. All four will be examined in the following pages.
This chapter studies how China and India have incorporated Myanmar’s geography in their regional geostartegies and points to the role of geostrategy as the leading driver of the Sino-Indian competition in Burma. However, because it is impossible to think of geostrategy without analyzing the geopolitical position of Myanmar, the following pages
178 Material is in the public domain 179 “FACTBOX - Malacca Strait is a strategic 'chokepoint'”, Reuters,( Mar. 4 ,2010),accessed on March 23,2013, http://in.reuters.com/article/2010/03/04/idINIndia-46652220100304 180 Sergei DeSilva-Ranasinghe, ”Why the Indian Ocean matters”, The Diplomat (March 2, 2011), accessed on December 27, 2012, http://thediplomat.com/2011/03/02/why-the-indian-ocean-matters/
75 first analyze the geopolitical implications of Burma’s strategic location for the two powers and then examine how each of the two powers has placed Burma as a nexus of their regional geostrategies.
Figure 3, Burma in Asia. Courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin181
After this, this chapter proceeds to look into the concrete policies which both sides have formulated toward Burma as part of these geostrategies. Finally, the chapter briefly evaluates how Beijing and Delhi’s geostrategies drive the Sino-Indian competition in
181Material is in the public domain
76 Burma and generate a security dilemma between the two sides. As geostrategy is the most important driver of the Sino-Indian competition in Burma, this chapter will discuss the topic in greater detail that the following two chapters devoted to the other two drivers.
Myanmar and China’s Regional Geostrategy
Burma occupies a geopolitical location which is very important for China. This location has prompted Beijing to turn its smaller neighbor into a centerpiece of its regional geostrategy toward the Indian Ocean, South Asia and, partly, Southeast Asia. This section overviews the geopolitical significance of Myanmar for China and then the geostrategy which China has adopted to take advantage of its neighbor’s geopolitical position.
Geopolitical Importance
There are four powerful geopolitical reasons for which Myanmar is very important to
China. These are the access to the Indian Ocean that it gives to Beijing; its proximity to
China’s underdeveloped Southwest, especially Yunnan province; its impact on China’s military security and its membership in ASEAN. Let us examine each of these in order of importance
The unquestionably most important geopolitical reason for which Burma is important to
China is the access it gives Beijing to the Indian Ocean, the body of water through which much of the world’s and most of China’s trade and oil supply flow. The Indian Ocean is extremely important for China because, as the Middle Kingdom’s economy has boomed in the last twenty years, it has become increasingly dependent on oil imported from the
Middle East through the Indian Ocean and on transportation of goods through the ocean.
In this context, access to the Indian Ocean is important to Beijing for two reasons. First,
77 such access would allow China to redirect a substantial part of this traffic of goods and especially oil to China’s Southwest, through Burma. The result would be not only to shorten dramatically the distance between the oil producing states of the Persian Gulf and
China, substantially reducing costs in the process, but also to improve considerably
Beijing’s energy security. As all but 10 percent of Chinese oil imports182 and 75 percent of its trade183 pass through the Strait of Malacca which is dominated by the US navy184, it can easily become the target of interception by potentially hostile powers but especially by the US. This precarious situation is known as the “Malacca Dilemma”185. Therefore, a shorter route through Burma via pipelines, many analysts believe, would reduce the risk of interception and blockade of Chinese oil supply by the US and, mitigate the “Malacca
Dilemma“. While such an option comes with its own problems, a static pipeline is easier to destroy than a mobile ship, a rerouting of Chinese energy supplies would, at the very least, substantially increase the costs of blocking China’s energy for a potential enemy, as it would involve an attack on a third country and considerable military escalation, both of which might deter China’s potential enemy186. Second, access to the Indian Ocean through Burma is important to China because it would allow Beijing to project power in this critical body of water through which about 80 percent of the world’s oil supply passes187. If Chinese ships and submarines can stop in Burmese ports or, if China can use
182 Lee, John “China’s Geostrategic Search for Oil”, Washington Quarterly, (Summer, 2012), 77. 183 Malik, China and India, 207 184 Ian Storey, “China’s ‘Malacca Dilemma”, China Brief, the Jamestown Foundation, (April 12, 2006), accessed on December 22, 2012 http://www.jamestown.org/programs/chinabrief/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=31575&tx_ttnews% 5BbackPid%5D=196&no_cache=1 185 The idea of a “Malacca Dilemma” for China has been attributed to Chinese President Hu Jintao, who, during a party conference in November 2003, pointed to the risks for China’s energy security that the American dominance of the Strait of Malacca presents. See C. Raja Mohan, Samundra Manthan, 121 186 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations, 180 187 DeSilva-Ranasinghe,”Why the Indian Ocean matters”,
78 such ports as bases for its fleet, it would come much closer to securing the SLOCs through which its trade and energy supplies pass. This would enhance China’s energy and military security in case of conflict and might even enable it to threaten the energy supplies and trade routes of other powers, such as Japan, an important source of leverage for Zhongnanhai188. Equally important, a potential basing of People’s Liberation Army
Navy (PLAN) in Burma would allow China to project power as far as the Persian Gulf itself, as the US has done for decades, and in this way secure not only the route through which its energy supplies travel but also, to some extent, their source.
Another reason why Myanmar is geopolitically important to China is its proximity to
PRC’s Southwest189 and particularly to Yunnan province, relatively underdeveloped parts of China, if compared to its booming coastal regions. Burma holds the promise to develop these areas which, being landlocked, have not profited sufficiently from China’s opening to the world in the last three decades. Burma, historically described as the “back door” to China190, offers the opportunity to develop these landlocked provinces by connecting them to the Indian Ocean and to other parts of Southeast Asia, such as
Thailand, via a north-south transportation corridor. Such a corridor would turn the
Southwest into a major transportation route for regional trade, goods and energy which can be transported through pipelines from the Indian Ocean. Apart from improving the economy of the Southwest and raising its living standards, such a corridor might also offer security benefits to China. The Chinese government has long promoted economic
188 The Beijing compound where the leadership of the People’s Republic of China and the Chinese Communist Party live and work. The term is often used to mean the Chinese government. 189 Southwest China consists of Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou, Chongqing municipality and the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR). 190 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations, 280
79 development as a way to pacify Tibet and a north-south corridor to the Indian Ocean would give a major boost to such a development and ,maybe, to Tibet’s stability. An added advantage of the development of such a north-south corridor would be to bring greater stability to the Sino-Burmese border which has historically been troubled by refugees and insurgent groups fighting the Burmese government, both of which have affected the stability of Yunnan.
Yet another reason why Myanmar is geopolitically important to China is its impact on the military security of the Middle Kingdom. Myanmar is very close to the disputed and heavily militarized Sino-Indian border and to the Indian-controlled territory of Arunachal
Pradesh which Beijing claims and informally calls South Tibet191. As a result, if China or
India has military presence of some sort in Burma, it can gain a substantial intelligence or military advantage over the other side in the case of a border conflict. If China has such a presence in Myanmar, it would be able to easily outflank India192, while if India enjoys a military presence or transportation corridor through Burma to the Bay of Bengal, it could easily reinforce its border from the south. Moreover, Myanmar borders strategically and militarily vulnerable parts of China, such as Yunnan and Tibet. As Burma has been historically the “backdoor” to China, Indian military or intelligence presence in the country would outflank China and even allow India to threaten militarily Yunnan, with which Myanmar shares a very long border193. In addition, Burma shares a small border
191 Economist, “Unsettled for a long time yet: Fifty years after a nasty high-altitude war, a border dispute remains unresolved”, Economist ,October 20, 2012, accessed on December 23, 2012, http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21564861-fifty-years-after-nasty-high-altitude-war-border- dispute-remains-unresolved 192 Malik, China and India, 270 193 Such a presence would replicate the situation of the 1940s , when Japan’s occupation of Lower Burma threatened China, as well as the situation of the 1950s, when the presence of a small contingent of Chinese nationalist troops on the border infringed on the security of the newly-established PRC.
80 which Chinese Tibet which can always be used by India to threaten or monitor Chinese forces in Tibet, an autonomous region inside the PRC with a long history of instability and a traditional source of tensions between China and India.
Finally, Myanmar matters for China, geopolitically, because it is a member of ASEAN.
ASEAN, which Burma joined in 1997, has become important to China over the last two decades due to the growing economic integration of Asia, the rise of ASEAN powerhouses such as Indonesia and PRC’s recent multi-billion dollar FTA with the organization, all of which have served to increase Burma’s importance to Beijing.
Nevertheless, for China, Burma’s membership in ASEAN is important not only for economic reasons but also because of its bearing on PRC’s influence within the organization. As Beijing’s relations with a number of ASEAN countries, such as Vietnam and the Philippines have become badly strained over territorial disputes in the South
China Sea, it inevitably fears the emergence of a unified anti-Chinese ASEAN position on these territorial disputes. In this context, Burma can be a valuable ally which can help block the formation of such a position within ASEAN and promote Beijing’s interests in the organization.
As it is obvious from the discussion above Myanmar is of great geopolitical importance to China194. However, this geopolitical importance does not, in itself, drive China’s desire to expand its influence in Burma and to compete with India. It is China’s
194 The Chinese Southeast Asia expert Zhang Jian has even described Burma as a “strategic fulcrum” zhànlüè zhī diǎn (战略支点) for China. Zhang, Jian “Miǎndiàn zài dàguó zhījiān ‘zǒu gāng sī’ “ (缅甸在大国之间“走钢丝”),Shanghai Institute for International Studies, January 18,2013, accessed on March 1,2013, http://www.siis.org.cn/Sh_Yj_CMS/uploads/20130118zj.pdf
81 geostrategy, the way in which Beijing has decided to approach Myanmar’s geopolitical position, which drives China’s competition with India in the Southeast Asian country. Let us, then, turn to what this geostrategy is, how it strives to employ Myanmar's geopolitical position to advance China's larger strategic goals and in what specific policies and initiatives it is embodied.
Geostrategy
Based on Burma’s key geopolitical location, China has formulated a policy toward its
smaller neighbor which has made Myanmar a critical component of its regional
geostrategy. Myanmar’s special place in Beijing’s regional geostrategy has led the
Chinese government to seek influence in its southern neighbor through infrastructure
projects, military contacts and economic projects, in order to take advantage of Burma’s
geopolitical location to achieve wider regional objectives. Before examining these
Chinese initiatives, however, it is imperative to see how exactly Myanmar fits in China’s
regional geostrategy.
Myanmar’s geopolitical location has important impact on four key goals of China’s
regional geostrategy toward South and Southeast Asia. Let us briefly outline these four
goals and how Burma affects each of them. First, a key goal of China’s regional
geostrategy is to gain access to the Indian Ocean in order to enhance the security of its
SLOCs, ensure its position as a major world power and alleviate the Malacca Dilemma.
Burma clearly serves this goal as a potential land corridor to the Indian Ocean, through
which China can transfer some of its supply of goods and energy and partially bypass the
82 Malacca Strait. The other country which can serve the same function is Pakistan195.
Naturally, China’s maximum option is to develop both corridors, as Beijing has tried to do in the last decade. However, as land access to the Indian Ocean would only reduce the
Malacca Dilemma196 and shift China’s vulnerability from the Malacca Strait to the wider
Indian Ocean197, Beijing also needs to develop a considerable naval presence in the
Indian Ocean, just as it needs to do so in the Pacific Ocean, an approach known as the
“two ocean strategy”198. Inevitably such a strategy requires either bases on the Indian
Ocean or, at least, ports for berth and resupply. Myanmar, with its long littoral, proximity to the Strait of Malacca and existing ports serves both purposes199. Second, PRC’s geostrategy strives to prevent a real or imagined US attempt to encircle and contain China from east, southeast and south, what some Chinese analysts call “C-shaped encirclement.”200 As Southeast Asia has been a weak link in this purported containment strategy, China has concentrated its efforts to spread its influence in this region and avoid encirclement. In this context, as one of China’s closest allies in the region, a Southeast
Asian country which is not a US ally and a potential regional transportation hub,
195 It is believed that when Chinese President Hu Jintao raised the Malacca Dilemma in 2003, Chinese analysts presented him with four options to alleviate the dilemma, of which only two, the Burma and the Pakistan corridors, were deemed feasible. Leszek Buszynski, “Emerging Naval Rivalry in East Asia and the Indian Ocean: Implications for Australia”, Security Challenges, (Spring 2009): 75 196 These projects will not be able to free China from its dependence on the Malacca Strait but will reduce the volume of PRC’s energy imports that pass through it. 197 Leszek Buszynski, “Emerging Naval Rivalry in East Asia and the Indian Ocean: Implications for Australia”:76 198 For a discussion of China’s “two ocean strategy”. See Robert Kaplan, ”China’s Two-Ocean Strategy” in China’s Arrival: A Strategic Framework for a Global Relationship, eds. Abraham Denmark and Nirav Patel, Center for New American Security (CNAS), September, 2009, 43-59, accessed on December 15, 2012 http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/CNAS%20China's%20Arrival_Final%20Report.pdf 199 Of course, Pakistan also serves well for both goals. However, as China does not want to “keep all eggs in one basket”, it is striving to develop both Pakistan and Myanmar as countries where its ships in the Indian Ocean can be based or, at least, can stop for resupply. 200 Michael S. Chase, “Fear and Loathing in Beijing? Chinese suspicions of US intensions,” China Brief, Volume: 11 Issue: 18 , (September 30, 2011):2-7, accessed on December 27, 2012, http://www.jamestown.org/uploads/media/cb_11_47.pdf
83 Myanmar emerges as an important element of China’s geostrategy. Third, another objective of China’s geostrategy is to balance India, a rival and a natural obstacle to its influence in South and Southeast Asia and in the Indian Ocean. Having influence in
Burma clearly gives Beijing an important advantage over India. Chinese presence in
Myanmar puts pressure on India to its east, as Pakistan does to its west,201 and ensures that Delhi feels insecure in its own neighborhood and hence remains contained in South
Asia. Fourth, the economic integration of China’s Southwest with Southeast Asia and the
Indian Ocean is a major goal of China’s regional geostartegy for obvious economic reasons. Burma, with its natural resources and potential as transportation corridor, plays a critical role in the achievement of this goal.
As Myanmar plays an important role in achieving all these four objectives, we can conclude that Burma occupies a central place in China’s regional geostrategy. In essence,
Burma acts as a springboard for achieving China’s wider regional goals and thus has significance for China much larger than its size or resources would suggest. In practical terms, Myanmar’s special place in Beijing’s regional geostrategy has been expressed in three major Chinese policies toward Burma: building transportation and energy infrastructure, promoting economic interaction with China’s Southwest and increasing
China’s military influence in Myanmar. Let us examine each of these.
As much of China’s geostrategic interest in Myanmar comes from the access it gives to other regions, China has strived to make use of this access by building infrastructure in its smaller neighbor. In keeping with its goals of gaining access to the Indian Ocean and increasing its influence in Southeast Asia, China has striven to develop a transportation
201 Leszek Buszynski, “Emerging Naval Rivalry in East Asia and the Indian Ocean,”: 86
84 corridor from Yunnan province to the Bay of Bengal through Burma as part of a wider transportation strategy in the region, which Chinese scholar Fan Hongwei has named the
“Look South” policy202. Myanmar’s so-called Irrawaddy Corridor is the most important part of this strategy, as it gives access to the Indian Ocean203, China’s geostrategic “holy grail” (please see Figure 4). The Irrawaddy Corridor, which mostly follows the Irrawaddy
River, combines a dense network of railroads, roads and waterways with gas and oil pipelines which connect Yangon and several ports in Burma with the Chinese province of
Yunnan. While the Irrawaddy Corridor is not complete, some of its components have already been built and others are presently under construction. A key element of the corridor is the building of two strategic ports, the Kyaukphyu deep-water port on the Bay of Bengal and the Thilawa port on the Irrawady river, 40km away from Yangon204.
The corridor includes the construction of two roads from Yunnan to Burma, the
Kunming-Ruili-Yangon road and the Kunming-Tengchong-Myanmar-India road, parts of the “Yunnan International Passage” initiative and two highways that connect Yunnan with Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and Laos, which would have 18 road passages, of which 13 would reach Burma205. China has also upgraded and extended smaller roads inside Burma which lead to Yunnan206, as part of these plans. The railroad section of the corridor includes the Western section of the Trans-Asia railway that connects Kunming,
202China’s “Look South” policy aims to build the Chinese province of Yunnan as a regional transportation hub, from which a fan-shaped network of roads, railroads and waterways connects with the Indian Ocean and Indo-China. Fan Hongwei., ”China’s “Look South”: China-Myanmar Transport Corridor” Ritsumeikan International Affairs, (2011), accessed on December 28, 2012, http://r-ube.ritsumei.ac.jp/bitstream/10367/3399/1/asia10_fan.pdf 203 Mohan, Samundra Manthan, 118-119 204 Mohan, Samundra Manthan, 119 205 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations, 282-285 206 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations, 282
85 Yunnan’s capital, with Singapore, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur through Myanmar207.
China has also upgraded Myanmar’s railway system and plans to build a 850 km railway connecting Kyaukphyu port to Yunnan208.
The Irrawaddy Corridor also has a water transportation element which involves two waterways, the Lancang-Mekong River which connects China, Laos, Myanmar,
Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, and the China-Myanmar land and water passage
Figure 4, the “Irrawaddy Corridor” with its parallel oil and gas pipelines which connects the Bay of Bengal with China. Copyright© 2012 CNA. All Rights Reserved209
207 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations, 286 208 Mohan, C. Raja., “Burma Rail”, The Indian Express, (September 1, 2011), accessed on December 27, 2012, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/burma-rail/839924 209 Material used with the permission of the copyright holder. The map comes from Nilanthi Samaranayake, The Long Littoral Project: Bay of Bengal, CNA,(September 2012),Figure 3,p.20,accessed on Mar.25,2012, http://www.cna.org/sites/default/files/research/irp-2012-u-002319- final%20bay%20of%20bengal.pdf
86 which also includes road construction and building of a port at Bhamo on the Irrawaddy river. China would operate the passage on a Build-Operate Transfer (BOT) basis210.
Last but by no means least, the Irrawaddy Corridor also includes two parallel pipelines for gas and oil which connect the port of Kyaukphyu on the Bay of Bengal with
Kunming, each costing about one billion dollars. The construction of the pipelines began in 2010 and is scheduled to be completed in 2013211. It is estimated that these two pipelines would transport 32 percent of China’s projected gas imports for 2013 and 5.8 percent of its projected oil imports for 2013212. Naturally, China has also begun to build a similar network of roads and pipelines on its own territory to transport oil, gas and goods from Yunnan to the rest of the Middle Kingdom. All this helps China gain access to the
Indian Ocean and other parts of the Indochinese peninsula, and increase its influence both in Burma and in wider Southeast Asia. It also has the added advantage of helping to counter what China sees as US encirclement in Southeast Asia, a region which has been increasingly contested between Beijing and Washington.
As the development of China’s Southwest and particularly of Yunnan province is a key objective of China’s regional geostrategy, Beijing has persistently tried to increase the economic interaction between this region and Burma. Naturally, the building of the infrastructure described above is the main component of this policy. Much of the infrastructure in Myanmar would direct oil, gas and goods from the Indian Ocean through
Yunnan province to the economic centers of the Southwest, Chongqing and Chengdu.
210 Steinberg and Fan., Modern China-Myanmar Relations, 288-289 211 Nilanthi Samaranayake, ”The Long Littoral Project: Bay of Bengal”:20 212 Nilanthi Samaranayake, ”The Long Littoral Project: Bay of Bengal”:21
87 However, the promotion of border trade is another important element of China’s policy of developing the economic interaction between Burma and the Southwest, especially
Yunnan .The Yunnan-Burma border trade213 which accounted for over 2 billion dollars in
2011214 and, in order to facilitate trade is increasingly settled in Chinese yuan215, has been steadily growing in recent years. The backbone of this trade are two border economic cooperation zones in Wanding and Ruili and the “Muse 105 Mile” trade zone between the two sides216. While the volume of this border trade is small, its economic impact on
Yunnan is disproportionate as 17 poverty alleviations counties217 and 22 different ethnic minority areas, potential sources of instability, border Burma218 and directly benefit from this trade. As noted earlier, this economic interaction also has the added advantage of developing and stabilizing the border areas between the two sides which are home to minorities and various insurgent groups, on the Myanmar side, and to a large number of
Chinese migrants who live in Burma.
Much of Burma’s importance also stems from its impact on the military security of
China, both in terms of the advantages it gives Beijing against India and ,more important, the threats it poses. This has prompted Beijing to seek ways to expand its military
213 It is important to note that it is very difficult to give an estimate of the Yunnan-Myanmar trade, as a substantial part of this trade is illegal or informal. See Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations, 212 214“12th Myanmar-China Border Economic and Trade Fair opened in Myanmar”, Xinhua (December 9, 2012), accessed on December 28, 2012, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012- 12/09/c_132029429.htm 215 For this purpose China opened a renminbi settlement center on the border. “China to Start Yuan Center in Yunnan as Myanmar Opens Up Trade” Bloomberg News (May 22, 2012), accessed on December 28, 2012, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-22/china-to-start-yuan-center-in-yunnan-as- myanmar-opens-up-trade.html 216 Steinberg and Fan., Modern China-Myanmar Relations, 215 217 A designation for Yunnan counties in which poverty is a major problem and which require special assistance from the provincial government to improve their economic situation and living standards 218 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations, 293
88 influence in Burma in several ways. The chief means for this have been Beijing’s massive arms sales to the Burmese junta, which account for the sizable 4% of all Chinese arms sales between 2004 and 2007219 ,and include missiles, aircraft and heavy weaponry220, often sold to Burma at very low prices221. These arms sales have been a crucial part of Sino-Burmese relations as proved by the fact that the rapprochement between Beijing and Rangoon after 1988 was soon sealed with two massive arms deals, one for $1.2 billion in 1990 and another for $400 million in 1994222. As a result of this policy, China has emerged as Myanmar’s largest supplier of arms. Beyond arms sales,
Beijing has actively sought to train Burmese military personnel and thus cultivate important connections with tatmadaw’s officer corps. This training policy has led 665
Burmese officers and 249 other ranks to take 163 different courses in China between
1990 and 2005223. Beijing has also sought to build-up Myanmar’s naval capabilities in the
Bay of Bengal with the sale of patrol boats224, assistance in the construction of frigates225 and the construction of infrastructure such as an 85 meter jetty on the Great Coco
Island226.This naval assistance has deeply worried India and has prompted concerns that
China is covertly building a military presence of sorts in the Bay of Bengal. In addition, to Indian horror, China and Myanmar have cooperated in intelligence sharing under the
219 It is also important to note that, in a partial proof of Beijing’s strategic designs for South Asia, Sri Lanka also accounted for 4% of Chinese arms sales while Bangladesh and Pakistan’s shares were 3% and 36%, respectively. Steinberg and Fan,, Modern China-Myanmar Relations, 302 220 Li Chenyang, “The Policies of China and India toward Myanmar”, 120 221 International Crisis Group (ICC), China’s Myanmar Dilemma, Asia Report N°177, (14 September 2009), 21, accessed on September 29, 2012, http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs07/Chinas_myanmar_ICG.pdf 222 Haacke, Jurgen., ”Myanmar’s foreign policy towards China and India,” The Adelphi Papers, 46:381, (2006):26 223 Steinberg and Fan., Modern China-Myanmar Relations, 304 224 Steinberg and Fan., Modern China-Myanmar Relations, 305 225 Ibid 226 Malik, China and India, 206
89 provisions of their 1994 military agreement227, although the extent of China’s intelligence activities in Burma remains hotly debated. While the claims that the Coco Islands are a major Chinese intelligence base have been much exaggerated or even false, there have been evidence in the past of Chinese fishing boats with reconnaissance equipment operating with Burmese help in the Bay of Bengal228. Finally, China and Burma have consistently exchanged high-level military visits229 such as the recent meeting between the deputy chief of general staff of the PLA with the deputy commander-in-chief of the
Myanmar Armed Forces in Beijing230.
These policies have striven to increase China’s influence in Myanmar and help it take advantage of the Southeast Asian country’s location in order to achieve the four goals of its regional strategy described above. Predictably, India has also tried through its policies and geostrategy to do the same.
Myanmar and India’s Regional Geostrategy
For India, Burma occupies a critical geopolitical location, a location which is even more important than it is for China, as Myanmar is much closer to India’s heartland than to China’s. As a result of this key geopolitical location, India has made Myanmar an essential part of its regional geostrategy toward South and Southeast Asia and its own
Northeast territories. This section first outlines why Myanmar is so geopolitically important for India and then looks into how Burma serves India’s regional geostrategy.
227 Haacke,”Myanmar’s foreign policy towards China and India,”:27 228 The author’s interviews 229 “Exchanges and Cooperations in Military”, Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, accessed on December 28, 2012, http://mm.china-embassy.org/eng/zmgx/jsjw/ 230 Luo Chaowen., “China, Myanmar pledge to further military strategic cooperation”, People’s Daily, reprinted from China Military, November 20, 2012, accessed on December 28, 2012, http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90786/8025955.html
90 Finally, this section examines the concrete policies which Delhi has adopted toward
Burma in order to make use of its neighbor’s geopolitical location for the purposes of its regional geostrategy.
Geopolitical Importance
Myanmar is geopolitically important to India for reasons very similar to those which make it geopolitically consequential to China. There are four reasons why Burma is geopolitically important to Delhi: Burma gives Delhi access to Southeast Asia and India’s own isolated Northeast; it impacts the economy and stability of India’s Northeast region; it affects India’s military security on land and on sea and has bearing on India’s relations with important regional organizations.
Just as in the case of China, Burma’s principal significance for Delhi is the access it gives India. For India, however, this is access to the Indochinese peninsula and to India’s own Northeast. Often referred to as India’s “land-bridge” to Southeast Asia231, Burma is a potential corridor through which trade can flow from India to the countries of
Indochinese peninsula232 and particularly to such important economies as Thailand,
Malaysia and Singapore. There are two different directions such a corridor can take, a southern direction from Northeast India through Myanmar to Thailand and Malaysia, and an eastern direction through Burma into Laos and then to Vietnam and the Gulf of
Tonkin. Such access would present India with important economic opportunities and would allow it to integrate its economy with those of Southeast Asia and improve the
231 For example see K. Yhome,”India-Myanmar Relations”, ORF Occasional Paper #10, Observer Research Foundation (2009), 2, accessed on December 21, 2012, http://www.observerindia.com/cms/export/orfonline/modules/occasionalpaper/attachments/ind-myn- OP_1236338801296.pdf 232 Li Chenyang, “The Policies of China and India toward Myanmar”, 116
91 connectivity of its landlocked Northeast. While historically the West-East corridor between India and Indo-China has been underdeveloped due to Burma’s topography which favors traffic from the north to the south and not from the west to the east233, modern technology has made such a corridor viable.
Another reason why Myanmar is geopolitically important to India is its proximity to some of the most unstable and underdeveloped parts of India, the landlocked and isolated
Northeast provinces234which have long suffered from Delhi’s deliberate or unintentional235 neglect. Hence, Burma has the potential to advance, mightily, the economic development of these parts of India, by connecting them to the Bay of Bengal, and, in this way, to the rest of India, as well as to the dynamic economies of Southeast
Asia236. As the eight provinces of India’s Northeast, four of which border Burma237, are culturally and ethnically distinct from the rest of India and have traditionally been a hotbed of separatism and insurgency against Indian rule238, they have been a permanent source of instability. Thus, apart from the obvious economic benefits that greater access
233R. Hariharan, “India-Myanmar-China Relations”, Asian Tribune, (July 7, 2012), accessed on December 23, 2012 http://www.asiantribune.com/index.php?q=node/6641. 234 These are the provinces of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur, Tripura, Meghalaya, Assam and Sikkim. 235 Some authors have suggested that the underdevelopment of much of India’s Northeast and particularly of its infrastructure is the result of a deliberate Indian policy, based on the idea that “safety lay in not building the road”, as once built the roads can be used by the region’s numerous insurgencies. See Udai Bhahu Singh and Shruti Pandalia , “Myanmar: The Need for infrastructure integration” in India’s Neighborhood, Challenges in the Next Two Decades, eds. Rumel Dahiya and Ashok K. Bahuria, Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, (New Delhi: Pentagon Press, 2012), 111-112 236 Shristi Pukjrem,”The Significance of Connectivity in India-Myanmar Relations”, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) (July 6, 2012), accessed on December 23, 2012, http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/TheSignificanceofConnectivityinIndiaMyanmarRelations_spukhrem_2 30512 237 These are the states of Arunachal Pradesh , Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram 238 Egreteau, ”India’s Ambitions in Burma”, 939-940
92 through Burma might bring, it can also serve to improve the stability of these provinces and better integrate them with the rest of India239.
Myanmar’s bearing on the military security of India is a further reason why Burma is geopolitically important to India. Burma is military significant for Delhi in several ways.
As was already discussed, Burma is very close to the disputed and heavily militarized
Sino-Indian border and to the Indian-controlled territory of Arunachal Pradesh, which
Beijing claims. As a result, military or intelligence presence in Myanmar offers India substantial intelligence and military advantages over China in the case of a border conflict. Conversely, if China enjoys such presence in Myanmar, it would be able to easily outflank India240. Furthermore, Myanmar borders regions of India which, to a different degree, are strategically and militarily vulnerable. India’ Northeast is almost entirely surrounded by foreign territory, half of it Chinese, and connected to India only through the very narrow Siliguri corridor241, euphemistically known as India’s “chicken neck.” As this corridor is very easy to cut, and Bangladesh has refused to help India develop direct roads to it through its territory, Indian military presence in Burma and lines of communication through the Southeast Asian country can be of vital importance for saving India’s Northeast in case of war with China. Even without a Chinese attack on the Siliguri corridor, Chinese military presence in Burma would mean that China has strategically enveloped India’s Northeast242, a prospect which is even more worrying for
Delhi as there are suspicions that China is still helping some of the Northeast’s
239 Hariharan, R., “India-Myanmar-China Relations” 240 Malik, China and India, 270 241 Garver, Protracted Contest, 96 242 “From Isolation to Engagement: Reviewing India’s Policy toward Myanmar” in Current Realities and Future Possibilities in Burma/Myanmar, Asia Society (March 2010), 44, accessed on December 23, 2012 http://asiasociety.org/files/pdf/ASBurmaMyanmar_NationalReviews.pdf
93 insurgencies243, as it did during the 1960s and 1970s244.Just as important, Burma occupies a key location at the Bay of Bengal that has important consequences for India’s maritime security. Chinese military presence in mainland Burma or Burmese islands in the Bay of
Bengal, such as the Coco islands, threatens India’s military position in the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea and its ability to project naval power toward Southeast Asia and the Malacca Strait245 and, maybe, even toward Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Chinese intelligence presence in Burma and especially in the Coco islands can serve to monitor
India’s naval activities in the Bay of Bengal246 and around the Nicobar and Andaman islands, where India’s Far Eastern Naval command is based247. Moreover, when India fully develops the naval leg of its strategic nuclear forces, any Chinese military and intelligence presence in Burma and the Bay of Bengal can seriously affect the survivability of Indian nuclear forces there or, alternatively, deny to them much of the area. The Nicobar and Andaman islands also might have bearing for India’s air-based nuclear deterrent248 as they are a base for India’s air force which has Southwest China within its reach.
Finally, Myanmar is geopolitically important to India on account of its membership in important regional organizations, primarily ASEAN but also the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) and the Mekong-
243 Lyle Morris, ”Is China Backing Indian Insurgents ? ”, The Diplomat, (March 22, 2011), accessed on December 26, 2012, http://thediplomat.com/2011/03/22/is-china-backing-indian-insurgents/?all=true 244 Jabin T. Jacob, ”The India-Myanmar Borderlands: Guns, Blankets and Bird Flu”, Spirit Working Papers, (October, 2010): 9-10, accessed on December 26, 2012, http://www.durkheim.sciencespobordeaux.fr/Cahiers%20de%20SPIRIT_6/Cahiers%20de%20SPIRIT_Jacob .pdf 245 Mohan, Samundra Manthan, 180 246 Mohan, Samundra Manthan, 173 247 Egreteau, ”India’s Ambitions in Burma”: 952 248 Donald L. Berlin, “The ‘Great Base Race’ in the Indian Ocean Littoral: Conflict Prevention or Stimulation” Contemporary South Asia, (September, 2004): 242
94 Ganga Cooperation (MGC) organizations. For India, ASEAN is an important economic partner with which it launched a Free Trade Area in 2010249,a partner that gives Delhi the opportunity to gain more influence in Southeast and East Asia and increase its economic interaction with these regions. Thus Burma, as a member of the organization and the only
ASEAN country with which India shares a border, is an important factor in the India-
ASEAN relationship. For India, BIMSTEC and MGC are also important regional organizations because they put Delhi under one roof with several Southeast Asian countries, an important aspect of India’s Look East policy, and hence promote the economic integration of South and Southeast Asia, to India’s benefit. In addition, the fact that China is not a member of either organization, enables India to emerge as the most important member of both organizations and use them as a vehicle for its political and economic influence. Burma’s membership in both organizations increases its value to
India, something particularly true for BIMSTEC, where India needs allies as some members such as Bangladesh and Sri Lanka harbor suspicions of India’s role in the organization.
Geostrategy
On the basis of this geopolitical reality, India has made Burma an important part of its regional geostrategy and has formulated its policies toward its smaller neighbor. To understand India’s policy toward Myanmar, it makes sense to briefly outline Myanmar’s role in India’s regional geostrategy and then, on this basis, examine its policies toward
Burma.
249 Veeramalla Anjaiah ,” India, ASEAN must `enhance connectivity' to reap benefits”, The Jakarta Post, January 23,2010,accessed on March 23,2013 http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/01/23/india- asean-must-enhance-connectivity039-reap-benefits.html
95 Myanmar is important for the achievement of four of the major objectives of India’s regional geostrategy. This section looks into these objectives and how Burma serves their attainment. First, a cornerstone of India’s regional geostrategy is to prevent China, and any other major power, from establishing influence around its borders and surrounding
India. As China is a major ally of Delhi’s arch-rival Pakistan, has established substantial presence in Burma and has some influence in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, India has naturally felt surrounded and has fiercely opposed Chinese presence around its borders250.
This has given rise to the alarmist “string of pearls theory” in India and the West. This strategic situation makes Burma a crucial area contested between China and India, an area which Delhi cannot afford to lose to Beijing, as such a loss would expand, considerably, China’s encirclement of India. Thus, Burma serves as a key buffer in
India’s geostrategy of preventing Chinese encirclement. Second, India’s regional geostrategy strives to establish Indian preeminence in the Indian Ocean, a body of water described in Delhi’s 2004 Maritime Doctrine as “India’s extended neighborhood”251, and prevent China from developing a presence there which can threaten this preeminence252.
This Indian quest for preeminence is based on the idea, iterated in India’s Maritime
Military Strategy, that “India’s economic resurgence is directly linked to her overseas trade and energy needs, most of which are transported by sea”253. Naturally, China’s growing presence in the Indian Ocean is a huge challenge to Delhi’s desired preeminence. Hence, from India’s perspective, influence in Burma, one of the two
250 Malik, China and India, 209-210 251 Leszek Buszynski, “Emerging Naval Rivalry in East Asia and the Indian Ocean,”: 82 252 It is important to note that India thinks of its naval presence in the Indian Ocean in exclusive terms, as demonstrated by Delhi’s frequent invocations of an Indian version of US’s Monroe doctrine in the Indian Ocean. See James R. Holmes and Toshi Yoshihara, "China and the United States in the Indian Ocean: An Emerging Strategic Triangle?" Naval War College Review, Vol. 61, No. 3 (Summer 2008): 46-50 253 C. Raja Mohan, Samundra Manthan, 41
96 potential Chinese corridors to the Indian Ocean, is critically important for limiting
Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean, especially in the Bay of Bengal. Myanmar is particularly important for this purpose, as Beijing has, in recent years, advanced considerably in developing Pakistan as a corridor to the Indian Ocean, a development that
India is powerless to stop. Third, Delhi’s geostrategy has long sought to engage Southeast
Asia and develop its economic relations with the region, a policy in which Burma, India’s only Southeast Asian land-neighbor, occupies an important place. Engaging Southeast
Asia has been a very important goal for India, expressed in its longstanding “Look East” policy254 which Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described as a “strategic shift in
India’s vision of the world and India’s place in the evolving global economy.”255 Burma, as the only ASEAN member with which India shares a border and as a natural land bridge to Southeast Asia, serves as a trigger for developing the transportation connectivity central to this strategy. Four, a key goal of India’s regional geostrategy has been to develop and stabilize India’s Northeast by connecting it both to continental
Southeast Asia’s developing economies and to India’s own mainland. This has been one of the motivators of the “Look South” policy. Myanmar, as a neighbor of the Northeast and a bridge both to continental Southeast Asia and to the Bay of Bengal, is critical in this respect because it is the only corridor which allows Delhi to achieve this goal256.
254 India’s “Look East” policy has been a policy of promoting greater political and especially economic interaction between India and Southeast Asian, which was launched in 1991, during the premiership of P.V. Narasimha Rao 255 Samaranayake, ”The Long Littoral Project: Bay of Bengal: A Maritime Perspective on Indo-Pacific Security,” Center for Naval Analysis (CNA), (September, 2012):15, accessed on December 26, 2012, http://www.cna.org/sites/default/files/research/irp-2012-u-002319-final%20bay%20of%20bengal.pdf 256 Obviously, this discounts the possibility of developing the Northeast by opening it up to China. However, this option is not realistic from Delhi’s viewpoint because it would weaken its grasp over the Northeast and would integrate it economically with China, a much worse perspective for India than keeping it poor and unstable.
97 Against this background, Myanmar emerges as a key factor in reaching the objectives of India’s regional geostrategy. As in the case with China, Burma serves as a hub of India’s regional geostrategy which allows Delhi to attain wider regional objectives. Burma’s important role in India’s regional geostrategy has been the driving force in Delhi’s attempt to gain more influence in its eastern neighbor.
This drive for influence has been expressed in three Indian policies which have sought to make use of Burma’s geopolitical location: infrastructure building, promotion of
Figure 5, The Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport Corridor which connects India’s port city of Kolkota with Mizoram in India’s Northeast. Copyright© 2012 CNA. All Rights Reserved257
257 Material used with the permission of the copyright holder. The map comes from Nilanthi Samaranayake, The Long Littoral Project: Bay of Bengal, CNA,(September 2012),Figure 2,p.19,accessed on Mar.25,2012, http://www.cna.org/sites/default/files/research/irp-2012-u-002319- final%20bay%20of%20bengal.pdf
98 economic interaction between Burma and India’s Northeast, and a quest to increase
Indian military influence in Myanmar.
India has striven to build the necessary infrastructure which would connect its vulnerable Northeast with the Bay of Bengal and with continental Southeast Asia. While
India’s infrastructure projects in Burma are much smaller than China’s, they are nevertheless substantial.
The largest of these projects is the $110 million Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport
Project (please see Figure 5) which would connect India’s port of Kolkata (Calcutta) with
India’s Northeast state of Mizoram through Burma’s Sittwe port, which Delhi plans to upgrade, and through the Kaladan river258. The project also envisions the construction of a 170 feet long “friendship bridge” on the border between Burma and Mizoram259. The resulting Kaladan corridor, to be completed in 2014, would bypass Bangladesh which has not cooperated with Delhi in allowing transit through to India’s Northeast260, reportedly under Chinese pressure261.India has also been involved in road-building which includes a
160km road, built in 2001, which connects the Indian state of Manipur with Burma, as well as the upgrading the Rhi-Tidim and Rhi-Falam road sections in Myanmar262. In addition to this, India has signed an agreement with Myanmar on the construction of the
Burmese section of the Trilateral Highway between India, Myanmar and Thailand and
258 Yhome,”India-Myanmar Relations”, 17 259 Malik, China and India, 213 260 Yhome, ”India-Myanmar Relations”, 17 261 Author’s interviews 262 Anushree Bhattacharya., ”Linking East Asia to India: More Connectivity, Better Ties”, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS), (February 2008):3, accessed on December 28, 2012 http://www.ipcs.org/pdf_file/issue/935268060IPCS-SpecialReport50.pdf 99 has given Naypyidaw a $500 million loan toward this goal, among others in 2012263. The planned highway, part of the Asian Highway, would connect India’s Northeast with
Thailand through Burma and might, in the future, also link with the planned deep-water port at Dawei, Myanmar264. Railroads are also part of India’s access and transportation plans in Burma. Delhi has granted Burma a $56 million loan to upgrade the Rangoon-
Mandalay rail network265 and has supported an ambitious project to upgrade Myanmar’s rail system which would ultimately serve as part of the planned Delhi-Hanoi railway266.
India has also worked to promote greater economic cooperation with Myanmar in order to develop and stabilize its Northeast. Naturally, Delhi’s above-mentioned projects such as the Trilateral Highway between India, Burma and Thailand and the Kaladan Multi-
Modal Transit Transport Project serve this purpose. Promoting border trade has also been means for Delhi to improve the economic lot of its Northeast and particularly of the border states of Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh. While border trade has been miniscule, only $12.8 million in 2010-2011267, it holds great potential for growth and for improving local living standards, due to its unnaturally low level at present and the grinding poverty of the border regions. There have been efforts to promote the expansion of border trade through the signing of a bilateral border trade
263 “India grants Myanmar US$500m loan to build part of trilateral highway”, Channel News Asia, 14 August 2012, accessed on December 28, 2012, http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific_business/view/1220035/1/.html 264 Ibid 265 Malik, China and India, 213 266 Anushree Bhattacharya, ”Linking East Asia to India: More Connectivity, Better Ties”:4-5 267 “India-Myanmar Border Trade”, Embassy of India in Myanmar, accessed on December 28, 2012 http://www.indiaembassy.net.mm/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=165&Itemid=105&l ang=en
100 agreement in 1994268 and the development of two border points for trade at Moreh-Tamu and Zowkhathar-Rhi269. Border trade also received a powerful boost during the visit of
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Burma in 2012, during which it emerged as one of the foci of bilateral discussion and resulted in the signing of a memorandum of understanding which stipulated the establishment of border haats (markets.) 270
As many of India’s concerns in Burma are related to military security, Delhi has made the projection of military influence in Burma one of its major policies toward Myanmar.
This has been done in several ways. The Indian army has tried to build a “long-term institutional relationship”271 with its Burmese counterpart which has resulted in gradual expansion of India’s military influence in Myanmar272. The exchange of visits of high- ranking officers273, particularly in the last two years274, and the establishment of four military hotlines between the two sides275 have been major elements of this policy.
Furthermore, India has supplied Burma with a host of arms and military hardware, including guns, howitzers, submarines, spare parts for military aircraft276 and “Islander”
268 “India-Myanmar: Expanding Bilateral Cooperation”, Confederation of Indian Industry (2011):8, accessed on December 29, 2012, http://mycii.in/KmResourceApplication/E000000056.3333.india_myanmar.pdf 269 Yhome,”India-Myanmar Relations”:7 270 Udai Bhanu Singh, “ An Assessment of Manmohan Singh’s Visit to Myanmar” IDSA Issue Brief (June 1, 2012):4 accessed on December 28, 2012, http://www.idsa.in/system/files/IB_ManmohanVisitMyanmar.pdf 271 Mohan, C. Raja Samundra Manthan, 177 272 C. Raja Mohan, “India’s Security Cooperation with Myanmar: Prospect and Retrospect”, Institute for South Asian Studies(Feb. 2013):7-10,accessed on March 12,2013, http://www.isas.nus.edu.sg/Attachments/PublisherAttachment/ISAS_Working_Paper_No__166_- _India's_Security_Cooperation_with_Myanmar_25022013165916.pdf 273 A good example of this was the exchange of visits between of the Commander-in-Chief of Myanmar’s Navy and India’s Navy chief in 2007, Yhome, K., ”India-Myanmar Relations”: 14 274 Mohan, “India’s Security Cooperation with Myanmar: Prospect and Retrospect”:8 275 Li, Chenyang., “The Policies of China and India Toward Myanmar”, 122 276 “India seeks closer military ties with Myanmar”, Deutsche Welle, (August 8, 2012), accessed on December 28, 2012, http://www.dw.de/india-seeks-closer-military-ties-with-myanmar/a-16151657
101 surveillance aircraft277. In addition, Delhi has promoted naval cooperation with Burma.
This cooperation has been expressed in Myanmar’s participation in the bi-annual MILAN international naval exercises hosted by India278, Rangoon’s agreement to permit the
Indian navy to berth in Burmese ports279, starting in 2002,280 and India’s proposal to establish a naval aviation training center in Burma281. Finally, India and Burma have cooperated in fighting the anti-Indian insurgencies in their border regions through a joint operation in 1995 (Operation Golden Bird282), as well as Indian-supported Burmese operations in 2000, 2001 and 2007283, and smaller Burmese attacks on rebel bases each winter284. While these efforts have produced some progress, particularly recently285, they have been unable to defeat the border insurgencies due to the inability of Burmese army to defeat the well-entrenched rebels or, some suspect, its reluctance to do India’s work286.
These three Indian policies toward Burma have enabled Delhi to make use of its neighbor’s geopolitical location to advance its regional geostrategy. How does this geostrategy and its Chinese counterpart drive the competition between China and India in
Myanmar? Let us look for the answer in the next section.
277 Mohan, Samundra Manthan, 177 278 Yhome, K., ”India-Myanmar Relations”: 14 279 Mohan, C. Raja Samundra Manthan, 179 280 Egreteau, ”India’s Ambitions in Burma”: 952 281 Mohan, “India’s Security Cooperation with Myanmar: Prospect and Retrospect”:9 282 Although the operation was suspended in mid-course, due to the decision of India’s president to award Aung Sang Suu Ky the Nehru Award for International Understanding. C. Raja Mohan, “India’s Security Cooperation with Myanmar: Prospect and Retrospect”:7 283 Yhome, K., India-Myanmar Relations”: 14 284 Ibid 285 Bibhu Prasad Routray, “Myanmar and India’s Northeast: Border Cooperation, Better Connectivity and Economic Integration”, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, (January 10, 2013) , accessed on March 21,2013, http://www.ipcs.org/article/india/myanmar-and-indias-northeast-border-cooperation-better- connectivity-and-economic-3788.html 286 Egreteau, ”India’s Ambitions in Burma”: 945-947
102 The Sino-Indian Security Dilemma in Burma
India and China’s geostrategies toward Burma are the single most important driver of the Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar. There are four reasons why the geostrategies of the two sides have driven their competition in Myanmar.
The goals of the two sides’ geostrategies in Burma are at odds with each other. China’s goal of gaining access to the Indian Ocean and developing presence in it through Burma directly contradicts India’s objective of developing the northern Indian Ocean as an area where it enjoys preeminence. Similarly, India’s goal of guarantying its preeminence in its
South and Southeast Asian periphery, an aim which conflicts with the influence of other powers in these regions, directly militates against Beijing’s desire to expand its influence in Burma and balance India. Just as important, Delhi’s ”Look East” policy, which aims to expand Indian influence in Burma and Southeast Asia, clashes with Beijing’s goal of preventing potential encirclement and containment of China in Southeast Asia. Beijing’s fears are particularly enhanced by the fact that India is a US partner and has expanded its relations with such Southeast Asian states as Vietnam which increasingly seek ways to balance China’s influence in this region. Naturally, as the geostrategies of both sides toward Burma are driven by contradictory goals, the policies which are based on them also clash and inevitably create a zero sum framework.
Moreover, the geostrategies of China and India toward Burma generate competition because they affect the military balance of power between the two sides. Chinese military or intelligence presence in Burma not only threatens India’s military position in the Bay
103 of Bengal and its ability to project power in the Indian Ocean, but also poses a potential threat to ROI’s unstable Northeast, which, under such a scenario, would be squeezed by
China from both north and south. Similarly, Indian military and intelligence presence in
Myanmar would not only threaten China’s critical Irrawaddy corridor to the Indian Ocean and its projected naval presence in the Indian Ocean but, in the case of conflict, can pose a threat to Yunnan and even Tibet. The fact that Burma is close to both the disputed border between the two sides and the disputed territory of Arunachal Pradesh, which was one of the theaters of the Sino-Indian war of 1962, also make it militarily important to
Beijing and Delhi. Naturally, this situation has serious impact on the Sino-Indian military balance and the overall security of both states and hence generates a powerful adversarial dynamic between China and India in Myanmar.
Further, the geostrategies of China and India in Burma drive the competition between the two sides in the Southeast Asian country because they have a much larger regional impact. This is particularly true as Myanmar occupies a special place in the wider geostrategies of both countries and acts as a springboard for their regional goals and ambitions. As it was discussed in much detail above, the outcome of China’s geostrategy in Burma would be a substantial expansion of Chinese influence in South and Southeast
Asia and the Indian Ocean, while the success of India’s geostrategy in Myanmar would solidify its position in the northern Indian Ocean and in the Indochinese peninsula. As a result, these geostrategies have the potential to change the regional status quo in favor of one of the two powers. Of course, each side hopes to shift the status quo in its favor.
Finally, Delhi and Beijing’s geostrategies in Burma clash because the two sides have the imperative to take advantage of economic potential that Burma offers as a regional
104 transportation and energy hub. While this potential is not strictly zero sum and the two sides can cooperate in developing it, although they haven’t done so to the moment, whichever country manages to first take advantage of Burma’s location as a transportation hub to Southeast Asia or the Indian Ocean will reap substantial economic benefits, much greater than those of a latecomer. In short, the side which builds infrastructure first will be able to get the lion’s share of exploiting the economic potential that Burma provides as a transportation hub. Moreover, as the economic, energy and transportation needs of China and India are different, the infrastructure they build in
Burma would go in different directions and serve different purposes, purposes which are not be compatible. This is particularly true as much of the infrastructure that China and
India are building or planning to build in Myanmar aims to develop different regions,
India’s Northeast and China’s Southwest. In addition, some of the infrastructure that
Beijing is building in Burma is meant to transport to China Myanmar’s abundant energy resources which Delhi also hopes to develop. As these resources are finite, whoever first builds the necessary infrastructure would be in a better position to exploit them. Thus
Myanmar becomes an issue of the energy and economic security of both sides, an inherently competitive aspect of Sino-India relations.
All this feeds a security dilemma of sorts between China and India in Myanmar, albeit one which involves not only traditional security but also energy and economic security.
Thus we can call in a non-traditional security dilemma. The more influence and
,consequently, more security one side gains in the geostrategic location of Burma, the less influence and security there would be for the other. Obviously, what characterizes this situation as a security dilemma is its inherent zero-sum logic. However, it is crucial to
105 point out here that this security dilemma is a loose one, as it does not affect the vital interests or the sovereignty of either side. Of course, this security dilemma is exacerbated by the fact that it is superimposed on the larger security dilemma and competition in
Sino-Indian relations.
In sum, the geostrategies of both sides are a powerful driver of the competition between
Beijing and Delhi in Myanmar, as they create a sort of non-traditional security dilemma in which one side’s gain is a loss for the other side. This is most the important driver of the competition. However, there are also two other drivers of the competition between
China and India in Burma, their drive to exploit its energy resources and the desire of the two sides to influence the domestic politics of the Southeast Asian country. These are the topics of Chapter Four and Chapter Five, respectively.
106 Chapter Four: Energy Competition
The drive to exploit Myanmar’s rich energy resources is the second driver of the Sino-
Indian competition in Burma. As both India and China’s economies have expanded, their need for energy, a key input into economic development, has also grown, rendering their limited domestic resources insufficient to satisfy their energy needs. Just as important, as both powers are still developing countries with huge rural population and large urban underclass, they have not achieved the levels of energy consumption that developed countries have, which means that their demand for energy is likely to grow dramatically over time. Thus, importing energy is a critical question for both countries. On this background, Burma’s rich energy resources offer both countries oil, gas and hydro- generated energy to satiate their hunger. Even more important, the fact that Burma’s resources are mostly undeveloped offers Beijing and Delhi the enticing prospect of assuring a stable, long-term flow of energy to their expanding energy markets in the future. In brief, Myanmar’s energy resources can have important impact on the energy security of the Southeast Asian country’s two giant neighbors.
Burma’s energy resources come in three forms: gas, oil and hydropower resources. In terms of gas, Myanmar has 2.54 trillion cubic meters (m3) of gas reserves, 0.51 trillion of which are proven reserves, making it the country with the tenth largest gas reserves in the world287 (although some of these figures are disputed288.) Burma’s oil resources are much
287 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,166 288 For example, Chinese scholar Zhao Hong has claimed that Myanmar’s proven oil reserves are 300 billion cubic meters, by 2010, while Myanmar’s minister of energy has claimed that the country has 22.5
107 smaller than its gas reserves, but are still a considerable amount, about 3.2 billion barrels of oil.289 Water is the third key energy resource of Burma, an underappreciated electricity source which flows in Myanmar’s large network of rivers. However, electricity should not be underappreciated, as it is a key factor in the energy future of Asia, China and India included290. In this context, Burma’s potential for producing 100 000 MW of hydropower is an important asset291. These three types of resources, while not sufficient to alter the picture of China and India’s gargantuan energy markets, are large enough to affect considerably the energy imports of both powers. Burma’s reserves of 2.54 trillion m3 of gas (or 0.5 by different estimates) can have substantial impact on China, which imported about 31 billion m3 of gas in 2011 and on India which imported 12 billion m3 of gas the same year292. Similarly, Myanmar’s reserves of 3.2 billion barrels of oil would seriously affect China, which imported about 5 million barrels of oil per day in 2011 and India,
trillion cubic feet (about 637 billion cubic meters) of gas. See Zhao Hong , “China–Myanmar Energy Cooperation and Its Regional Implications” in Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 30, 4, (2011): 91 and “Myanmar has no plans to export new gas finds,” Reuters (Jan 27, 2012), accessed on January 6, 2013 http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/27/myanmar-energy-idAFL4E8CR3SO20120127 289 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations, 166 290 As the eminent scholar of Asian energy Mikkal Herberg notes “We talk extensively about oil supply security and rising prices but I frankly believe that Asia’s real energy crisis is electricity”. Quoted in Varigonda Kesava Chandra, “India’s Myanmar Fascination”, Journal of Energy Security (July 2012), accessed on January 6, 2013 http://www.ensec.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=381:indias-myanmar- fascination&catid=128:issue-content&Itemid=402 291 “Note on Cooperation with Myanmar in Development of Hydropower Projects”, Central Electricity Authority, India, (Nov 30,2012) accessed on January 6,2013, http://www.cea.nic.in/reports/hydro/myan.pdf 292 “Country Comparison: Natural Gas-Imports”, Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook, accessed on March 19,2012 https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/rankorder/2252rank.html?countryName=China&countryCode=ch®ionCode=eas&rank=14#c h
108 which imported 2.7 million barrels of oil per day in 2011293.As these figures demonstrate,
Burma’s energy reserves are large enough to matter in the overall picture of China and
India’s energy imports and hence they make an enticing prize for both countries.
However, what makes Burma’s energy resources important to China and India is not just their abundance, which albeit large can cover just a fraction of the giants’ energy demand, but their geographic proximity. This proximity allows for cheaper and more reliable supply, from a country in which both powers have political influence and on which they can exert pressure, if need be. In the inherently political and unstable energy market this is very important, as neither country has enough influence over other important sources of energy such as the Persian Gulf countries. Thus, Myanmar’s energy resources are important not only for their economic potential but also for the geopolitical value.
All this breeds competition because energy resources are finite and India and China strive to exploit the very same gas and oil fields. Even hydro energy, which is not finite, is competitive as both sides hope to build hydropower stations on the same rivers to export it back home and the number of these hydrostations is inherently limited. As the demand for energy in each country is rising fast, even marginal gains become important, thus breeding competition. Of course, the Sino-Indian energy competition in Burma is just a part of the larger contest for energy resources in which China and India are active
293 “Country Comparison: Crude Oil-Imports”, Central Intelligence Agency World Factbook, accessed on March 19,2012 https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world- factbook/rankorder/2243rank.html?countryName=China&countryCode=ch®ionCode=eas&rank=3#ch
109 participants294, together with other countries. On this background, China and India have invested in several gas and oil projects in Burma’s energy sector.
This chapter will briefly outline this energy competition by presenting first China and then India’s interests and projects in Burma’s energy sector, in gas and oil and in hydro energy. After this, the following chapter will analyze how these interests and projects drive the China-India competition in Burma.
China’s Energy Projects in Burma
Beijing has made developing Burma’s energy sector a priority in its relations with
Naypyidaw. Hence, China’s investments in Myanmar’s energy sector likely accounts for the majority of PRC’s overall $14 billion of investment in Burma, the latest round of which, in 2011, amounted to $4 billion295. Nevertheless, China’s interest in Burma’s energy resources is relatively new and arose mostly during the last decade296.This period saw a dramatic growth in Chinese involvement in Burma’s energy sector ,from almost no presence before 2001297to a tally of 62 projects in gas, oil and hydropower in 2007298, and many more since then. Let us now look into the Chinese involvement into the three main areas in which these projects have taken place: gas and oil, pipelines and hydro energy.
294 For example, the two sides competed to buy Petro Kazakhstan Inc in 2005, with Beijing ultimately outbidding Delhi. Dimitri Randall, “The Impact of Sino-Indian Energy Security Ambitions on Burma’s Domestic and Foreign Politics”, (M.A. Thesis, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California,2011):16 295 “China now No. 1 investor in Burma,”Mizzima News (18 Jan. 2012),accessed on January 6,2013, http://www.mizzima.com/business/6436-china-now-no-1-investor-in-burma.html 296 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,169-170 297 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,167 298 Randall, “The Impact of Sino-Indian Energy Security Ambitions on Burma’s Domestic and Foreign Politics”:20
110 Chinese gas and oil projects
The development of Myanmar’s vast gas and oil reserves has been the main focus of
China’s energy policy toward its southern neighbor which has been expressed in a constellation of Chinese energy projects in Burma. All the three chief Chinese state- owned oil companies, the China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (SINOPEC), the
China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and the China National Petroleum
Corporation (CNPC) have actively participated in these projects. In 2004, SINOPEC, another Chinese oil exploration company and the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise
(MOGE) singed a production sharing agreement in petroleum exploration in the area of the prospective Block D in Rakshine state299. A consortium ,led by CNOOC in partnership with a Singaporean company, signed six agreements in the course of three months in 2004 and 2008, agreements which encompassed three offshore areas ,off
Rakhine state and Motamma State, and three onshore areas, and covered a huge area of
80 000 square kilometers300. Similarly, in 2007, CNPC and MOGE signed three production sharing contracts for the exploration of a 10 000 square-kilometers area off
Rakhine state301.
However, CNPC and Beijing’s greatest achievement came in 2007 when Naypyidaw awarded the rights to buy natural gas from the lucrative offshore A-1 and A-3 fields, also known as the Shwe gas fields, to China, taking them from their original preferential buyer, India ( these events are discussed in greater detail later).Following this Chinese success, in June 2008, Burma signed a contract for the sale of 6.5 trillion cubic feet of
299 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,167 300 Ibid 301 Ibid
111 this Shwe field gas to China, over a period of thirty years, and for the transportation of the gas through a CNPC-built pipeline to China302. In a twist, however, the Burmese government gave the right to exploit the Shwe gas fields and the operation of the subsea pipeline which connects them to the Burmese mainland to a non-Chinese consortium,led by South Korea’s Daewoo( with a 51% share),and also including Myanmarese, Korean and Indian companies303. In brief, through the numerous projects outlined above, China has gained the leading position in the exploration and development of Burma’s extensive gas and oil resources, a huge success.
Chinese pipeline projects
As was discussed in Chapter Two, China has also begun the construction of two parallel onshore pipelines from Myanmar to China, one for gas and one for oil. The onshore gas pipeline304, transporting gas from the Shwe gas field, stretches 793km, from
Kyaukphy on the Bay of Bengal to Ruili on the Sino-Burmese border, and is scheduled to be completed in March 2013305.With 50.9 percent of shares in the pipeline, China’s
CNPC is the majority stakeholder, while the remaining shares are owned by the Shwe gas field consortium306.
302 Zhao Hong , “China–Myanmar Energy Cooperation and Its Regional Implications”:90-92 303 Ibid 304 Please note that together with the onshore gas pipeline discussed above, there is also a short offshore gas pipeline which serves to bring the gas from the Shwe field, which is in the Bay of Bengal, to the shore and transfer it to the onshore gas pipeline. The offshore pipeline is operated by the same Daewoo- dominated consortium which operates the Shwe gas field. Zhao Hong , “China–Myanmar Energy Cooperation and Its Regional Implications”:92-94 305 Zhao Hong , “China–Myanmar Energy Cooperation and Its Regional Implications”:94 306 The shares in the consortium are: CNPC’s subsidiary South-East Asia Pipeline Company,50.9%;Daewoo 25.4%;MOGE 7.365%; India’s GAIL 4.1735%;KOGAS 4.1735%. Ibid
112 The oil pipeline is slightly longer, 771km, and after reaching the Chinese border through
Myanmar will connect to the Chinese oil transportation network and deliver oil to
Chongqing307, the economic capital of China’s Southwest. CNPC controls 50.9 percent of shares of the oil pipeline while Burma’s MOGE owns the rest308. Nonetheless, the security of the two pipelines has been a serious concern to China, as they pass through areas controlled by anti-government rebels .In response, the Burmese government has moved to ensure the security of the pipelines by deploying forty-four battalions along their route through Myanmar, 250-300 soldiers strong, each309.
The main effect of the two Sino-Burmese pipelines has been to solidify China’s position in Myanmar and guarantee that Beijing will tap some of Burma’s gas and oil. It also enables China to use the pipelines to transport oil delivered to Burma through the Indian
Ocean. In short, China’s construction of pipelines in Myanmar has been a major success which has substantially improved the Middle Kingdom’s energy security.
Chinese hydro energy projects
China has also invested heavily in hydro energy projects in Myanmar. These projects are very attractive to China because they offer it three types of benefits: electricity which is overwhelmingly exported back to China, opportunities for Chinese construction companies and “package engineering” which involves the sale of peripheral equipment and material for hydropower plants310.Enticed by these benefits, Chinese hydroelectric companies have secured a huge presence in Burma’s hydropower sector. They are
307 Ibid 308 Ibid 309 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,178 310 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,190
113 involved in twenty-five massive dams on the Irrawaddy, Salween and Sittang rivers, which, together, can generate 30 000MW and would cost $30 billion to construct311.
Several large Chinese companies dominate most of these projects. The Gezhouba Group
Corporation has been partly or fully engaged in one hundred hydroelectric projects, the largest portion of which is the $6 billion Tasang Hydropower Projects312. The Yunnan
Machinery and Equipment Import and Export Co. Ltd has been involved in 20 power stations in Burma between 1990 and 2002313.The China Power Investment Corporation
(CPI) has been involved in seven hydroelectric plants in Kachin State, with total capacity of 16,500 MW, a huge amount as the world’s largest dam, the Three Gorges Dam in
China, produces 18,200 MW314. The jewel in CPI’s crown of projects, and the largest of the seven Kachin plants, has been the Myitsone dam, allegedly the fifteenth largest dam in the world, which would cost $3.6 billion315. However, the Myitsone dam like some other Chinese hydropower projects in Burma has caused huge controversy, due to its environmental impact and the forced relocation of locals, a controversy which even led to a bomb attack on the dam316. As a result of this controversy and a massive backlash
311 Ibid 312 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,191 313 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,190 314 Thomas Maung Shwe,”Win Tin, Environmentalists alarmed by Myitsone Dam”, Mizzima News (28 January 2011),accessed on January 6, 2013 http://www.mizzima.com/special/myitsone-dam- controversy/4814-win-tin-environmentalists-alarmed-by-myitsone-dam.html 315 Colin Poole,” Could Myanmar (Burma) have Southeast Asia's first 'green president'?” Christian Science Monitor ,September 21, 2012, accessed on January 6,2013 http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2012/0921/Could-Myanmar-Burma-have-Southeast- Asia-s-first-green-president 316 “Mega-dam Project Halted” Radio Free Asia (September 30,2011),accessed on January 6,2013 http://www.rfa.org/english/news/burma/mega-dam-09302011160337.html
114 against the project in Burmese society, the Myitsone dam was suspended in 2011 by
Myanmar’s new president Thein Sein317.
All these energy projects indicate, both with their huge cost and their sheer scale, that
China is making a massive push to do dominate Myanmar’s energy resources sector and secure the energy resources it needs to satisfy its expanding energy consumption.
India’s Energy Projects in Burma
Like China, India has developed a strong interest in Burma’s energy resources in the last decade as its energy demand has increased parallel to its impressive economic growth. This interest by both state-owned and private Indian companies did not falter even in the face of several major setbacks, such as the failure of India’s bid to build a gas pipeline through Bangladesh. Although India’s drive to tap Burma’s energy resources has suffered from weaknesses such as competition between Indian companies318 and rivalries between different Indian government agencies319, it has persisted due to its strong economic logic, the political will of the Indian government and the fear that China might come to dominate the extraction and export of Myanmar’s energy resources. The ultimate testimony to India’s determination to tap Burma’s energy resources has been its decision to send its petroleum minister, Murli Deora, to Burma to negotiate a gas deal during the
Saffron revolution in 2007, in spite of mounting international opprobrium and its own
317 Ibid 318 Chandra, “India’s Myanmar Fascination” 319 Such as the Ministry of External Affairs, Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Petroleum and , maybe, also the Ministry of Defence. See Marie Lall, “India-Myanmar Relations – Geopolitics and Energy in Light of the New Balance of Power in Asia,” Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore,(2008):2 and 22, accessed September 29, 2012, http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs09/Geopolitics&Energy-Lall-red.pdf
115 democratic principles320. As a result of this persistent interest, Delhi has initiated a number of projects in Burma, in gas and oil exploration, has tried to develop pipeline projects, and has invested in Myanmar’s hydro energy.
India’s oil and gas projects
Burma’s oil and gas have been the focus of Delhi’s policy of tapping Myanmar’s energy resources, as clearly demonstrated by their important place on the Indo-Burmese bilateral agenda during Prime Minister Singh’s 2012 visit to Myanmar321. Reflecting this focus, Indian state companies have invested about $1.6 billion in Burma’s gas and oil sector in recent years322. Three main Indian companies, Gas Authority of India Ltd
(GAIL), the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and the private company Essar
Oil, have invested in Burma’s hydrocarbons. GAIL and ONGC-Videsh (a subsidiary of
ONGC) together hold 27 percent of the Shwe Gas fields (blocks A-1 and A-3) and the offshore pipeline from the fields as part of the Korean-led consortium, as well as, about 8 percent of the onshore Burma-Indian gas pipeline323. However, while both companies would earn big dividends from this enterprise, no gas will reach India due a shocking turn-a-round in 2007.Frustrated with India’s quarrel with Bangladesh over the
Bangladesh-Myanmar-India pipeline and in response to China’s veto on an anti-junta resolution at the UN Security Council, Burma awarded the gas of blocks A-1 and A-3 of the Shwe Gas Field to China. This award to Chinese companies happened in spite of an earlier agreement that the fields would be developed by GAIL and ONGC and the gas
320 Yhome,”India-Myanmar Relations”:11 321 “India, Burma sign wide-ranging economic deals” Mizzima News, (8 May 2012), accessed on January 6, 2013, http://www.mizzima.com/business/7206-india-burma-sign-wide-ranging-economic-deals.html 322 Chandra, “India’s Myanmar Fascination” 323 Zhao Hong , “China–Myanmar Energy Cooperation and Its Regional Implications”:92-94
116 would go to India. India made a concerted lobbying effort to keep the blocks, by organizing visits by President Abdul Kalam in 2006 and India’ oil minister in 2007 but all was in vain324. Nevertheless, later in 2007, ONGC’s subsidiary ONGC-Videsh signed a deal with MOGE to invest $150 million in exploring gas in three offshore blocks325.
The private Indian company Essar has also signed two production sharing contracts for oil exploration in two blocks, one onshore and one offshore326. In addition, during the
2012 visit to Burma of Indian Prime Minister Singh, Nayipyidaw granted an onshore oil block to the private, Indian-owned, company Jubilant Energy327, a concession which
Indian Foreign Secretary Rajan Mathai characterized as “significant”328. It is likely that with the recent warming of Indo-Burmese relations, Delhi can hope to acquire more concessions.
Indian pipeline plans
Building a pipeline to supply gas from Myanmar to India has been a persistent goal of
Indian energy policy. As India’s other options for importing gas from Central Asia through the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline and the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-
Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline have been blocked for geopolitical reasons329, the
Myanmar-Bangladesh-India (MBI) pipeline has emerged as an important energy project
324 Egreteau,”India’s Ambitions in Burma,”:950 325 Yhome,”India-Myanmar Relations”:8 326 “Essar Oil signs exploration pacts with Myanmar” The Hindu Business Line ,May 10, 2005,accessed on January 6,2013 http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-corporate/article2177099.ece 327 “Jubilant Energy wins oil exploration block in Myanmar” The Indian Express,May 28 2012, accessed on January 6,2013 http://www.indianexpress.com/news/jubilant-energy-wins-oil-exploration-block-in- myanmar/954855/0 328 Sachin Parashar, “Indian company allotted Myanmar oil block”, Times of India ,May 29, 2012, accessed on January 6,2012 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Indian-company-allotted- Myanmar-oil-block/articleshow/13618175.cms 329 Chandra, “India’s Myanmar Fascination”
117 for Delhi. Although in 2005 India, Burma and Bangladesh signed a draft memorandum over the project330, it stalled due to Indo-Bangladeshi disagreements in 2006 and 2007331.
While there has been talk of reviving this pipeline332, India has been considering a longer gas pipeline, through India’s Northeast, which would follow the Kaladan corridor described in Chapter Two. The main problem with this proposal has been its economic feasibility; the much longer pipeline would cost about $3 billion333, in contrast to the $1 billion MBI project334, and might face security challenges, as it passes through territories affected by insurgency. However, in light of the importance of Burmese gas to India, such a pipeline might be economically feasible335, an opinion which has some traction in
India’s government, as suggested by recent comments on this proposal made by India’s foreign secretary Rajan Mathai336. Supplying India with liquefied natural gas (LNG) from
Burma through ships is an alternative to such a pipeline, but would require the building of an expensive LNG terminal on India’s east coast337 and would not be able to carry the same volume of gas supplies.
In short, while there is still active interest in India to build a pipeline which connects to
Burma, political and economic obstacles have prevented the fulfilment of this project.
330 “Dhaka to revive talks on Myanmar-India gas link,” Reuters (Nov 12, 2009),accessed on January 6,2013 http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/11/12/bangladesh-pipeline-myanmar-idUSDHA15240020091112 331 There have been claims that Bangladesh abandoned the pipeline project under Chinese pressure. Author’s interviews 332 Ibid 333 Yhome,”India-Myanmar Relations”:10 334 Chandra, “India’s Myanmar Fascination” 335 Ibid 336 Sachin Parashar, “Indian company allotted Myanmar oil block” 337 Chandra, “India’s Myanmar Fascination”
118 India’s hydropower projects
For India, hydropower is another important aspect of its search for energy in Burma. It is part of a larger Indian strategy which The Hindu has described as on of“broad-basing
India’s energy security by securing hydropower resources in the neighbouring countries and wheeling back the bulk of the generated power to India”338. There are several major
Indian hydropower projects in Burma which, when completed, would supply India with electricity. One of the largest is the $3 billion339 Tamanthi Project on the Chindwin river which would generate 1200 MW electricity340. While it began construction in 2007, it has stalled since then341 and its present status is unclear. Another project in early stages of development is the Shwezaye Hydropower project which would produce 880 MW342. Yet another major Indian undertaking is the Thahtay Chaung hydropower project, for which the Export-Import Bank of India gave Myanmar a $60 million credit343 and which India would provide with equipment, according to an agreement in 2012344. These large and expensive projects speak of India’s desire to establish itself as a leading beneficiary of
Burma’s rich hydropower resources.
338 Yhome,”India-Myanmar Relations”:11 339 “Current development of major hydropower projects” The Myanmar Times ,20 August 2012,accessed on January 6,2013 http://www.mmtimes.com/index.php/special-features/151-energy-spotlight/2943- current-development-of-major-hydropower-projects.html?start=2 340 Yhome,”India-Myanmar Relations”:10 341 H.Shivananda, “Tamanthi Hydel Project: India’s Eastern Foothold,” IDSA Comment, (June 6, 2011),accessed on January 6,2013 http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/TamanthiHydelProject%3AIndiasEasternFoothold_shivananda_060611 342 “Note on Cooperation with Myanmar in Development of Hydropower Projects” 343 “India gives loan for hydro plant” The Myanmar Times, November 26-December 2, 2007,accessed on January 6,2013 http://mmtimes.com/no394/n014.htm 344 Embassy of India Yangon PRESS RELEASE, Burma Centre Delhi,( March 27, 2012), accessed on January 6,2013 http://burmacentredelhi.org/news/14-indo-burma/2134-embassy-of-india-yangon-press-release- .html
119 While a much smaller presence than China in Burma’s energy sector, India has managed to establish itself as a factor to be reckoned with in it and to begin tapping the energy potential of its smaller neighbor. As much of this potential is still undeveloped,
India would have many opportunities to exploit Myanmar’s energy resources and catch up with China.
The Sino-Indian Energy Competition and Cooperation in Burma
China and India’s quest for energy in their resource abundant neighbor presents a paradox. On one hand, it is clear that this quest has produced a lot of competition between the two sides, quest obviously driven by their gargantuan hunger for energy. On the other, however, it has also promoted some, limited cooperation between the two sides. Let us look at both.
On the competitive side, Delhi and Beijing’s drive to tap Myanmar’s energy resources has produced a competition for four reasons.
First, as was already mentioned, Burma’s energy resources are finite and therefore are inherently a zero-sum issue, i.e. more gas and oil for China means less, real or potential, gas and oil for India and the other way round. This is particularly true because Burma’s energy resources are very attractive to both countries due to their proximity which increases their economic and strategic value and in this way raises the cost of letting being exploited by the other side. Moreover, as the process of exploiting Myanmar’s energy resources has been slow and difficult for both China and India, whichever side finally manages to begin using these resources would gain much more than the other.
Finally, the two countries are often competing over the very same energy rich areas and
120 projects which not only makes them clash directly over the disputed resources but also powerfully feeds a zero-sum mentality toward their respective interests in Burma. In a fine example of this mentality, the Indian Ambassador to Myanmar, V.S. Seshadri, has argued if India does not persist in developing the now stalled Tamanthi hydropower project, it would not only lose it but the project would likely go to China345.
Second, the Sino-Indian competition for energy in Burma is not just a contest for energy but also a race for attaining a position in Burma’s energy sector which would give
Beijing or Delhi an advantage to tap , in the future, Myanmar’s vast, yet undeveloped, energy potential. Thus the energy competition is very much driven by the prospect of future gains, a logical emphasis as the energy consumption of both giants is likely to grow.
Third, the energy competition between China and India has focused on building energy infrastructure, such as pipelines and hydropower stations, which aims to export energy to their home markets. This infrastructure, especially pipelines, solidifies the hold of one side or the other on Myanmar’s energy resources and channels them in different directions, thus establishing a very competitive situation. A good example of this is the
Chinese gas pipeline from the Schwe gas field which, in effect, guarantees China gas from this field. The comparison with India, which owns the exploitation rights to the field but has failed to develop a feasible pipeline project to transport it, in spite of earlier efforts, cannot be starker.
345 H.Shivananda, “Tamanthi Hydel Project: India’s Eastern Foothold,”
121 Fourth, the Burmese government has deliberately striven to make Beijing and Delhi compete over its energy resources and has consistently tried to keep them insecure about their position in Myanmar’s energy projects in order to gain leverage. The Shwe gas field is a case in point. After making China and India compete to develop the field for years,
Myanmar has given the rights to exploit it and to build parts of its transportation infrastructure to a finely crafted consortium of Korean, Indian and Burmese companies with a 51 percent ownership for South Korea’s Daewoo346 , in spite of the fact that the gas from the field would go to China through a pipeline. As a consequence, China does not have a monopoly over its most important source of energy in Burma.
However, together with the energy competition, Burma has also seen some limited energy cooperation between China and India. This cooperation has been expressed in two ways.
First, China and India have considered the prospect of cooperation in exploring and producing gas and oil. In June 2012, ONGC and the CNPC signed a Memorandum of
Understanding to develop exploration and production operations in several energy rich countries, including Burma, an agreement which opens the door for joint bids for oil and gas fields in the future347. This agreement, which comes after a similar but largely unproductive one in 2006, demonstrates that both countries realize that competition can hurt them, particularly by rising prices, while there are benefits in cooperation. This realization was summed up well by a high-ranking official in ONGC-Videsh who stated
346 Zhao Hong , “China–Myanmar Energy Cooperation and Its Regional Implications”:91 347 Rosalind Reischer, “Sino-Indian Energy Cooperation in Burma: Toward an Integrated Asian Energy Market”, Project 2049, (July 5,2012),accessed on January 7,2012, http://blog.project2049.net/2012/07/sino-indian-energy-cooperation-in-burma.html
122 that Chinese and Indian companies “should collaborate and bid together; there is no point in raising prices”348.
Second, there is clearly potential for cooperation within the framework of consortiums or even joint ventures. A good example of such cooperation is the mutual ownership of the Sino-Burmese gas pipeline to Yunnan between China’s CNPC and two Indian companies, as part of the consortium which exploits the Shwe gas field. While in this case cooperation has been relatively small and possible forced by Myanmar’s government, it indicates that the two countries are ready to cooperate in developing
Burma’s natural resources as part of a wider arrangement. Thus, economic opportunity in
Burma can not only divide China and India in Myanmar but also can bring them together.
This is an important sign as there will be more opportunities for such cooperation as many international energy companies seek to invest in Burma.
Whereas this suggests that there is room for cooperation between China and India in developing Burma’s energy resources, it is mostly potential and not ongoing and it is hard to predict if such cooperation would materialize. In comparison, as described above, competition is very real and seems to be guiding the policies of both countries. Hence, competition is still the defining feature of the relationship between Delhi and Beijing’s drives for energy in Burma. For this reason, and for the sheer importance of the outcome of this competition, energy is clearly the second driver of the Sino-Indian contest in
Myanmar.
348 Ibid
123 Chapter Five: Search for Influence in Burma’s Domestic Affairs
The desire of both China and India to gain influence over the domestic affairs of
Myanmar is the third driver of the Sino-Indian competition in the Southeast Asian country. This desire for influence inside Burma is motivated by the fact that many aspects of Burma’s domestic affairs, such as the insurgencies around Myanmar’s borders and drug trafficking, have substantial impact on China and India or, at least, concern them for domestic reasons.
It is very important to distinguish between the overall attempt of the two great powers to establish their influence in Burma, for economic and geostrategic reasons, and their specific search for influence over the country’s domestic affairs. It is clear that China and
India have striven to develop their influence inside Burma on account of projects and issues in which they are immediately involved, such as infrastructure building or gas exploration, topics which are covered in greater detail in other parts of this project.
However, Delhi and Beijing also aim to influence some issues that are inherent part of the sovereign domestic politics of Burma, such as the government’s relations with ethnic groups, in which, in theory, neither side should have a say. In the process, each of the two giants pushes for more power inside their smaller neighbor and unwillingly provokes the suspicions of the other side, thus generating competition.
This section explores the issues which have prompted this need to gain influence in
Myanmar’s domestic affairs and why they matter to Beijing and Delhi. On this
124 background, the following pages then analyze how China and India’s attempt to address these issues through influence in Burma’s domestic politics drives their competition in their smaller neighbor.
India’s Search for Influence in Burma’s domestic affairs
India’s desire to gain greater influence over Burma’s domestic affairs stems primarily from the fact that some of Myanmar’s domestic issues have a serious negative impact on
India. Therefore, unless Delhi addresses the root-causes of these issues in Myanmar, it would not be able to counter their negative impact. Three such issues stand out as particularly important for India, in order of importance: the anti-Indian insurgencies which operate from Myanmar, the flow of drugs from Burma into India, and the fate of
Burma’s Indian minority.
The presence of anti-Indian insurgent groups on Burmese territory and the policy of the Burmese government toward these groups have been Delhi’s most serious concern in
Myanmar’s domestic politics for decades. These groups have been active participants in the armed struggle for independence (or autonomy) of some indigenous organizations in
India’s Northeast and have systemically fueled the insurgency, separatism and terrorism that have plagued this region since India’s independence in 1947. Moreover, these groups have also created a number of other law and order problems for the Indian authorities, as they run various criminal activities, such as drug trafficking, extortion from businesses and local government, money-laundering and illicit trade349 (for example, at some border
349 Jabin T. Jacob,” The India-Myanmar Borderlands: Guns, Blankets and Bird Flu”:10-15
125 checkpoints only about 30 percent of border trade between Burma and India is legal350).
These insurgent groups include Naga rebels (the NSCN-K and the NSCN-IM groups351),Assamese rebels ( ULFA352) and Manipuri rebels (the PLA353,UNLF354 and
KYKL355) who have set-up camps in Burma’s Western hills ,close to the Indo-Burmese border, and operate in Burma’s Chin and Kachin states and its Sagaing Division356. The proximity of these groups to the long and porous border between India and Burma, the low level of control that Yangon/Naypyidaw has exercised over these ethnic minority areas, home to numerous domestic Burmese rebel groups, and the traditional trade linkages between the two sides of the border, often inhabited by the same ethnicities, such as the Nagas, dramatically increase the impact of these groups on India. Moreover, such groups have also relied on Burma as a major source and transit road for supplying weapons to their insurgencies in India357. Three other factors increase the importance of these insurgent outfits in Burma to India. First, there exists an “arms-drugs nexus” in the
350 Jabin T. Jacob,” The India-Myanmar Borderlands: Guns, Blankets and Bird Flu,”:14 351 The two factions of National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), with the initials after the abbreviation standing for the names of the leaders of the two factions. See “National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplang,” South Asia Terrorism Portal, accessed on Jan 1, 2013, http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/nagaland/terrorist_outfits/nscn_k.htm 352 United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) See “United Liberation Front of Asom-Terrorist Group of Assam,” South Asia Terrorism Portal, accessed on Jan 1, 2013 http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/assam/terrorist_outfits/ulfa.htm 353 People’s Liberation Army of Manipur (PLA)”People’s Liberation Army” South Asia Terrorism Portal, accessed on Jan 1, 2013 http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/manipur/terrorist_outfits/pla.htm 354 United National Liberation Front (UNLF) See “United National Liberation Front” South Asia Terrorism Portal, accessed on Jan 1, 2013 http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/manipur/terrorist_outfits/unlf.htm 355 Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL), meaning "the Organisation to save the revolutionary movement in Manipur” See “Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup”, South Asia Terrorism Portal, accessed on Jan 1, 2013, http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/india/states/manipur/terrorist_outfits/kykl.htm 356 Egreteau,”India’s Ambitions in Burma”:946-947 357 Jabin T. Jacob,” The India-Myanmar Borderlands: Guns, Blankets and Bird Flu,”:10
126 border egions, in which the rebel groups transport narcotics from Burma and Indo-China into India and use the money to arm themselves358.Second, as many of these rebel groups, such as the NSCN, have profited from extensive Chinese support in the 1960s and the
1970s359, there are Indian suspicions that some form of Chinese support continues to this day or, at least, might easily resume in case of Sino-Indian tensions360. Third, the insurgent groups compete against each other and have the tendency to splinter361, presenting India with a complex and ever-evolving situation in which it is difficult to fight and negotiate. All these factors make these Burma-based insurgency groups a serious threat to the security, stability and economic development of India’s
Northeast.362As a result, India has consistently tried to pressure Burma’s government into taking measures against the insurgents and has elevated this question to one of the main issues on their bilateral agenda363, with unconvincing results. In 1994, the two sides signed a Memorandum of Understanding on “illegal and insurgent activities”364 and organized a joint operation against insurgents, operation Golden Bird. India has regularly urged the Burmese military to launch operations against the rebels but these operations, even when launched, have not solved the problem. The main reasons behind the Burmese
358 Udai Bhanu Singh, “ An Assessment of Manmohan Singh’s Visit to Myanmar”:10 359 Renaud Egreteau “India and China Vying for Influence in Burma – A New Assessment” India Review, vol. 7, no. 1,( January–March, 2008):46-47 360 Author’s interviews 361 Jabin T. Jacob,” The India-Myanmar Borderlands: Guns, Blankets and Bird Flu”:10 362 A good example of the economic costs that the insurgency incurs on the Northeast is the recent blockade that Naga rebels imposed on Manipur, a blockade which led to serious inflation in the state, blockage of trade and power shortages. See Namrata Goswami. “The Manipur Blockade: Symptom of a Crisis in Desperate Need of Resolution”, Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses (IDSA),(October 28, 2011),accessed on December 31,2012 http://idsa.in/idsacomments/TheManipurBlockade_ngoswami_281011 363 Bibhu Prasad Routray,” India-Myanmar Relations: Triumph of Pragmatism,” Jindal Journal of International Affairs, (October 2011):305-306 364 Routray, India-Myanmar Relations: Triumph of Pragmatism,”:305
127 failure to solve the problem are the unwillingness of Myanmar’s government to upset its own cease-fire agreements with some of the groups, something which would severely destabilize the ethnic areas, and, it is widely believed, its desire to use these groups to gain leverage on India. There have also been suspicions that lower-level tatmadaw officers have helped the insurgents in establishing themselves in Burma365 and are profiting from their presence366.Even short of supposedly accommodating the insurgents on its territory, the policies of the Burmese government toward the rebels have impact on
India. Two examples are Naypyidaw’s recent agreement with the NSCN-K which has given legitimacy to the group and has improved its bargaining power vis-à-vis the Indian authorities367, and Burma’s 2002 decision to release 200 PLA and UNLF-M activists from prison, a release which has strengthened the insurgency368. In both cases, Delhi was not consulted beforehand. As a result of this situation, India needs to have influence over
Burma’s domestic affairs in order to influence Burma’s policy toward the insurgents, a major security concern for Delhi.
Another issue which has pressured Delhi to seek greater influence in Burma’s domestic affairs is the fact that Myanmar is a pivot of drug-trafficking and drug production which affects India and especially the Indian Northeast. As Burma is the western side of the infamous Golden Triangle, the second largest area of opium production in the world, it is the source and transit route for much of the narcotics which enter India, aided by the porous Indo-Burmese border and the robust cross-border criminal networks. The
365 Yhome, ”India-Myanmar Relations”:15 366 Egreteau,”India’s Ambitions in Burma,”:947 367 Rahul Mishra, ”Why India is wary of Myanmar-NSCN-L agreement”, Rediff News( May 24, 2012) accessed on January 1,2012, http://www.rediff.com/news/column/why-india-is-wary-of-myanmar-nscn- k-agreement/20120524.htm 368 Egreteau,”India’s Ambitions in Burma,”:947
128 Burmese drugs that flow into India include not only traditional poppy-based drugs such as heroin and opium, but also, increasingly, “designer drugs” like amphetamine-type- stimulants (ATS)369which are transported through three main routes, the most important of which runs from Mandalay to Nagaland370.However, the drug traffic goes both ways;
Indian precursor chemicals often flow to Burmese drug laboratories to produce heroine and ATS371. Nevertheless, it is difficult to determine the size of this drug trade, as figures are highly unreliable due to poor policing on the border372. The background reasons for the existence of this trade include the presence of large areas controlled by different ethnic insurgencies and mafias inside Burma, the lack of centralized control over these areas and, allegedly, the participation of some army officers in the drug trade373. This drug trade affects India in three ways. First, it exacerbates India’s own drug problem and inevitably helps the mafias which control this trade. Second, it strengthens the insurgencies in India’s Northeast which control much of the drug trade and use the funds it generates to arm themselves and keep their organizations alive. Third, it affects India’s growing HIV/AIDS problem, especially in the Northeast, which is often a byproduct of drug use374. All this has created what India’s prominent Myanmar expert Udai Bhanu
Singh calls a “silent emergency”375.
There has been some cooperation on drug trafficking between India and Burma. This
369 Singh, “ An Assessment of Manmohan Singh’s Visit to Myanmar”:5 370 Pushpita Das, Drug Traficking in India: A Case for Border Security, Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses (IDSA), May 2012, 27 371 Pushpita Das, Drug Traficking in India: A Case for Border Security,26 372 Pushpita Das, Drug Traficking in India: A Case for Border Security,25 373 The author’s interviews 374 Singh, “ An Assessment of Manmohan Singh’s Visit to Myanmar”:5 375 Ibid
129 cooperation includes agreements between the home secretaries of the two sides376, the ratification of a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty on Criminal Matters (MLAT)377 and meetings on addressing the issue between the Border Liaison Offices (BLOs) of India and Myanmar378, all of which have made some progress toward reducing drug trade.
However, the issue remains difficult to resolve because Burma’s policy on the drug trade is severely constrained by Naypyidaw’s need to preserve peace with the different insurgent groups which run this trade, the corruption of some members of Burma’s authorities and the presence of powerful drug mafias, including Chinese ones, in areas very poorly administered by the central government. All this means that in order to manage the drug problem India needs to influence Burma’s domestic politics.
Another, less important, Burmese domestic issue which concerns Delhi is the sizable
Indian minority in the country. This minority, whose ancestors have migrated to Burma from the subcontinent under British rule, includes both Muslims and Hindus and accounts for about two percent of Myanmar’s population379, although it is difficult to accurately determine its numbers380. The Indians in Burma, who are often called with the pejorative
376 Vijay Sakhuja, “India and Myanmar: Choices for Military Cooperation”, Issue Brief, Indian Council on World Affairs (September 2012): 3, accessed on Jan 1,2013, http://www.icwa.in/pdfs/IBindiamyanmar.pdf 377 Vijay, “India and Myanmar: Choices for Military Cooperation”:3 378 ANI,“India, Myanmar resolves to strengthen cooperation in border issues”, Yahoo News,( 24 Jan, 2012), accessed on Jan 1, 2012, http://in.news.yahoo.com/india-myanmar-resolves-strengthen- cooperation-border-issues-080300394.html 379 “Myanmar: People and Society”, CIA World Factbook, accessed on January 3, 2012, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/bm.html 380 The last official census in Burma was in 1983 and hence presents outdated information. According to the census, there are 428 000 Indians in Burma , which it differentiates from Bangladeshis and Pakistanis who together account for more than 600 000 people. However, such a distinction is very difficult to make in practice, as these minorities immigrated to Burma before the establishment of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh and share many cultural characteristics. See Steinberg, Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know, xxiv
130 name kala381, have long been discriminated against by both the Burmese government which denies them full citizenship and by the majority Burman population382. In the post-
Independence period this discrimination came to a climax in 1962, when Burma expelled
200 000 Burmese Indians383, thus breaking the financial back of the then wealthy Indian diaspora, and forced the Indian government to evacuate many of them to India384. The result was a major crisis in Indo-Burmese relations. Since then, the Indian government has adopted a policy on the Indian community in Burma which former Indian
Ambassador to Burma, T.P. Sreenivasan has characterized as “hands off”.385However, more recently, behind closed doors, Delhi has raised the issue of the difficult situation of the Indian diaspora and has managed to arrange the granting of Burmese citizenship to about 20 000 Burmese Indians.386While India’s reluctance to press with the issue probably stems from fears of provoking Burman nationalism, renewed attacks on the community can easily increase the pressure on the Indian government to act. Thus, this domestic Burmese issue concerns Delhi not only for nationalist reasons but also for domestic ones.
Managing or resolving these three issues which concern Delhi requires Indian influence in Burma’s domestic affairs and ,specifically, over the policies of the Burmese
381 Please note that the term is applied to South Asian in general both inside and outside Burma. See Bertil Lintner, “India stands by Myanmar status quo” Asia Times (November 14,2007)accessed on January 3,2012 ,http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IK14Df02.html 382 See Renaud Egreteau,“Burmese Indians in contemporary Burma: heritage, influence, and perceptions since 1988”, Asian Ethnicity Vol. 12, No. 1 (February 2011) 383 Or 300 000 according to other estimates (See Chapter Two) 384 Author’s interviews 385 Yhome,”India-Myanmar Relations”:21-22 386 Vanessa Prakash, ” Myanmar's two million stateless people”, Rediff News, (July 18, 2012), accessed on January 3,2012, http://www.rediff.com/news/column/myanmars-two-million-stateless- people/20120718.htm
131 government, a challenging task in a country known for its fierce nationalism and historical mistrust of India.
China’s Search for Influence in Burma’s domestic affairs
Just as in the case of India, China needs to have influence over Burma’s domestic politics in order to manage the negative impact on itself of what happens inside
Myanmar. This includes both immediate, real threats to China, such as drug trafficking and cross-border refugees, as well as potential ones such as assaults against the large
Chinese community in Myanmar and armed conflict on the border that can spill into
Yunnan. There are three issues which concern Beijing in Myanmar: the stability of the
Sino-Burmese border, the flow of drugs from Myanmar into China and the state of the
Chinese community in Burma. Let us examine each of these three.
Border stability is China’s greatest concern related to Myanmar’s internal affairs and
,as such, has regularly been raised by Chinese leaders such as Wen Jiabao and Xi Jinping during meetings with the Burmese leadership387.Border stability is such an important concern for a long list of reasons which include a long border which is very easy for insurgents, refugees and illegal traders to trespass, the presence of armed, rebel groups on the Burmese side of the border, and the massive growth of Chinese migration and investment in the unstable areas around the border, especially in Upper Burma. In addition, there are ethnic minorities such as the Dai, the Shan and the Kachin388which
387 International Crisis Group (ICG),China’s Myanmar Strategy: Elections, Ethnic Politics and Economics, Asia Briefing N°112 (21 September 2010): 4 accessed on September 29, 2012, from http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/asia/south-east-asia/burma- myanmar/B112%20Chinas%20Myanmar%20Strategy%20%20Elections%20Ethnic%20Politics%20and%20E conomics 388 International Crisis Group (ICG),China’s Myanmar Strategy:10
132 straddle both sides of the border and have been in rebellion against Myanmar’s government for many years. All this presents Beijing (and Kunming389) with a very complex picture in which both the security of Yunnan province and the security of
Chinese migrants and Chinese projects in Upper Burma can be, potentially, threatened.
While the border had been peaceful for years, apart from occasional clashes between
Chinese police and armed drug traffickers, China was powerfully reminded how dangerous border instability can be in 2009, during the Kokang Incident. In 2009, as a result of a large offensive of tatmadaw troops, uncoordinated with China, around 37 000
Kokang (Burmese Chinese) and PRC refugees arrived in Yunnan province390 with many insurgents among them391. Furthermore, the incident, the origins of which are complex, led to shelling across the border into China which killed one person392. All this prompted the Chinese government, furious for not being warned of the offensive, to deploy troops on the border393, dispatch its minister of public security and PLA’s chief of staff to
Myanmar for talks394, and seek a negotiated resolution of the incident. This incident and the intensifying hostilities around the border in the last three years, which led thousands of Kachin refugees to flee to China395, have revealed the potential impact of instability in
Burma on China. Chinese projects in Myanmar, which are often in Upper Burma, are also
389 Yunnan’s capital 390 International Crisis Group (ICG), China’s Myanmar Dilemma, Asia Report N°177 (14 September 2009): 13 accessed on September 29, 2012, from http://www.burmalibrary.org/docs07/Chinas_myanmar_ICG.pdf 391 Ian Storey,” Emerging Faultlines in Sino-Burmese Relations: The Kokang,”China Brief ,7, accessed on January 2,2012 http://www.jamestown.org/uploads/media/cb_009_42.pdf 392 Ibid 393 International Crisis Group (ICG), China’s Myanmar Dilemma:13 394 Ibid 395 Edward Wong, ”China Forces Ethnic Kachin Refugees Back to a Conflict Zone in Myanmar’s North”, New York Times, August 23, 2012, accessed on January 2, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/24/world/asia/china-forcing-repatriation-of-ethnic-refugees-from- myanmar.html?_r=0
133 vulnerable to attack by rebels, a point underscored by grenade attacks on the Myitsone dam and the Thaukyegat hydroelectric project in 2010396.To make matters worse, such instability can affect China’s critical oil and gas pipelines, as Burmese officials have warned397, a point which was underscored in late 2012 and early 2013 when Kachin rebels and the Burmese army fought not far from the transit areas of the pipelines, which are soon to become operational398 .
In the last twenty years, Beijing has managed the border through an elaborate balancing act between the Myanmarese government and the rebel groups399. On one hand, Beijing has kept its good relationship with the tatmadaw and has tried to have it manage its tensions with the rebel groups around the border, an approach incorporated in the 2010 agreement signed by Premier Wen Jiabao and the Burmese president, General Than
Shwe, on “protecting the peace and stability of border regions“400. On the other hand, the
Chinese government has kept close contacts with Kachin, Kokang401and especially Wa rebel groups402, contacts probably dating from the Cold War, which it has allegedly supplied with arms and has helped with economic aid in order to use them as a potential buffer around the border403. China has also tried to keep these groups and the government from fighting, by quietly mediating between them404, while trying not to alienate either side as doing so can potentially have grave consequences for border stability. In this way,
396 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,177 397 International Crisis Group (ICG), China’s Myanmar Dilemma:12 398 Yun Sun, ”China's Intervention in the Myanmar-Kachin Peace Talks” (Feb. 20, 2013), accessed on March 15,2013, http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2013/02/20-china-myanmar-sun 399 International Crisis Group (ICG), China’s Myanmar Dilemma:10 400 International Crisis Group (ICG),China’s Myanmar Strategy:4 401 International Crisis Group (ICG), China’s Myanmar Dilemma:11 402 International Crisis Group (ICG),China’s Myanmar Strategy:4 403 International Crisis Group (ICG), China’s Myanmar Dilemma:10-11 404 A good example of such meditation are the KIO- Burmese government talks in 2009 and 2010
134 China has striven to gain leverage over both sides, but especially over the Burmese government, and to manage the border. Naturally, this approach has raised doubts with both the rebels and with the Burmese government about China’s role405. At the same time, Beijing has been quietly trying, in recent years, to promote reconciliation which is, ultimately, the best guarantee for the stability of the border and would increase the power of what China until recently saw as Burma’s pro-Chinese government406. Recently, in early 2013, this desire to promote reconciliation received a major boost as Beijing witnessed the escalation of the conflict between Kachin rebels and the Myanmar government threaten China with the prospect of undesirable government victory and great instability on the border. This situation led Beijing to change its role in the conflict407. China abandoned its quiet behind-the-scenes role and actively assumed central stage as the official mediator between the Kachin rebels and Myanmar’s government by hosting official talks on its territory and vigorously promoting peace between the two sides408. Such a change in Beijing’s position clearly indicates that
Beijing is growing even more concerned about the stability of its border and consequently more involved in Burma’s domestic politics. In short, all this means that
China will continue to strive to develop its influence in Burma in order to manage its border.
405 Author’s interviews 406 Sun Yun, “China’s Strategic Misjudgement on Myanmar” Journal Of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, 31(1) (2012):75-77,accessed on September 29, 2012, http://hup.sub.uni- hamburg.de/giga/jsaa/article/view/513 407 Chinese scholar Yun Sun claims that Beijing also feared that, unless it adopts a more active role in resolving the conflict, the US might do so and consequently gain influence around the border. See Sun Yun, ”China's Intervention in the Myanmar-Kachin Peace Talks” 408 Sun Yun, ”China's Intervention in the Myanmar-Kachin Peace Talks”
135 Another major concern for Beijing in Burma’s domestic affairs has been the flow of drugs from Myanmar into China. As already mentioned, Burma is part of the Golden
Triangle and acts as a producer of drugs and a major transit hub. From this hub a trafficking route goes into Chinese Yunnan and then either flows into Hong Kong, from where the drugs are shipped to the international market, or north, where drugs are distributed inside China’s growing narcotics market409.There are three aspects of this drug trafficking from Burma which deeply worry the Chinese authorities. First, drugs from Burma help fuel the massive growth of drug use inside China, where registered drug users expanded from 148 000 in 1991410 to 1,790 000 in 2011411 although the real number is likely times higher. Second, the Chinese government regards drug use as a “question of social stability”412, not only because drug abuse tears the very fabric of society but also because it fuels the growth of petty crime and promotes organized, mob crime. The frequent armed confrontations between police and drug dealers in Yunnan are a testament to this threat413. Third, drug use results in the spread of HIV/AIDS, as proved by the fact that China experienced its first HIV epidemic in the 1980s after the drug trafficking road from Burma was first opened414. This threat is particularly severe for Yunnan, in which the Sino-Burmese city of Ruili has become known as the “ground zero” of HIV in
China415.Hence, the drug situation in Burma has substantial impact on China. China has done a lot to address this situation. It has made serious efforts to promote regional
409 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,272 410 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,252 411 “China police achieve success in anti-drug actions”, Xinhua News,(June 25,2012), accessed on January 2,2012 http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2012-06/25/c_123328672.htm 412 International Crisis Group (ICG), China’s Myanmar Dilemma:14 413 Ibid 414 Ibid 415 International Crisis Group (ICG), China’s Myanmar Dilemma:15
136 cooperation on combating drug trafficking and has engaged Burma in the process. Such efforts included a Memorandum of Understanding on drug control with Burma, Laos,
Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam in 1995, memorandum that resulted in the Subregional
Action Plan for Drug Control which includes training of officers, pilot interventions in affected countries and drug combat offices in China, Burma, and on their shared border.416 In 2000, China and ten ASEAN countries endorsed the ASEAN and China
Cooperative Operations in Response to Dangerous Drugs (ACCORD) against drug production, trafficking and abuse417.China has also undertaken a series of bilateral measures, such as the training of Myanmarese officers in Kunming and a massive program of sponsoring alternative crop development in Burma which included the donation of 100 million RMB between 2006 and 2008, the granting of 300 million RMB in reduced import duties to Burmese producers, and the investment ,by Chinese enterprises, of 1.6 billion RMB in sensitive areas between 2006 and 2009418. It is also likely that China, together with the Burmese government, is behind the decision of some rebel groups, including some close to China, to impose bans on drug production in their territory419. All this demonstrates how seriously the Chinese government takes the drug issue. However, results have been mixed. There is a decline of opium-based drugs, but a large increase in synthetic drugs. In short, to manage the drug problem China still needs more influence in Burma, both with the government and with the rebels groups which control some of the country’s territory.
416 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,274 417 Ibid 418 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,275-276 419 Ibid
137 Finally, the substantial Chinese minority in Burma is the third issue which has prompted Beijing to seek influence in the Southeast Asian country. The Chinese diaspora in Burma which dates back to the seventeenth century constitutes, depending on the estimates, between 1.4 and 4.5 percent of the population, although figures are highly uncertain420. Since China’s Reform and Opening started in the late 1970s and early
1980s, a new wave of one to two million Chinese, known as “shanba”421, and mostly hailing from Yunnan province, have poured into Burma in search of economic opportunities. These new immigrants, often much more assertive than the older Chinese diaspora, have powerfully reinforced the special position that Chinese occupy in
Myanmar’s economy and have built up Mandalay as their chief economic center in
Burma (a city in which many Burmese claim that all buildings over two floors are
Chinese-owned422). A clear demonstration of this role is the fact that half of the leading twenty export-import companies in Burma are Chinese423. Naturally, the economic clout of Burma’s Chinese has provoked negative reactions, including the expelling of 100 000
Chinese in 1962 and the anti-Chinese riots of 1967.This negativism has increased in recent years, in response to the new wave of Chinese immigration and the relatively close relationship between the Chinese community in Burma and Beijing. On this background, the Chinese government has been concerned about three issues as potential threats. First,
China has been concerned about the welfare and security of the Chinese community in
Burma. The increasingly negative attitude of Burmans toward the Chinese community can produce a backlash against Chinese migrants or Chinese projects, which can lead the
420 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,247 421 “Shanba” literally means “new Chinese”. Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,249 422 The author’s interviews 423 Steinberg,258
138 increasingly nationalistic Chinese public to put pressure on Beijing to respond. Second, the PRC worries about potential attacks or suspensions of Chinese projects in Burma, some of which cost huge amounts of money, and can easily generate massive losses. This has been particularly true in the last two years, as Beijing has witnessed the suspension of large Chinese projects such as the Myitsone Dam and huge protests against others, such as the Monywa copper mine424. Third, Beijing has been concerned with the activities of the Chinese community in Burma, parts of which have become a hotbed of illegal activities such as drug trafficking, illegal trade and especially gambling, all of which have repercussions on the other side of the border. Gambling is particularly worrisome issue for Beijing, as it often lures Chinese officials to gamble with state funds and sometimes results in murder, kidnapping and torture of Chinese citizens who cannot pay their debts425.In response, China has issued warnings to Chinese people visiting Burma426 and has successfully forced the closure of the huge, Chinese owned, Maijayang casino by shutting its communications and power supply from China427. Thus, in order to safeguard the security of Burma’s Chinese and restrict any negative impact from their activities,
Beijing needs influence inside Burma, both with the Myanmar government and with the
Chinese diaspora in the coutry.
The problems that these three issues create and even more their destructive potential mean that, regardless of whether it wants or not, Beijing needs to influence the domestic affairs of Burma
424 The two cases will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter Six 425 International Crisis Group (ICG), China’s Myanmar Dilemma:16 426 Ibid 427 Ibid
139 Competition for Influence
How do these issues drive the Sino-Indian competition in Burma? As the issues above concern law and order, the stability of both countries’ borders, and the welfare and security of their diasporas in Burma, they are not competitive zero-sum matters. On the contrary, they seem like issues on which Beijing and Delhi share many interests and, hence, it is reasonable to expect that they would join forces. The two sides can cooperate in combating such common threats as drug trafficking, insurgency in Myanmar’s north and Burma’s traditional discrimination against both countries’ migrants which was officially enshrined in law in 1982428. However, they don’t and there is surprisingly little cooperation between Beijing and Delhi on any of these issues. Instead, these domestic
Burmese matters have become a driver of the Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar. The question “why” inevitably emerges.
At its core, this competition is produced by the need of each country to expand its influence in Burma and the zero-sum framework that this engenders. In order to address the issues described above and offset their real or potential negative impact, each side strives to increase its influence in Myanmar’s domestic affairs. However, the influence they gain in the process can also be used to promote their geostrategic, military and energy interests and thus to give one side competitive advantage over the other429. The
428 Burma’s 1982 Citizenship Law grants full citizenship and rights only to indigenous Burmese who are defined as the ethnic groups which inhabited Burma before 1824, when parts of the country were first annexed by the British Empire. As a result of the law, Myanmar’s Chinese and Indians are not given the status of full citizens. See Martin Smith, “Burma(Myanmar); The Time for Change”, Minority Rights Group International (2002):13,accessed on March 2,2012 http://www.nrc.ch/8025708F004CE90B/%28httpDocuments%29/BB43E7A181898834C12573DF00729601 /$file/BurmaRpt%5B1%5D.pdf 429 In essence, this situation replicates the classical offense-defense theory of Robert Jervis which postulates that when defense and offense cannot be distinguished, the security dilemma between two
140 result is a reaffirmation of the security dilemma between China and India. In this way, seemingly harmless issues, such as the status of each country’s migrant community in
Burma, become competitive.
In addition to this, some of the issues which concern China and India in Burma have the potential to harm one side without harming the other and, therefore, indirectly benefit one of the two powers. For example, Delhi’s problems with anti-Indian insurgents based in
Burma inevitably benefits Beijing by affecting India’s volatile Northeast, parts of which
China claims, and by focusing India’s attention towards its internal problems instead of its international competition with the Middle Kingdom. Similarly, the popular resentment against the expanding economic clout of Myanmar’s Chinese community affects the attitude of Burma toward the PRC and therefore helps India emerge as a foreign policy alternative to China, as has become evident in the last three years. This inevitably reduces the benefit of cooperation and contributes to the logic of competition between the two sides.
More generally, the attempt of each side to influence Myanmar’s domestic affairs fuels competition because China and India favor different political systems for Burma’s domestic politics and different political actors as their preferred partners. This inevitably colors their approach to Burma’s domestic affairs and the way in which they can project influence in them. While both countries would work with whatever government is in power in Naypyidaw, Delhi would prefer a democratic government in Burma whereas
states is much more intense than when they can be distinguished. The same can be said about political influence which can be used for either the defense of one’s existing interests in a third country, or for offensive gain of more power and for dominance over this country. In practice, the usage of influence for these two different purposes cannot be distinguished. See Jervis, R. “Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma” World Politics vol.30, no.2 (1978): 186-214
141 Beijing feels more comfortable with an authoritarian regime in power. For India, the preference for democracy in Burma is the result of India’s own democratic political culture, its long-standing relationship with Burma’s pro-democracy opposition and its leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and the fact that India’s influence would likely increase in a democratic Myanmar430. Testimony to this preference for democracy in Burma is the fact that, even after 1993, Burma’s pro-democracy movement has enjoyed substantial support within India’s political elite431, including by such key political figures as Defense
Minister George Fernandes and President K.R. Narayanan432. In contrast, Beijing prefers to deal with an authoritarian regime in Myanmar. Ideologically, the PRC feels a certain authoritarian camaraderie with Burma’s junta, as the two survived powerful pro- democracy uprisings in the late 1980s433, and withstood protests and uprisings by
Buddhist monks in 2007 and 2008, respectively, and have suffered international pressure and even sanctions on account of their political record. Moreover, the CCP is naturally apprehensive about the example that the democratization of one of its neighbors would set. On a more practical note, Beijing has invested a lot in its relationship with the military regime and has benefitted substantially from the junta’s international isolation and from its natural suspicion toward democratic India. These benefits would be
430 Here, it is important to remember that, historically, India has enjoyed greatest influence in Burma when the country was a democracy under U Nu, in the late 1940s and the1950s. 431 For example, in 1998, 75 members of the Indian Parliament signed a letter asking the Burmese government to restore democracy. Aung and Myint, ”India-Burma relations”:111 432 Aung and Myint, ”India-Burma relations”:110-111 433 In the aftermath of the 1988 uprising in Burma and China’s Tiananmen Incident, both sides felt authoritarian camaraderie as an important part of their newly-emerging special relationship. Thus, in a meeting between Chinese Premier Li Peng and Senior General Saw Maung ,Gen Maung stated “it is necessary at the present time for countries in Asia to preserve their own traditions and customs…There are attacks on Myanmar…by certain Western nations on human rights…We understand that the People’s Republic of China, too, is countering such attacks”. To this, Li Peng responded “I share many of Chairman Senior General Saw Maung’s views…The most important [principle of justice] in the field of international relations is non-interference in the internal affairs of one nation by another”, quoted in Garver, Protracted Contest, 260
142 endangered if Burma becomes democratic, as the events of the last two years testify.
While these different political preferences are hardly a major driver of Sino-Indian competition in Burma, they indisputably color it.
All this defines the desire of China and India to expand their influence over Burma’s domestic affairs as competitive and makes it a driver of the Sino-Indian competition in their Southeast Asian neighbor. However, it is important to note that, as Beijing and
Delhi share a number of concerns in Burma’s domestic affairs, there is a lot of room for future cooperation. Thus, if the security dilemma between the two sides relaxes a bit and they embark on bilateral confidence building in Burma, issues like drug trafficking and minority rights can be a good place to start. This would not eliminate the bilateral competition in Burma but would couple it with greater cooperation, which, as of now, is sadly lacking.
143 Chapter Six: Recent Developments
The last four years have witnessed major changes both inside Burma and in the international affairs of wider Asia. In Burma, in the aftermath of the elections of 2010, a growing political liberalization gained momentum and resulted in a number of democratizing reforms, such as the nominal transfer of power from the military to a civilian government in 2011 and the inclusion of the opposition in the political process.
At the same, Myanmar has opened to the world and has dramatically improved its relations with Western countries and especially with the US. The international relations of wider Asia have also experienced substantial changes as the competition between the
US and China has increased, following the global financial crisis in 2008, and there have been tensions between Beijing and its ASEAN neighbors over territorial disputes in the
South China Sea. How have these changes affected the Sino-Indian competition in
Burma? And how have they influenced the three drivers of the competition?
Of course, these are inherently difficult questions because many of the changes described above are still ongoing and it is difficult to predict their future course.
Nevertheless, it is important to answer these questions in order to understand where the
Sino-Indian competition in Burma stands now. This section answers the two questions by looking first at the state of the Sino-Indian competition in Burma before the changes and, then, analyzes the changes themselves and the effect that they have on Burma’s relations with both China and India. After this, I analyze how they have affected the competition
144 and its three drivers (regional geopolitics, both sides’ drive for influence in Burma’s domestic affairs and their quest to exploit Myanmar’s energy reserves).
Sino-Indian competition in Burma before the changes
In the years before the changes described above began to take place, around 2010, the
Sino-Indian competition in Burma was increasingly characterized by three features: a progressive acceleration of the competition, a growing Chinese superiority over India and a Chinese attempt to consolidate its position of preeminence in Burma.
The Sino-Indian rivalry in Burma was accelerating in the latter half of the last decade as a result of China and India’s growing need for energy resources and their search for strategic access to the Indian Ocean and to Southeast Asia, respectively. Naturally, for
Delhi the need to counterbalance Beijing’s expanding presence in Myanmar also played a role. This acceleration resulted, after 2004, in numerous projects and agreements in infrastructure building and energy exploration, described in previous sections. A good testimony to the accelerating involvement of China and India in Burma were the frequent bilateral meetings between officials from both powers and Burma. The second half of the last decade saw regular visits to Myanmar by high-ranking Chinese officials, such as premier, foreign minister and state councilor434, with only 2009 witnessing three meetings between Chinese premier Wen Jiabao and high-ranking Burmese officials435, as well as a visit to Burma by Vice-President Xi Jinping436. Similarly, meetings between
Indian and Burmese officials, although fewer, increased substantially after General Than
434 “Myanmar, Activities”, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, accessed on February 18,2013, http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/wjb/zzjg/yzs/gjlb/2747/2749/default_1.shtml 435 Ibid 436 “Chinese vice president arrives in Yangon” Xinhua (Dec 19,2009),accessed on Feb 15,2013 http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-12/19/content_12672539.htm
145 Shwe’s visit to India in 2004437, with an official visit to Burma by Indian President Abdul
Kalam in 2007438 and a return visit in 2008 by General Maung Aye, the second highest- ranking official in the military regime439.
The years before 2010 also witnessed a process in which China gradually came to gain the upper hand in the competition as a result of its greater financial means, Naypyidaw’s international isolation and the support and protection it offered as Burma’s main patron on the international stage. While from the very beginning of the competition China was the stronger side which enjoyed many advantages, its lead over India increased considerably after 2007. In 2007, the Burmese junta found itself threatened by a Western- initiated UN resolution which severely condemned its human rights record but China used its veto at the UN Security Council to block the resolution440. In gratitude, the junta awarded to China the right to develop the gas of two large blocks in the Shwe gas field441, previously promised to India, and soon agreed on the building of gas and oil pipelines from Sittwe to Yunnan442.All this happened in spite of intense Indian lobbying443 and the fact that Burma could have awarded other prospective gas fields to China or at least could have offered a compromise deal which would satisfy both China and India444. These
437 Egreteau, “India’s Ambitions in Burma”:947 438 M. Rama Rao, “India's President APJ Abdul Kalam on a visit to Myanmar”, Asian Tribune, March 9,2006,accessed on February 16,2013, http://www.asiantribune.com/news/2006/03/09/indias-president- apj-abdul-kalam-visit-myanmar 439 Yhome, India-Myanmar Relations”:25 440 Colum Lynch, “Russia, China Veto Resolution on Burma”, Washington Post, Janury.13,2007,accessed on February 15,2013 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/12/AR2007011201115.html 441 Author’s interviews 442 Steinberg and Fan, Modern China-Myanmar Relations,184 443 Egreteau,”India’s Ambitions in Burma,”:950 444 Although ultimately two Indian companies , GAIL and ONGC Videsh were involved in the project as minority shareholders, See Zhao Hong , “China–Myanmar Energy Cooperation and Its Regional Implications”:92
146 developments were further augmented by Burma’s 2007 uprising (often called the
“Saffron Revolution”) which increased the junta’s international isolation and its domestic weakness, to Beijing’s benefit. This state of affairs, combined with the growing domination of Chinese businesses over Myanmar’s economy resulted in a situation in which China emerged as Myanmar’s great power patron. Beijing’s growing clout in
Myanmar led to accusations that Burma was turning into a Chinese client state or a satellite445. While India tried to challenge China’s growing sway through greater engagement with Naypyidaw, for example with its substantial aid to Myanmar in the aftermath of the devastating Cyclone Nargis446, it was unable to match China.
Finally, Beijing made a major effort to consolidate its position in Burma on the eve of the recent changes in Burma. Encouraged by its success in outbidding and outmaneuvering India in Burma, its great gains since 2007 and what seemed like the failure of Obama administration’s attempt to engage Myanmar in 2009447, China expanded substantially its involvement in Burma, probably calculating that its position is so strong that it needs not fear provoking a reaction inside Burma or from other powers such as India and the US. Thus, 2010 witnessed a boom in Chinese involvement in
Burma with trade growing by 52.3 percent448 and annual investment reaching $7.75 billion449. Political ties also grew massively with a number of visits by high-ranking officials in 2009 and 2010, the year when Beijing and Naypyidaw celebrated fifty years
445Aung Zaw, “Is Burma China's Satellite State? The Answer is Yes,” The Irrawaddy, May 27, 2011, accessed on February 5,2013, http://www2.irrawaddy.org/opinion_story.php?art_id=21377 446 Egreteau, “India’s Ambitions in Burma”:957 447 Sun Yun, ”China’s Strategic Misjudgement on Myanmar”, Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs,Vo.31, 1,(2012):74 448 Sun Yun, ”China’s Strategic Misjudgement on Myanmar:77 449Feng Yingqiu, “Myanmar heading for fifth five-year plan for economic development”, Xinhua (May 26,2011), accessed on February 20,2013 http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/business/2011-05/26/c_13895066.htm
147 of the establishment of bilateral ties450. In 2010 and 2011 Yunnan province also launched its “bridgehead” strategy for building itself as a transportation corridor between China and the Indian Ocean, a key link in China’s “Look South” policy451. Beijing’s push reached its climax in 2011 when China and Myanmar upgraded their relationship to a
“comprehensive strategic cooperative relationship” and thus, seemingly, inaugurated a much closer partnership which Chinese president Hu Jintao emphasized would also include “mutual strategic support”452, an allusion to greater political and military alignment between the two sides.
In short, before the liberalization of Burma, the Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar, although more intense than before, was increasingly being won by China. As China consolidated its gains, it pushed to dominate Burma.
Changes in Burma
Since 2009, great changes have gradually unfolded in Myanmar and in wider Asia, changes which have reconfigured the framework in which the Sino-Indian competition in
Burma takes place. While it is difficult to evaluate these still ongoing changes and the following pages do not aim to do justice to their complexity, it is necessary to outline them very briefly.
The most important changes which have affected the competition have taken place inside Myanmar itself. In Burma, the last three years have witnessed a gradual process of liberalization, maybe even democratization, and an opening to the world. These have
450 “Myanmar, Activities”, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China 451 Sun Yun, ”China’s Strategic Misjudgment on Myanmar”:83 452 Sun Yun, ”China’s Strategic Misjudgment on Myanmar”:80-81
148 begun to redefine Myanmar’s domestic and international politics with profound consequences for both China and India.
Myanmar’s liberalization has been a gradual process in which a series of liberalizing reforms have gradually moved the country toward democracy. Although democracy has not been achieved by the time of this writing, it is undisputable that Burma has made substantial progress toward it. Myanmar’s process of liberalization can be traced back, at least453, to the 2008 referendum that introduced a new constitution which aimed to establish a “disciplined democracy”454 and set up elections for parliament455.It is important to note, however, that the new constitution was far from liberal and powerfully reaffirmed the special position of the military in politics.456 In the aftermath of the 2010 parliamentary elections prescribed by the constitution, which the ruling pro-military party predictably won, the military government led by Gen Than Shwe stepped down457. A new, nominally civilian government emerged and was headed by a President Thein Sein, the former prime minster of the military regime. These changes introduced a number of reforms which saw the release of Aung San Suu Kyi458, the leader of the pro-democracy
453 Please note that the referendum can be traced back to the “roadmap to democracy” which the military regime introduced in 2003. See “Myanmar vows 2004 'roadmap' meet”, CNN, (Dec. 15, 2003), accessed on February 16,2013 http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/asiapcf/southeast/12/15/myanmar.thailand.reut/index.html 454 Sometimes translated also as “discipline-flourishing democracy” 455 See “Myanmar: Towards the Elections” International Crisis Group (ICG) ,(Aug.20,2009 ), accessed on February 15,2013,http://www.crisisgroup.org/~/media/Files/asia/south-east-asia/burma- myanmar/174_myanmar___towards_the_elections.pdf 456 “Myanmar: Towards the Elections” International Crisis Group (ICG):i 457 “Burma transfer of power complete”, BBC ,(Mar. 30,2011), accessed on February 17,2013 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-12903507 458“Burma releases pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi”, BBC (Nov.13, 2010), accessed on February 18,2013 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11749661
149 opposition, the end of censorship459 and the scheduling of presidential elections for
2015.The participation of the opposition in the parliamentary by-elections in 2012, in which it won the majority of the seats in parliament contested in the election, was another important milestone460. At the same time, political liberalization has been accompanied by an escalation of ethnic tensions which saw riots against the Rohingya Muslims in
Rakhine state and fighting between the military and the Kachin rebels, likely a by- product of the liberalization of society.
Together with this process of political liberalization, Naypyidaw initiated an opening to the world and to the US, in particular, which has dramatically improved Myanmar’s international standing. At the heart of this process have been Burma’s domestic political liberalization and the inclusion in the political process of Aung San Suu Kyi, both of which removed two huge obstacles to improvement of Myanmar’s relations with the
West. At the same time, the international environment for Burma improved significantly, as the new US administration of President Obama tried to engage Naypyuidaw for reasons which included a desire to counterbalance China’s influence, strong interest in supporting Burma’s tentative steps toward democracy, and the administration’s overall preference for engagement over confrontation. The result was a process on improving relations which led to a visit by US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to Burma in
2011461, a visit by President Thein Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi to the US462 and
459 “Burma abolishes media censorship”, BBC,(Aug.20,2012), accessed on February 18,2013 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19315806 460 Aung Hla Tun and Andrew R.C. Marshall, ”Myanmar opposition claims by-election win for Suu Kyi”, Reuters (Apr.1,2012), accessed on February 15,2013 http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/01/us-myanmar-election-idUSBRE82U0C620120401 461 Matthew Lee, “Hillary Rodham Clinton Makes Historic Visit To Myanmar”, Huffington Post ,November30,2011, accessed on February 18,2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/30/hillary- clinton-myanmar_n_1120051.html
150 culminated with the official visit of US President Barrack Obama to Burma in December
2012463. Following US lead, other countries soon normalized relations with Myanmar.
Among these, Japan, which had close historical contacts with Burma and a strategic interest in countering Chinese influence, was particularly active464. Another key aspect of
Burma’s opening to the West has been the removal of most sanctions which were imposed on the country in the aftermath of the crackdown on the 1988 student protests.
There have been different theories about what caused these changes. Some scholars have seen a Burmese backlash against China’s growing dominance of its smaller neighbor, others have claimed that the military regime had lost legitimacy after the 2007
Saffron revolution and cannot continue, while some others have argued that the realization of how underdeveloped and poor the country is, was a crucial factors in forcing the military to democratize465. Naturally, both proponents of pressuring Burma to democratize and the advocates of engagement have seen the liberalization as a proof that their preferred approach was successful. However, regardless of what has caused these changes, it is obvious that they have transformed Burma, although it is not clear to what extent, and thus are likely to impact the Sino-Indian competition in the country.
462 Hannah Beech, “Burma’s President and Opposition Leader Suu Kyi Visit the U.S., as Washington Eases Sanctions”, Time, September 26,2012, accessed on February 18,2013, http://world.time.com/2012/09/26/charm-offensive-burmas-president-and-opposition-leader-suu-kyi- visit-the-u-s/ 463 Beech, ”Obama in Burma: U.S. President’s Landmark Visit Brings Hope, Criticism”, Time, November 19, 2012, accessed on February 18,2013, http://world.time.com/2012/11/19/obama-in-burma-u-s- presidents-landmark-visit-brings-hope-criticism/ 464 Antoni Slodkowski,”Special Report: How Japan Inc stole a march in Myanmar”, Reuters,(Oct.2,2012), accessed on February 18,2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/02/us-japan-myanmar- idUSBRE89117W20121002 465 Author’s interviews
151 Changes in the International Politics of Asia
Approximately at the same time as Burma’s liberalization, changes in the international politics of wider Asia began to take shape. Essentially these changes come down to two closely-related developments, greater competition in the relationship between the US and
China and growing tensions over territorial disputes between China and its neighbors. As these changes have shaped the international environment in which the Sino-Indian competition has taken place, it is important to outline them briefly.
Following the 2008 world financial crisis, the competitive element in the relationship between the US and China has increased, with substantial implications for Asia. While there was obviously competition between the two sides before 2009, this competition has increased substantially in the last four years due to the growing strategic mistrust between the Beijing and Washington and frequent tensions around China’s borders, in which the
US has been indirectly involved. The rise in tensions followed an action-reaction path which started with a period of Chinese “assertiveness” that saw Beijing adopt a dramatically harder line on territorial disputes with neighbors such as Japan, a US-ally,
Vietnam and the Philippines. In the meantime, China, which continued to massively expand its military, adopted a far less cooperative stance toward the US on issues such as climate change466 and North Korea467, and even questioned the status of the US dollar as
466 Edward Felker, “U.S., China deadlock in Copenhagen”, Washington Times, December 17,2009,accessed on February 17,2013 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/17/us-china-deadlock-copenhagen/?page=all 467 China’s reaction to North Korea’s sinking of the South Korean ship Cheonan and its shelling of South Korea’s Yongbyon island strained relations, as Washington pressed China to condemn North Korea’s actions against a US ally, something which China did not do. See Dick K. Nanto and Mark E. Manyin,”China and North Korea Relations” Congressional Research Service (Dec 28,2010), accessed on February 20,2013, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R41043.pdf
152 the world reserve currency468. Partly in response to this assertiveness, the US initiated its
“pivot to Asia”, later renamed “rebalancing to Asia” to placate Chinese suspicions, which included an increase in US military presence in the Asia-Pacific in terms of troops469 and vessels470 , and promoting a Pacific economic initiative, the TPP, to which China holds that it was not invited471. While Washington has officially refused to take sides on the territorial disputes between China and its neighbors, it has expanded its cooperation with the countries which challenged China and frequently criticized Beijing’s behavior.
Predictably, China has seen these activities as part of a US strategy to encircle it and contain its rise in Asia. At the same time, the Sino-American relationship has been strained further by trade disputes between the two sides, US support for Chinese opposition figures472 and cyber attacks on US companies and government institutions which many US analysts have blamed on China473.
A second closely-related development has been the growth of tensions over territorial disputes between China and its neighbors. The main arenas of these tensions have been
468See Jamil Anderlini “China calls for new reserve currency”, Financial Times, March 24,2009,accessed on February 20,2013 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7851925a-17a2-11de-8c9d- 0000779fd2ac.html#axzz2LZBsHZgc and Andrew Browne “China's President Lays Groundwork for Obama Talks”,The Wall Street Journal, January 17,2011,accessed on February 20,2013 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703551604576085803801776090.htm 469 Matt Siegel, “As Part of Pact, U.S. Marines Arrive in Australia, in China’s Strategic Backyard”, New York Times, April 4, 2012, accessed on February 20,2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/world/asia/us- marines-arrive-darwin-australia.html?_r=0 470 David Alexander ,“U.S. will put more warships in Asia: Panetta”, Reuters,(Jun. 2,2012), accessed on February 20,2013,http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/02/us-asia-security-idUSBRE85100Y20120602 471David Nakamura, “Obama at APEC summit: China must ‘play by the rules’” ,(Nov 12,2011), ), accessed on February 20,2013,http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-11-12/world/35282693_1_china- economic-policy-president-obama-regional-security-summit 472 Such as Chen Guangcheng. See Jonathan Watts and Paul Harris,“Chen Guangcheng arrives in US but fears remain for family in China”, Guardian, May 19 2012, accessed on February 20,2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/20/chinese-activist-escapes-us-plane 473 “China hacking claims: tech firms move to front line in US cyberwar”,(21 Feb. 2013) accessed on February 21,2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/21/china-hacking-claims-tech-firms
153 the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea and a number of islands and adjacent waters in the South China Sea474.While it is beyond the scope of this thesis to describe these complex disputes, which are often very old, it is worth pointing out that on several occasions in recent years they have escalated to clashes between China and other claimants. Such occasions were a collision incident between a Chinese fishing vessel and
Japanese Coast Guard ships in 2010475, a clash between Chinese and Vietnamese vessels in May 2011476, a standoff between Chinese and Filipino naval ships at the Scarborough
Shoal in 2012477, and militarized tensions over the purchase of the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands by the Japanese government from their private owner, in late 2012 and early 2013
478. These tensions, which often involved military vessels and aircraft, witnessed a greater
Chinese willingness to use pressure tactics like unvoiced embargoes on such exports as rare earths479 and fruits480 and coercive deployment of ships and aircraft. Of course, the other claimants have also pressured Beijing but due to the substantial imbalance of power between them and Beijing have been much less effective. The results of these intensifying territorial disputes have been to increase the cooperation between China’s
474 Although there have also been tensions over other disputes, such as the China-India dispute over Arunachal Pradesh. 475“Boat collisions spark Japan-China diplomatic row”, BBC,(Sept.8, 2010), ) accessed on February 21,2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11225522 476 Ben Bland and Kathrin Hille, “Vietnam and China oil clashes intensify”, Financial Times, May 29,2011,accessed on February 21,2013, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4d3badc0-8867-11e0-a1c3- 00144feabdc0.html#axzz2Ld0PByCQ 477 Jane Perlez, “Philippines and China Ease Tensions in Rift at Sea”, New York Times ,June 18,2012, accessed on February 21,2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/world/asia/beijing-and-manila-ease-tensions-in-south-china- sea.html?_r=0 478 “Dangerous shoals”, Economist, January 19,2013,accessed on February 21,2013, http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21569740-risks-clash-between-china-and-japan-are-risingand- consequences-could-be 479 “China resumes rare earth exports to Japan”, BBC ,(Nov.24,2010), ),accessed on February 21,2013,http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11826870 480 "China maintains quarantine on Philippine fruit”, Jakarta Post, May 25,2012,accessed on February 21,2013, http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/05/25/china-maintains-quarantine-philippine-fruit.html
154 neighbors481 and drive them to seek external actors, such as the US and even India, in order to hedge against China’s overwhelming power. Predictably, these developments have turned Southeast Asia and ASEAN, in particular, into important strategic arenas for both Beijing and Washington.
These two large but interrelated changes produced a new international environment for the Sino-Indian competition to operate into.
Effects of the Changes
What were the effects of these changes? While the changes described above are recent developments and their ultimate outcome cannot be known, yet, it is already clear that they have produced four major effects.
Weakening of China’s Influence
The first and , arguably, most important effect of Burma’s liberalization and opening to the West has been to weaken China’s position in the country. The changes above have unleashed a backlash against Chinese presence in Burma, a backlash which had been brewing for years, and have affected the main pillars of Beijing’s influence in the
Southeast Asian country.
The liberalization of Myanmar’s politics has unleashed a powerful wave of indignation against China’s growing grip on Burma’s economy, an indignation which had long existed but had been suppressed for by the military regime. The combination between the increasingly negative view that most Burmese have of China, Chinese companies and
481 In the case of the South China Sea dispute, some of the claimants ,such as Vietnam, even sought to have different parties to the dispute adopt a common position against China
155 Chinese migrants482,their outrage against perceived Chinese abuses and the growing accountability of institutions in Myanmar, have led the government to lash out against
Chinese interests. This effect became obvious in the case of two key Chinese projects in
Burma, the Myitsone Dam and the Monywa Copper mine, which Naypyidaw suspended after a storm of public uproar. The Myitsone Dam, a giant project which would cost $3.6 billion483, and sits on Burma’s treasured national river, the Irrawaddy, had sparked fierce protests by conservationists, local residents and political activists484, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi485. Similarly, the expansion of the colossal Monywa copper mine, a joint project between the Chinese company Norinco486 and a military-connected
Burmese company, has been criticized for the forceful relocation of locals and has led to brutal clashes between police and protesters, clashes which provoked an explosion of indignation in Burma487. As both projects emerged as powerful symbols of popular resistance against China’s economic expansion in Burma488 and its perceived wrongs,
President Thein Sein suspended them. The suspension of both projects, but especially of
482Min Zin,”Burmese Attitude toward Chinese: Portrayal of the Chinese in Contemporary Cultural and Media Works”, Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, Vol.31, 1 (2012) : 115-131 483 Colin Poole,” Could Myanmar (Burma) have Southeast Asia's first 'green president'?” Christian Science Monitor, September 21, 2012, accessed on January 6,2013, http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2012/0921/Could-Myanmar-Burma-have-Southeast- Asia-s-first-green-president 484 The opponents of the project have argued that it is not only non-transparent, but would have harsh impact on the environment and the local communities, which would be displaced by the project. In addition, the fact that most of the electricity produced by the dam would go to China has raised issues about how much the project would benefit Burma. 485Rachel Harvey, “Burma dam: Why Myitsone plan is being halted”, BBC, (Sept 30,2011),accessed on February 22,2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-15123833 486 China North Industries Corporation (Norinco) 487Andrew R.C. Marshall ,“Special Report: Myanmar's deep mine of old troubles”, Reuters,(Dec.27,2012), accessed on February 22,2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/28/us-myanmar-reforms- idUSBRE8BR02P20121228 488 It is interesting to note here that there have been allegations that there was US support for the protests, a support which, if confirmed, would indicate the high international and strategic stakes in Burma’s domestic backlash against Chinese influence. “WikiLeaks cables: Americans funded groups that stalled Burma dam project”, Guardian, September 30,2011, accessed on February 22,2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/30/us-embassy-cables-burma-myitsone-dam
156 the Myitsone Dam, was a powerful rebuke to China, after which “the alarm bells started to ring “489 in Beijing, in the words of Chinese expert Zhu Feng.
At a larger level, the liberalization of Burma and its opening to the world have presented China with a challenge to the very foundations of its influence in Myanmar. As
Burma’s international isolation has come to an end and the sanctions regime against its government has been dramatically reduced, Beijing has lost a key source of leverage, its unique role as Myanmar’s patron on the international stage and, at the UN in particular.
Thus, one can say that Burma’s alignment with China, the product of the unusual circumstances which the country’s international isolation engendered, has come to an end because these circumstances have changed and the rationale for the alignment has vanished. Therefore, it is logical for Myanmar to put some distance between itself and
China; in a sense, it is an attempt to return to the policy of neutrality which existed before
Burma was forced in PRC’s embrace after 1988. To this, we need to add that Burma’s opening has presented the Southeast Asian country with huge new opportunities for foreign trade and investment. Simply put, because Burma has a much longer list of options than it did before its opening, China has lost its status of Burma’s indispensable economic partner and faces competition in its smaller neighbor which did not exist until recently. Finally, the liberalization of Burmese politics has limited ( but hardly abolished) the power of the tatmadaw, the constituency which Beijing has cultivated for years and which has served as the main conduit for China’s influence in Myanmar.
489 “Less thunder out of China”, Economist, October 6,2012, accessed on February 22,2013, http://www.economist.com/node/21564279
157 The result has been a substantial weakening of Chinese influence in Burma, a major reversal for Beijing. While, before these developments, China pushed to consolidate its preeminent role in its smaller neighbor, it has recently seen its position seriously challenged and its push for influence resisted. More generally, the last three years have revealed the limitations of Chinese influence in Myanmar and what Burma analyst Sun
Yun calls China’s “strategic misjudgment” in Burma; a combination between a gross misunderstanding of Myanmar politics and an overestimation of China’s own power in is smaller neighbor, combination which led Beijing to push for more influence in
Burma490. To this judgment, we need to add Beijing’s lack of attention toward the cultural, environmental and national sensitivities of the Burmese public which has severely damaged China’s image in its smaller neighbor. China’s tendency to do business in Myanmar through backroom deals with the deeply unpopular military government and businesses associated with it ,widely seen as corrupt, has also taken its toll on Beijing’s image.
However, this reversal of China’s fortunes should not be exaggerated. China remains
Myanmar’s principal economic partner491, a position it is likely to keep in the forseeable future, and the oil and gas pipelines that it has been building are scheduled to be opened in 2013. Moreover, both Burma’s government and the opposition seem to realize
Beijing’s importance and have been very careful and respectful in their statements about
490 Sun Yun, “China’s Strategic Misjudgment on Myanmar” 491 Even in 2012, the year Burma most actively engaged the US, India and Japan, trade with China still grew and Myanmar promoted greater border trade with Yunnan. See “12th Myanmar-China trade fair opened in Myanmar”, China Daily, December 10,2012,accessed on February 23,2013, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/2012-12/10/content_16003196.htm
158 China, with Aung San Suu Kyi publicly reaffirming Burma’s friendship with China492.
Naypyidaw also needs to be careful toward China as Beijing still has an important role in
Burma’s ethnic politics, as revealed by its mediation between the Burmese government and Kachin rebels in early 2013493, and can always use its ties with different ethnic groups to destabilize Myanmar’s domestic politics, if it chooses to do so. Nevertheless,
China’s long-term prospects in Burma are dependent on its ability to learn from its mistakes, reach out to the Burmese public and change its way of doing business, a way which has often relied primarily on privileged contacts with the tatmadaw and its cronies.
Such a change will not be easy because, in spite of recent efforts to improve China’s image in Myanmar. While China can change its official policy toward Myanmar, many of its image problems in its smaller neighbor are caused by the actions of Chinese businesses, officials from Yunnan province or Chinese migrants, which are difficult for
Beijing to control.
India’s Opportunity
The second effect of Burma’s opening and liberalization has been to give India an opportunity to expand its influence in its smaller neighbor, an opportunity which Delhi has moved fast to seize. Worried by the meteoritic speed with which China’s influence in
Burma grew as Beijing pushed to consolidate its position, Naypyidaw has rushed to
492 Aung San Suu Kyi stated “I shouldn’t think [Myanmar’s relations with China] will change because you have to remember that we always have a very good relationship with China from the very beginning of the Communist government there,”quoted in George Chen“ ‘We need to be friends of both’: Aung San Suu Kyi speaks on China, the US, corruption and free speech”, South China Morning Post, January 28,2013,accessed on February 24,2013, http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1137824/we-need-be- friends-both-aung-san-suu-kyi-speaks-china-us-corruption-and 493 Myanmar to hold peace talks in China with Kachin rebels”, Reuters, (Feb.2,2013),accessed on February 24,2013 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/02/us-myanmar-kachin-idUSBRE9110AR20130202
159 engage Delhi and promote greater cooperation with Burma’s other giant neighbor. This shift has been possible because Burma’s liberalization has eliminated the main obstacle on the way of closer Indo-Burmese relations, the junta’s suspicion toward India, which originated in Delhi’s ties with the opposition and its support for the 1988 uprising. Just as important, Burma’s liberalization has also allowed India to fully engage Myanmar, as
Delhi would no more face severe domestic and international criticism for cozying to an authoritarian regime which has on its hands the blood of peaceful pro-democracy protesters. In addition, India’s close ties to Burma’s resurgent opposition and , particularly to Aung San Suu Kyi, have helped open the door for an increase in Indian influence in Myanmar. Not only have a lot of Burmese pro-democracy activists, who previously lived in India, returned to Burma to play a role in its democratic politics, but
Aung San Suu Kyi has emerged as a key political figure in new Myanmar. Aung San
Suu Kyi, who feels that India and Burma share a “special relationship”494, has publicly advocated more Indian involvement in Myanmar and has stated that she “would like
India to help us on the right path of democratization”495. All this has presented Delhi with an important opportunity to expand its influence in Burma and reduce the large gap that has opened between it and Beijing in Myanmar.
Delhi has swiftly taken advantage of this opportunity. The last three years have seen a string of meetings496 between the two sides which included visits497 to India by President
494 Nilanjana Bhowmick, “Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi Returns to India, Renewing Frayed Ties”, Time,November 15,2012, accessed on February 23,2013,http://world.time.com/2012/11/15/burmas- aung-san-suu-kyi-returns-to-india-renewing-frayed-ties/ 495 Saurabh Shukla ,“Aung San Suu Kyi wants India to play a key role in democratisation of Myanmar”, India Today,November 15,2012, accessed on February 22,2013, http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/aung- san-suu-kyi-india-democratisation-myanmar/1/229150.html 496 “Exchange of VVIP visits since the establishment of the new government”, Embassy of India in Myanmar, accessed on February 22,2013,
160 Thein Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi and the first visit by an Indian prime minister to
Burma in twenty-five years498.These visits, some of which are military-related499, have produced important results, including a MoU for a $500 million line of Indian credit to
Burma500, the establishment of an India-Myanmar Joint Trade and Investment forum501,a production sharing agreement between India’s Jubilant Energy and the Myanmar government502, and the opening of an Indian mission in the strategic port-city of
Sittwe503, which is a key element of India’s planned Kaladan corridor504. Much of the bilateral discussions have focused on improving the connectivity between the two sides, particularly on building infrastructure, such as roads505, and on managing the porous
Indo-Burmese border through which insurgents often pass506.
http://www.indiaembassy.net.mm/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=44&Itemid=55&lan g=en 497 The first such meeting was during a visit by Indian External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna in June 2011, the first high-level visit by a foreign dignitary after the establishment of Myanmar’s new government under Thein Sein, a fact which signifies the importance that the Burmese side has put on its relationship with India. 498Udai Bhanu Singh, “ An Assessment of Manmohan Singh’s Visit to Myanmar” IDSA Issue Brief ( June 1,2012):4 accessed on December 28,2012, http://www.idsa.in/system/files/IB_ManmohanVisitMyanmar.pdf 499 For example, the January 2013 visit of India’s Minister of Defence, A.K. Antony and the earlier visit of India’s Air Chief Marshal N. A. K. Browne. See “Antony heads for Myanmar to bolster defense cooperation”, Times of India, January 22,2013, accessed on February 22,2013, http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-01-22/india/36483842_1_defence-cooperation- defence-minister-antony-heads 500 Singh, “ An Assessment of Manmohan Singh’s Visit to Myanmar” 501 Ibid 502 Satu Limaye,” India-US and East Asia Relations: A Year of Notable Visits and Anniversaries”, Comparative Connections,(Jan. 2013), accessed on February 22,2013, http://csis.org/files/publication/1203qindia_asia.pdf 503 “India to open third mission in Burma”,Mizzima, (Dec. 17,2012),accessed on February 22,2013, http://www.mizzima.com/news/inside-burma/8583-india-to-open-third-mission-in-burma.html 504 As described in Chapter Three, the corridor is planned to connect the Indian port of Calcutta with Burma’s Sittwe port ,by sea, and from there continue ,on land, to India’s Northeast. 505 See Udai Bhanu Singh, “ An Assessment of Manmohan Singh’s Visit to Myanmar” and “India to open third mission in Burma” 506“ Antony heads for Myanmar to bolster defense cooperation”
161 The end result of all this has been to inaugurate a process of rebuilding the India-
Myanmar relationship, according to leading Indian Burma expert Udai Bhanu Singh507, and to increase India’s influence in its smaller neighbor. Predictably, China has watched this improvement in Indo-Burmese relations with concern, as an Indian attempt to counter its influence in the Southeast Asian country508. In this spirit, the Chinese
Southeast Asia expert Zhang Jian has claimed that India pursues two goals in engaging
Myanmar, ”to match China’s deep strategic influence in Myanmar”509 and use its smaller neighbor as a starting point of a strategy to secure influence in the Indian Ocean and even further in the seas around China itself and in the Western Pacific510.
Increase in Myanmar’s Strategic Value
The third effect of the changes described above has been to increase Myanmar’s strategic value. This effect has been the result of the increase in the competition between the US and China and the rising tensions in the South China Sea. As the relationship between the US and China has become more competitive, Southeast Asia and Burma have emerged as an important arena in their competition. Until Myanmar’s recent opening, the US saw Myanmar as a pro-Chinese authoritarian regime which gave Beijing access to the Indian Ocean and increased its influence in Southeast Asia and ASEAN.
507 Nilanjana Bhowmick, “Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi Returns to India, Renewing Frayed Ties”, 508 See Bi Shihong, “India’s past ties to Myanmar not forgotten”, Global Times, November 29,2012,accessed on February 23,2013, http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/747304.shtml and “Myanmar trip shows India’s deluded mindset” Global Times, May 29,2012,accessed on February 23,2013, http://www.globaltimes.cn/NEWS/tabid/99/ID/711788/Myanmar-trip-shows-Indias-deluded- mindset.aspx 509 Author’s translation. Original reads ”kàng héng zhōng guó duì miǎn diàn de;dì;dí shēn céng zhàn lüè yǐng xiǎng” ( 抗衡中国对缅甸的深层战略影响) 510 Zhang Jian,“Miǎndiàn zài dàguó zhījiān ‘zǒu gāng sī’ “ (缅甸在大国之间“走钢丝”),Shanghai Institute for International Studies, January 18,2013, accessed on March 1,2013, http://www.siis.org.cn/Sh_Yj_CMS/uploads/20130118zj.pdf
162 China, for its part, has viewed US’s engagement with Burma with suspicion, with many
Chinese analysts describing it as an element of a larger US strategy aimed at encircling and containing China511, a strategy in which "Southeast Asia will be the biggest priority"512. Moreover, Chinese analysts have worried that the US-Myanmar engagement would further strengthen Washington’s position in ASEAN, to which Burma is a member513. At the same time, the tensions in the South China Sea have also increased the strategic importance of Burma. As most participants in the South China Sea dispute are members of ASEAN, the organization has become a major battleground for the dispute, particularly as some of its members, such as Vietnam and the Philippines, have tried to push ASEAN to adopt a common position against China514. In these circumstances,
Myanmar has emerged as a key swing vote in the organization, important both to China and its opponents.
Thus, in the words of Chinese analyst Zhang Jian515 “Myanmar has become the new stage of the great power chess game”516 and, on this stage, it has striven to balance between the great powers in a fine act of “wire walking”517.
511 A good example of this way of thinking is an article by one of the editors of People’s Daily, the mouthpiece of the party, published in Global Times. See “US has eye on China while wooing Myanmar”, Global Times (Mar. 14,2012),accessed on February 22,2013, http://www.globaltimes.cn/NEWS/tabid/99/ID/700308/US-has-eye-on-China-while-wooing- Myanmar.aspx 512 According to Jia Xiudong, a researcher at the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), a leading Chinese foreign policy think tank. Quoted in “Obama in Myanmar”, Beijing Review, (Nov. 26, 2012), accessed on February 22,2013, http://www.bjreview.com.cn/world/txt/2012-11/26/content_503602.htm 513 Sun Yun, “China’s Strategic Misjudgment on Myanmar” ,89 514 This push has led to a clash between pro and anti-Chinese ASEAN members which caused a rift in the organization during its Phnom Penn summit in July 2012. See Prak Chan Thul and Stuart Grudgings, “SE Asia meeting in disarray over sea dispute with China”, Reuters, (Jul. 13,2012),accessed on February 22,2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/13/us-asean-summit-idUSBRE86C0BD20120713 515 “Zhang, Jian “Miǎndiàn zài dàguó zhījiān ‘zǒu gāng sī’ “ (缅甸在大国之间“走钢丝”),Shanghai Institute for International Studies,January 18,2013, accessed on March 1,2013, http://www.siis.org.cn/Sh_Yj_CMS/uploads/20130118zj.pdf
163 New Actors on the Stage
The fourth effect of Burma’s liberalization and opening has been to introduce powerful new international players on the stage of Burma’s politics and economics. One such player is the US. The US has increasingly become an important player in Burmese politics. Washington’s substantial interest in the country has been underscored not only by the visits of President Obama and Hillary Clinton to the country and the lifting of most
US sanctions against Naypyidaw, but also by the appointment of such a high-ranking official as Derek Mitchel518, the former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asia and the Pacific, as US ambassador to Myanmar519. U.S. Congress also has been a key driver of U.S. policy toward Burma, as a result of the deep emotional interest of many of its members feel in Myanmar’s democratization. Japan has also emerged as an important player in Myanmar520. Tokyo, which had very strong connections with Burma before 1988, has written off $3.7 billion of Burmese loans to Japan521, has extended a loan of ¥50 billion to Naypyidaw522, and has begun work on a massive Japano-Burmese
516 Author’s translation. Original reads “kě jiàn miǎn diàn yǐ jīng chéng wéi dà guó bó yì de;dì;dí xīn wǔ tái” (可见缅甸已经成为大国博弈的新舞台) 517 zǒu gāng sī (走钢丝) 518 It is important to note that Derek Mitchell has often been credited as the principal architect of the Obama administration’s Myanmar policy, which, taking into account his position in the administration, further testifies to the importance that the American government has put on Myanmar (Author’s interviews) 519 “US Senate confirms Derek Mitchell as Burma ambassador”, BBC,(Jun.29,2012),accessed on February 23,2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18655815 520 The new Japano-Burmese relationship was inaugurated during President Thein Sein’s visit to Japan in April 2012, accessed on February 23,2013,”Myanmar leader eager for Japanese investment”, Asahi Shimbun,(Apr.20,2012),accessed on February 23,2013, ajw.asahi.com/article/economy/business/AJ201204200097 521 “Japan to write off $3.7bn Burma debt”, BBC,(Apr.21,2012),accessed on February 22,2013, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17797910 522 “Tokyo’s Aso, Thein Sein hold Myanmar economic talks”, The Japan Times,(Jan.4,2013) ,accessed on February 23,2013, http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/01/04/news/tokyos-aso-thein-sein-hold- myanmar-economic-talks/#.USkQN4K8BOI
164 industrial zone, at Thilawa, near Yangon523. While the large business opportunities that
Myanmar offers are clearly a driver of Japanese interest in the country, the growing tensions between Tokyo and Beijing are also a major factor, especially in light of their heated territorial dispute in the East China Sea. Predictably, China has looked with unease and sometimes even alarm at these contacts as a strategy aimed at “balancing
Beijing”524 and, according leading Chinese Myanmar scholar Bi Shihong, making Japan
“a dominant power in Southeast Asia”525. In addition, a number of foreign companies have come to Burma’s dramatically underdeveloped market, believing that it would be
Asia’s “next economic frontier”, where fortunes can be made526. While many of these companies, such as Total or Gazprom, are primarily interested in Burma’s energy resources, many others, such as Visa and Coca-Cola, are increasingly interested in services and consumption527. All this involvement of major foreign actors in Myanmar has served to increase the country’s freedom of action, as it can now choose among a much longer list of foreign political and business partners, a situation which gives
Naypyidaw substantial advantages. This situation has also served to weaken China’s position, which until recently enjoyed not only the status of Myanmar’s chief international partner but also a near monopoly in many sectors of Myanmar’s economy.
523 Thomas Fuller, “Long Reliant on China, Myanmar Now Turns to Japan”, The New York Times, (Oct. 10, 2012) ,accessed on February 23,2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/11/world/asia/long-reliant-on- china-myanmar-now-turns-to-japan-for-help.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 524Ling Yuhuan “Japan courts Myanmar as China watches”, Global Times, January 23,2013,accessed on February 22,2013 http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/757568.shtml 525 Bi Shihong, “Japan facing a tough test in Myanmar policy” , Global Times, November 4 ,2012,accessed on February 22,2013 http://www.globaltimes.cn/DesktopModules/DnnForge%20- %20NewsArticles/Print.aspx?tabid=99&tabmoduleid=94&articleId=742167&moduleId=405&PortalID=0 526 “Myanmar Gets Record Investment After Years of Isolation: Energy”, Bloomberg Businessweek, September 17,2012,accessed on February 22,2013, http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-09- 16/myanmar-gets-record-investment-after-years-of-isolation-energy#p1 527 Ibid
165 Impact on the Sino-Indian competition in Burma
What impact do these changes and their effects have on the Sino-Indian competition in
Burma? On one level, very little; they have not fundamentally changed the Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar, as it has not altered any of three principal drivers of the competition528. Both Delhi and Beijing continue to have a special place for Myanmar in their regional geostrategies, as they still need access to the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia or India’s Northeast that the country provides. Myanmar still matters deeply to both powers on account of the impact its domestic politics have on their security and of their energy needs. On another level, however, the changes in the last three years have affected the competition in three ways: they have restored some of the balance of influence between China and India inside Myanmar, have accelerated the Sino-Indian competition, and have made it more complex. Let us briefly look at all three.
The balance between China and India has been partially restored
The changes in Burma and Asia in the last three years have served to restore some of the lost balance between the competing influences of China and India in Burma. Before the changes, Beijing had gained an enormous lead over Delhi which grew so large after 2007, the year when China defended Myanmar at the UNSC, that China seemed to be on a course of winning its competition with India in Myanmar, a victory which would have inaugurated an era of Chinese dominance over the Southeast Asian country. However, as
China’s influence has suffered a series of blows since 2010 and India has seen its fortunes in Myanmar improve substantially, the gap between the two sides has shortened.
528 These are both powers’ regional strategies, their push for influence in the Burma’s domestic politics and their attempt to exploit Myanmar’s abundant energy resources
166 More important, the changes described above and the effects they have produced have created a situation in Myanmar which is favorable to a further reduction of the gap between Chinese and Indian influence in the Southeast Asian country. Ultimately, a more democratic Burma in which international companies compete with Chinese ones and a nationalistic Burmese public opposes Chinese economic dominance is more conductive to the growth of India’s influence than to China’s. The expanding US presence in Burma also helps India as it serves as a counterweight to Chinese influence. More fundamentally, the formal end of military rule in Burma signifies the end of the period in which Myanmar preferred China over India for domestic reasons, a period following the suppression of the 1988 uprising. Japan, a good partner of India can easily join hands with Delhi in Myanmar in a mutually beneficial cooperation529. However, this does not mean that India is on a course to match or surpass China’s influence in Myanmar. As
China’s influence in its Southeast Asian neighbor is still huge, especially in its economy,
Delhi can only hope to reduce China’s lead in Burma. Moreover, the work on many
Chinese projects such as China’s gas and oil pipelines continues to progress, establishing facts on the ground which solidify China’s influence in Burma. China can also help or harm Burma’s domestic peace530 more than any other country, a fact powerfully demonstrated by China’s role as a mediator between the Burmese government and
Kachin rebels in early 2013531. Accordingly, while burnt by its experience in the last two
529 There have been proposals for the development of a Japanese industrial zone on India’s east coast, from which products can be shipped to the Japanese-developed port of Dawei and then transported ,on land , to Thailand, thus bypassing the Strait of Malacca.(Author’s interviews) 530 It is interesting to point here that there are reports that some Chinese analysts have proposed that Beijing uses its influence with insurgent groups in Burma to destabilize the country, in response to its suspension of Chinese projects and its rapprochement with the US. See Yun Sun, “Has China lost Myanmar?”, Foreign Policy, (Jan.15,2013),accessed on February 25,2013, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/01/15/has_china_lost_myanmar?page=full 531 “Myanmar to hold peace talks in China with Kachin rebels”, Reuters
167 years in Myanmar, Beijing is confident that Burma still needs China and will not drift away from it, a point often iterated in Chinese commentary532. Hence, it makes sense to look at the rebalancing of the competition not as a disaster for China but rather as a natural return to a position closer to Burma’s cherished ideal of neutrality between Delhi and Beijing.
Competition is accelerating, slightly
The changes in Burma and in wider Asia in the last three years also serve to slightly accelerate the competition between China and India in their smaller neighbor, on the long run. While the immediate effect of the changes has not been an intensification of the
Sino-Indian competition, as both sides have tried to orient themselves in the new situation, the long-term one is likely to be a slight acceleration of the completion for three reasons. First, the advent of other countries and international companies in Burma has left
China and India contesting the same assets as before but in the face of far greater competition. This pattern is most evident in the oil and gas sector where Chinese and
Indian companies are already facing the competition of powerful multinational companies. Second, the geostrategic value of Burma for China has increased substantially due to the escalation of South China Sea dispute and China’s fear that Myanmar and
Southeast Asia are part of a US strategy to encircle China. The presence of Japan,
China’s historical adversary, in Burma also increases the stakes for the Middle Kingdom.
As China watches with suspicion US and Japanese involvement in Myanmar, Burma
532 For example see “Měi zài miǎndiàn gǎo ‘ wàijiāo dǔbó’ miǎn xiàng ‘měi ànsòngqiūbō’ ” (美在缅甸搞"外交赌博" 缅向美“暗送秋波), Xinhua,Nov.30,2011, accessed on March 5,2013, http://news.xinhuanet.com/world/2011-11/30/c_122357477.htm
168 begins to figure in Chinese thinking not only as an opportunity but also as a potential threat. All this means that Beijing will push again to increase its influence in Myanmar and reduce that of other powers, including that of India. Third, while India has made some important gains in Myanmar, the distance between its influence and that of Beijing is still very large and, consequently, Delhi has to put a lot of effort to catch up. In the last two years, Delhi has done precisely this, instead of passively watching the decrease of
Beijing’s influence, it has actively worked to engage Burma more and use the opportunity to gain more power in Naypyidaw.
Competition: more complex and unpredictable
The changes in the last three years have also made the Sino-Indian competition in
Burma more complex and unpredictable. The emergence on the stage of new actors such as the US and Japan has turned what was a strictly bilateral rivalry for influence into a more complex political game with several players. Of course, sheer geography determines that the PRC and ROI would remain the most consequential players in Burma, on the long run, and the principal competitors in the country as both have much more to lose or gain in Burma than the newly-arrived powers. Nevertheless, Beijing and Delhi’s policy toward Myanmar will have to consider the actions of the new actors, as well as of old ones who have become increased their involvement in Burma, such as Thailand and
Singapore. Such a situation might create new opportunities for cooperation but would also generate competition and limit Beijing and Delhi’s freedom of action. The domestic politics of the Southeast Asian country have also played an important role in making the
Sino-Indian competition in Burma more complex. The inevitable decentralization of power in Myanmar ,which Burma’s liberalization has produced, presents Beijing and
169 Delhi with a much more complex and fluid political environment in which they have to deal not with one very powerful central government, as before, but with a range of political factors, such as different parties ,local governments, nationalism and Burma’s vocal public opinion. The problems which China has faced in projects such as the
Myitsone Dam illustrate some of the complexities of doing business in new Burma. To all this, the political uncertainty which accompanies Burma’s liberalization process has to be added. The end result is a much more complex rivalry.
More generally, the changes in last three years and their effects have put an end to the period which started after 1988 when Burma isolated itself in the aftermath of the 8888
Uprising. While a new period seems to rise on the horizon of Burmese politics, it is uncertain what it will bring. What the contours of the Sino-Indian competition will be in
New Burma still remains unclear. Only one thing is certain, the competition will continue, as the reasons for China and India to seek influence in Myanmar are even more valid than before.
170 Chapter Seven: Conclusion
The last four chapters have addressed the three research questions which stand at the heart of this thesis and have iterated its basic argument. Thus the research agenda of this project has been fulfilled. Having answered the three research questions which this thesis posed, it is imperative to use our findings to take a “big picture” look at the Sino-Indian rivalry in Burma and clarify some essential points about it. The following pages offer a brief summary of the findings of this study, then analyze what these findings indicate about the dynamics of the competition, and finally situate the competition in the context of the larger Sino-Indian relationship.
Summary of Thesis Findings
This study has focused on three essential research questions about the Sino-Indian competition in Burma: first, what factors drive the competition; second, how they drive it; and, third, how the recent changes in Burma and Asia have affected the competition.
This thesis has responded to each of the three questions.
In response to the first question, what factors drive the competition, this thesis has identified three principal drivers of the Sino-Indian competition in Burma: the regional geostrategy of both China and India, their push to gain influence in Burma’s domestic politics, and their desire to exploit the country’s energy resources. Of these three, the regional geostrategies of China and India are the single most important driver. Burma, which occupies a critical geopolitical position, gives Beijing access to the Indian Ocean,
171 and enables Delhi to connect with Southeast Asia and with its own isolated Northeast.
This position has given Myanmar a special place in the geostartegies of both countries, which have striven to develop the country as a transportation corridor which would bring them substantial economic benefits, expand their regional influence and help them develop some of their poorer provinces close to the border with Myanmar. Just as important, Burma’s geopolitical position also makes the country an important security factor consideration for China and India. As a result, both giants have striven to expand their military influence in their smaller neighbor and to limit that of the side as a potential threat to their security. The desire of Beijing and Delhi to exploit Myanmar’s rich energy resources to fuel their expanding economies is the second driver of the competition. This desire is further enhanced by the fact that Burma is an energy source close to both countries, something which increases substantially its value for China and India’s energy security. The third driver that I have identified is Beijing and Delhi’s drive to gain influence in Burma’s domestic affairs, in order to ensure the security and stability of their borders and border regions, stop drug trafficking and protect the Chinese and Indian communities in the country. What unifies these three different drivers of the competition is the key role of geopolitics in them. It is Myanmar’s key geopolitical location as the place where China and India’s strategic peripheries intersect and the way it affects the interest of both sides, that has set the background for these three drivers to propel the
Sino-Indian competition in Burma. Geopolitics also defines Myanmar as part of a larger geopolitical region, Asia, in which both China and India are rising, thus making Burma even more significant for them.
172 In response to the second question, how these three factors drive the competition, I have argued that the Chinese and Indian interests, which lie behind the three drivers of the competition, are mostly irreconcilable. The regional geostrategies of Beijing and
Delhi produce a security dilemma, albeit a mild one, because the military or intelligence presence of one power in Myanmar negatively affects the security of the other, creating security threats for one side and opportunities to take advantage of, for the other. Just as important, as Burma has a key role in the regional geostrategies of both powers, influence in the Southeast Asian country has impact on the overall influence and desired position of preeminence of both powers in South and Southeast Asia. Naturally, this raises the stakes of the competition. As a limited resource which is geographically close to both countries and has bearing on their energy security, Burma’s energy is an object of the competition which both sides mostly conceptualize in zero-sum terms. Finally, Delhi and Beijing’s push to gain influence in Burma’s domestic politics to protect their legitimate interests also breeds competition: such influence can be used just as easily to gain relative strategic advantage over the other side as to protect legitimate interests inside Myanmar.
In response to the third question, about the effect of recent developments on the competition, I have argued that Myanmar’s liberalization and opening to the world and the change in the international affairs of Asia have produced three long-term effects in the Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar. First, they have slightly accelerated the competition, as China’s need to gain influence in Burma has increased while India has pushed to diminish the gap between itself and China. Second, the competition has become more complex as both powers need to deal with new political forces inside
Burma and with new outside actors in the country, such as the US and Japan. Third, the
173 changes in the last three years have restored some of balance in the Sino-Indian competition by reducing the gap in influence between Beijing, which enjoyed a huge lead over India after 2007, and Delhi.
Having answered these three questions, it makes sense to have a look at the larger picture of the dynamics of the competition which emerges from this study.
The Dynamics of the Sino-Indian competition in Burma
This thesis has defined the Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar as a geopolitical competition between two aspiring hegemons who seek to establish preeminence over their smaller neighbor, a country where their spheres of influence intersect. Influence in the Southeast Asia country is the object of the competition, i.e. the “commodity” that both sides contest in the competition, and the principal means through which either side hopes to promote its interests in its smaller neighbor and achieve dominance over it. As pointed in the introduction to this work, this competition has been limited because neither side wants to escalate it to the point of an outright confrontation, as such a confrontation can lead to serious damages to both sides and spread beyond Burma. Moreover, the side which seeks such an escalation would likely incur the wrath of the Burmese government and would see it move toward its adversary.
On the background of the above definition of the competition, this thesis has studied in detail the factors which drive the competition and how they drive it. However, it has not discussed the dynamics of the competition, the forces behind the competition which determine its course. Of course, a comprehensive analysis of the dynamics of the competition would be the topic of a whole new study and is beyond the scope of this
174 work. Nevertheless, four conclusions about the dynamics of the Sino-Indian competition in Burma emerge from the findings of this thesis.
The key role of security
The security533 considerations of China and India in Burma are a defining feature of the
Sino-Indian competition in the Southeast Asian country and consequently they seriously affect the dynamics of the competition. As Myanmar affects the security of both great powers, the stakes in the Sino-Indian competition for influence rise substantially and, as a result, the intensity of the competition correspondingly increases.
As was abundantly demonstrated in this thesis Myanmar has a significant bearing on the security of China and India, particularly if it hosts foreign military or intelligence presence. For Delhi, a Chinese dominated Myanmar can easily serve as a Chinese base for military or intelligence penetration of the Bay of Bengal and more largely for Chinese naval expansion in the waters around India. In addition, Burma has important security bearing on India’s troubled Northeast, both as a base for anti-Indian militants and as a potential springboard for Chinese encirclement of ROI’s Northeast and the cutting of the tiny Siliguri corridor which connects the region with the rest of India. For Beijing,
Burma, a country historically seen a “backdoor to China”, can pose threat to Yunnan and
Tibet, if it falls under the sway of a third party. If India establishes some military and intelligence presence in Myanmar, it would reinforce its position in the Northeast and deny China the advantage it enjoys in the area. At a larger level, Indian influence in
533 Please note that security here is used in a narrow, traditional sense, which largely features military security , i.e. security from a foreign or domestic military threat, and does not include economic and resource security. Thus, the above discussion does not include India and China’s security interests in preventing the flow of drugs from Burma or assuring the flow of energy from Myanmar.
175 Burma can serve to hinder China’s push to increase its own security by establishing naval presence in the Indian Ocean. In addition, Myanmar’s proximity to Arunachal Pradesh
(or South Tibet),a territory that both sides claim, has considerable military and intelligence implications, if ever again the dispute provokes military action.
Myanmar’s importance for the security of both powers affects the Sino-Indian contest in Burma by bringing much of the zero-sum logic of the competition. Essentially, the centrality of security for both powers’ policy toward Burma creates a classical security dilemma, in which more security for one side means less for the other. The suspicions of both sides toward each other, not only in Burma but also in their overall relationship, have tightened this security dilemma. Such suspicions particularly characterize the Indian side which has seen its security position vis-à-vis China erode in the last two decades as a result of China’s military build-up. India’s frequent and loud concerns about potential
Chinese military installations in Burma are a testimony to these suspicions.
The effect of this security dynamic on the competition has been to raise the stakes for both sides and reduce their margin for error. The ultimate result has been to make the competition more serious and more intense.
Myanmar’s Potential: The real issue at stake
One critical observation consistently emerges from the findings of this thesis; the Sino-
Indian competition in Burma is a competition over achieving a position which would enable each side to take advantage of Myanmar’s potential as a regional transportation hub. As such a position would allow either side to project power and expand its economic influence over a much larger region, the competition over Burma becomes a competition
176 for influence in Southeast Asia and the Northern Indian Ocean, and for the substantial security and economic benefits that such influence can bring. For this reason Burma occupies a special place in the regional geostrategies of both China and India.
As was already discussed in Chapter Three, Burma occupies the position of a springboard in the regional geostrategy of both powers, to either of which it promises huge benefits. For China, Myanmar offers a way to gain access to the Indian Ocean and to expand its influence around the SLOCs which traverse this critical body of water,as well as to achieve a position of preeminence in Southeast Asia. Apart from political influence in South and Southeast Asia, the potential benefits for China include greater security for Chinese energy and bulk shipments through the Indian Ocean, a decrease in
China’s reliance on the Strait of Malacca, and better integration of the economy of PRC’s
Southwest with the economies of the Indochinese peninsula. For Delhi, Burma is a means to connect with Southeast Asia, expand its influence in this region, strengthen its hold over its isolated and unstable Northeast, and solidify its position in the northern Indian
Ocean. The potential benefits include economic opportunities for India in Southeast Asia, more political influence in this region and the economic development of India’s
Northeast. The desire of both sides to fulfill these ambitions and reap the rewards listed above has been expressed in various transportation and pipeline projects. While some of these are already underway, most are still in the planning stage and their benefits remain potential.
Three conclusions follow from this focus of the competition on Burma’s potential. First, the Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar is a clash over the future of Chinese and Indian power in a much wider area which encompasses the northern Indian Ocean and South
177 East Asia, a fact which raises the stakes of the contest much higher than influence over a poor and unstable neighbor. Second, as both sides are focused on future benefits which, mostly, have not materialized yet, the competition becomes an intractable race over an uncertain future which transcends the specific issues which two sides contest. Inevitably, this makes the competition more difficult to manage. Third, the future-oriented character of the competition makes it a long-term game, in which the two sides try to make moves which would give them not immediate but long-term advantage. Hence, the competition becomes a positioning game in which the key question is whether each side would come to occupy a position which would allow it to exploit the long-term benefits that Burma has to offer.
In short, the Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar is intensified by what both sides perceive to be Burma’s potential to expand their power in a wider region and allow them to reap future rewards. The competition becomes a contest over the future, not the present.
Burma’s Independent Role
Burma’s independent policy is a key factor which affects the dynamics of the Sino-
Indian competition in the Southeast Asian country. As we observed in the theoretical section of Chapter One, Burma is a classical “bargainer”, a state which bargains with two aspiring hegemons in order to extract benefits and increase its own room for maneuver.
As a nationalist country which fears foreign domination and has historically tried to pursue a neutral foreign policy which balances Chinese and Indian influence, Myanmar has conducted an independent policy vis-à-vis its two giant neighbors. While Myanmar’s
178 room for maneuver to bargain with both powers shrunk after 1988, it never disappeared and was used by the Burmese government to promote its interests in the best possible way, under the circumstances.
This independent Burmese policy has played an important role in the competition by simultaneously stoking it and trying to carefully manage it. Burma has often deliberately incited the competition by making China and India compete over the same resources or issues. Naypyidaw’s decision in 2007 to give to China the exploitation rights for several gas blocks which were previously promised to India534, in spite of fierce Indian lobbying, is a classic example of this deliberate policy of stirring Sino-Indian competition.
Moreover, Myanmar has persistently encouraged the competition by refusing to fully meet China and India’s demands, hence leaving both powers partially unsatisfied. Thus,
Burma has enhanced its bargaining position. A good example of this approach is
Myanmar’s half-hearted suppression of anti-Indian insurgents who operate around its border with ROI. Similarly, Burma’s government has not given to Chinese companies the controlling stake in gas fields which would soon supply China with gas by pipeline through Myanmar but, instead, gave it to South Korea’s Daewoo. Nevertheless,
Naypyidaw has also strived to manage the completion to ensure that it does not threaten its interests or limit, too much, its room for maneuver. Thus, when Myanmar has felt that one side has gained too much power and threatens Burma’s autonomy, it has redressed the balance by inviting the other side to play a greater role. Such a pattern emerged after
1988 when, afraid of India’s clout with the opposition movement, the military junta embraced China as a counterweight. Similarly, in the last three years, Naypyidaw, fearful
534 If Burma wanted to avoid stirring Sino-Indian competition but still award Beijing gas concessions, it could have easily offered Beijing other gas blocks.
179 of Beijing’s growing sway in Burma, has sought to offset this influence by promoting closer ties with India and improving its relations with the US.
Burma has also striven to prevent China and India from constraining its own domestic policy by underscoring its policy autonomy and its sovereignty over its territory. To do so, Myanmar has often deliberately failed to coordinate with Delhi and Beijing its actions and policies which affect the interests of the two powers, or even to inform them.
Burma’s relations with armed groups around its borders with the two giants are a good example of this strategy. For instance, in 2012 Burma made a peace deal with NSCN-K , a large Naga insurgent group which fights against Indian control over Nagaland , without even informing Delhi. Similarly, in 2011 Naypyidaw launched a powerful campaign against the Kachin rebels, forcing thousands to flee into China, without coordinating with
Beijing, a campaign which reportedly outraged the PRC.As is obvious in both cases, these policies have the added advantage of increasing China and India’s vulnerability to what happens in Burma, giving Naypyidaw more leverage over its giant neighbors.
Overall, Burma’s independent policy has served to accelerate the competition between
China and India but also to make it more even, so that neither side can gain a decisive advantage over the other. Thus, Myanmar emerges not as a powerless object of the competition, as it is sometimes presented, but as an independent actor whose actions shape the competition.
The US: The Invisible Player in the Competition
Another conclusion, to which this thesis points, is that the US plays a crucial, although
180 indirect, role in the Sino-Indian competition in Burma. This role has affected the dynamics of the competition in three ways.
First, Washington’s policy of isolating Burma internationally and imposing sanctions on it has been a key factor which forced Yangon (and later Naypyidaw) into Beijing’s embrace after 1988535. As this close embrace and India’s reaction to it was, arguably, the main reason why the competition started in earnest in the 1990s, it is fair to say that the
US policy was ,indirectly, a major reason why the Sino-Indian contest began, in the first place. Throughout most of the next two decades, Washington’s policy of pressuring
Yangon/Naypyidaw economically and politically kept Burma in Beijing’s embrace. As a result, China emerged as Myanmar’s great power patron which defended the military regime at the UN and provided it with investment and trade opportunities. While Burma could turn to India and ASEAN for assistance, as it did occasionally, neither was able to match the PRC because of Beijing’s economic clout and its permanent seat on the UNSC.
Conversely, US change of policy toward Burma during the first Obama administration played an important role in Burma’s recent cooling toward China. Myanmar, for the first time in more than two decades, was able to open to the world and reduce its dependence on China. Following the US lead a number of countries, including such important actors as Japan and South Korea, actively engaged Naypyidaw, further enhancing its international contacts. As it was already described in Chapter Six, this change of US policy affected the competition by strengthening India’s position and weakening China’s.
535 Of course, this is not to downplay the importance of the other factor which lead Burma into China’s embrace, the support of the Indian government for Myanmar’s opposition.
181 Second, the complex, sometimes competitive, relationship between Washington and
Beijing has shaped Chinese policy toward Burma, with all the implications for the competition. China’s interest in using Burma as a corridor to the Indian Ocean and a base for spreading its influence in this body of water is a testimony to the importance of the
US factor in shaping Chinese policy. Ultimately, the main reason why Beijing needs to use Burma in as a transportation corridor is to reduce its vulnerability to the real or perceived threat that Washington would interdict its supply lines in a case of conflict.
Predictably, this intensifies the Sino-Indian competition by increasing Myanmar’s value for China and forcing Beijing to vigorously seek influence in its smaller neighbor.
Naturally, this push for influence triggers a response from India.
Third, the strategic triangle between China, India and the US affects the Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar by contributing to the mistrust which characterizes Sino-Indian relations. As Delhi and Washington have come much closer in the last decade, particularly after their 2005 nuclear deal, China has felt that this rapprochement has been implicitly directed against it and has feared that it might represent an embryonic alliance aimed at containing its rise. This has fed China’s suspicion toward Indian influence in
Burma, particularly in the last three years, as the US has engaged Naypyidaw and its relations with China have grown more competitive. The result has been to increase the stakes in the competition and contribute to its intensity.
In short, as the US is the leading power in Asia and in the international system, its policies toward Burma and the two contestants impact the Sino-Indian competition in
Myanmar.
182 These are the four conclusions about the dynamics of the Sino-Indian competition in
Burma which this thesis has arrived.
The Competition in Burma in the Framework of Sino-Indian Relations
Two basic premises have been at the heart of this work. The first one has been that the
Sino-Indian competition in Burma is part of a larger contest between China and India. As was elaborated in the introduction to this thesis, this contest has been played out on many levels, in Asia, on the wider international stage and in many bilateral issues on which the two sides have clashed. The second premise has been that the overall relationship between China and India can be characterized as a competition, albeit a limited one536.
On this basis, one inevitable question emerges: how the two competitions relate to each other. Stated differently, this question asks how the competition in Burma impacts the overall relationship between Delhi and Beijing. Based on the findings of this thesis, we can tentatively answer this question.
The Sino-Indian competition in Burma and the larger contest between China and India seem to reinforce each other and in the process strengthen the competitive dynamic in the
China-India relationship. It is clear that the overall rivalry between China and India fuels their competition in Burma and that , without it, the two sides would have few reasons to compete in the Southeast Asian country. Thus, as was already pointed above, the two giants do not compete primarily over Burma itself but over larger issues such as their influence in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean, and the balance of power between them in wider Asia. This conclusion is carried out by an analysis of the three drivers of
536 As was elaborated in in Chapters One and Two, the competition has been limited, due to the parallel existence of substantial cooperation between the two sides and the enormous risks and losses that a more intense competition would create for both powers.
183 the competition in Burma. The main driver of the competition, the regional geostrategy of both powers indicates that China and India compete in Myanmar in order to achieve wider regional objectives, such as access to the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia. The second driver of the competition, both powers’ search for influence in Burma’s domestic politics, only generates competition because of the overall mistrust between China and
India, i.e. because of their larger competition. It is only in the third driver of the competition, the desire to exploit Burma’s energy resources, which indicates that the two sides compete over Burma itself. Hence, what fuels the competition in Burma is both sides’ drive for regional influence, their security concerns about the other side and their mutual mistrust. In short, Beijing and Delhi compete in Myanmar because of their larger competition.
However, this does not mean that the Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar is a mere reflection of the two sides’ larger rivalry. The competition in Burma is arguably one of the drivers of the larger competition between China and India. The principal reason for this is Burma’s key geostrategic position which has been discussed in great detail in other parts of this work. As the impact of having influence or having your competitor have influence in such a geostrategically important country is so great, Myanmar has become an important arena of the Sino-Indian competition in its own right. Apart from its geostrategic implications for the larger India-China contest, the competition in Burma has contributed to the deep mistrust between Beijing and New Delhi. As much of the competition in Myanmar revolves around security concerns, as noted above, it contributes substantially to both sides’ security dilemma. This is particularly true for
184 India which stands to lose much more from Chinese influence in Burma than China does from Indian influence.
In short, the Sino-Indian competition in Burma is an important, integral part of the larger contest between Beijing and Delhi. Just as the larger competition is the principal reason why China and India compete in Myanmar, the competition in Burma is one of the reasons why there is a rivalry in the larger relationship between the two sides. Hence the two competitions, the one in Burma and the larger one, cannot be separated and reinforce each other.
From the above discussion, it is obvious that the Sino-Indian competition in Burma contributes to the competitive dynamic in the relationship between the two Asian giants but not to the cooperative one. This draws attention to a shocking fact: in spite of the convergence between Chinese and Indian interests on some issues in Burma, there is very little cooperation between the two sides in the Southeast Asian country. As this project has pointed on several occasions, China and India have shared interests in promoting
Burma’s stability, in ensuring the peaceful resolution of its ethnic problems, in guaranteeing the rights and safety of the Chinese and Indian diasporas in the country, and in preventing a cut-throat competition between Indian and Chinese energy companies, a competition which raises prices. Regrettably, there has been little cooperation between the two sides on any of these issues, with the partial exception of a little bit of very limited cooperation in Burma’s energy sector. Earlier attempts to engender cooperation on infrastructure, such as the BCIM, have failed. This lack of cooperation is even more striking when juxtaposed with the overall Sino-Indian relationship in which, as pointed in
185 the introduction to this work, there is a fair amount of cooperation, ranging from joint position of global issues such as climate change to a robust economic relationship.
This observation demonstrates that the power and momentum of the competition between China and India in Myanmar has inhibited cooperation between the two sides. It also indicates the depth of the strategic mistrust between the two sides, so deep that even the prospect of mutual gain has a difficulty breaching it. However, this situation also has a “silver lining”; it gives some hope for the future. There is clearly a lot of room for cooperation between the two powers in Burma and if they decide to make use of it, they can alleviate their competition.
Conclusion
This thesis has been an attempt to understand what issues drive the rivalry between
China and India in Myanmar, how these issues generate a competition between the two sides and how the recent changes in Burma and Asia have impacted this competition.
Together with gaining better understanding of these three issues, this work has also arrived at some general conclusions about the nature and dynamics of the Sino-Indian competition in Burma and its place in the context of the larger relationship between
Beijing and Delhi. Hopefully, this study has helped to advance understanding of an understudied but consequential aspect of Sino-Indian relations.
Nevertheless, there is much more that remains to be studied and understood in the competition between the two sides in Burma. A research agenda for the future should include the study of four principal issues. First, it should comprehensively examine the role of Burma’s foreign policy as an independent factor in the competition. Second, an
186 important element of a future research agenda would be to study the relations of China and India with different political actors inside Burma and how these relations affect the competition. Third, the role that different groups and bureaucracies inside India and
China play in shaping each side’s policies toward Burma, and their effect on the competition, is yet another question that merits further research. Finally, the particular tactics that each of the two sides uses to spread its influence in Burma and compete with the other are also an important topic for study. Of course, it is important to realize that these questions are the “known unknowns” of the competition and there will certainly be many “unknown unknowns” which would confront future researchers as the competition develops over time. Such “unknown unknowns” are likely to emerge in the coming years as Burma’s liberalization and opening continue apace, with an impact on the competition which we cannot fully measure and predict at this point. Thus, much remains to be studied on the competition between China and India in Myanmar.
In short, this thesis is, hopefully, a step toward better understanding of the Sino-Indian competition in Myanmar and its wider implications. Nevertheless, there is a long road ahead.
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208 Appendix: Abbreviations
ACCORD- ASEAN and China Cooperative Operations in Response to Dangerous Drugs
ATS- Amphetamine-type-stimulants
ASEAN- Association of Southeast Asian Nations
BLO-Border Liaison Office
BRICS-Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa
CIIS-China Institute of International Studies
CNPC- China National Petroleum Corporation
CNOOC-China National Offshore Oil Corporation
CPI-China Power Investment Corporation
GAIL-Gas Authority of India, Ltd
ICG-International Crisis Group
IDSA-Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, New Delhi
IPI-Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline
LNG- liquefied natural gas
MBI-Myanmar-Bangladesh-India
MLAT-Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty on Criminal Matters
MOGE- Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise
ΜΟU-Memorandum of Understanding
NLD- National League for Democracy
NSCN- National Socialist Council of Nagaland
NSCN-K- National Socialist Council of Nagaland – Khaplang (named after its leader S.S. Khaplang)
209 NSCN-IM- National Socialist Council of Nagaland –Isak Muivah (named after its leaders Thuingaleng Muivah and Isak Chisi Swu)
Norinco- China North Industries Corporation
KYKL -Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup , Organization to save the revolutionary movement in Manipur
PRC-People’s Republic of China
PLA (China)- People’s Liberation Army, China’s armed forces
PLA (Manipur)- People’s Liberation Army of Manipur
PLAN-People’s Liberation Army Navy
RMB- Renminbi, literally “people’s currency”, the official currency of the PRC
ROC-Republic of China, located on Taiwan
ROI-Republic of India
ONGC-Oil and Natural Gas Corporation
SINOPEC-China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation
SLOC-Sea Line of Communication
TAPI-Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline
TPP-Trans-Pacific Partnership
ULFA-United Liberation Front of Asom (or Assam)
UNLF- United National Liberation Front
UN-United Nations
UNSC-United Nations Security Council
210