India’s security concerns

Traditionally, India has had an erratic relationship with Myanmar that posited our operational requirements to cozy up with the Myanmar junta (to take on the North East-centric insurgent elements on the Myanmar side of the border), at odds with our more internationalist and avowedly diplomatic stance of supporting the pro-democracy strain of Aung San Suu Kyi’s struggle. The confusion from this moral dichotomy drove the Myanmar junta into the willing arms of the Chinese with whom it shares a 2185 km border – China suffered no such moral compunctions and with its famed realpolitik approach, prioritized the geo-political relevance of the ‘second coast’ on the Indian Ocean, captive natural resources of Myanmar and a hungry market for Chinese exports, to establish its own multihued hegemony. So, in Myanmar’slong spell of international isolation and seclusion, China became it principal partner of relevance and legitimacy.

Strategically, Myanmar made imminent sense for the Chinese with a pliant junta-regime and a geography that afforded a potential ‘pearl’port-base in Sittwe to provide logistics for the critical SLOC’s (Shipping Sea Lanes of Communication).  This was part of the China’s global strategy of ‘String of Pearls’ that envisaged, intermittent ports along the Asian coastline, with the Dragon’sfirm trade/naval footprint, from the Hainan Island in the South China Sea up to Sudan in Africa. Even creative engineering solutionslike a canal through the Kra Isthmus in Thailand bypassing the restive, narrow and vulnerable Straits of Malacca was mooted by the Chinese to secure its trade and energy options, superimposing the relevance of Myanmar in the Chinese strategic jigsaw.
For the Myanmar junta, international legitimacy aside, Myanmar had the ongoing infamy ofhosting one of the world’s ‘longest running insurgencies’. There are over 135 Government recognized ethnic groups,with the predominance of the Bamars at approx. 65 per cent – leading to fears of ‘Burmainsation’,that led to armed ethnicity-based insurgent groups of various Myanmar’s minorities. These local insurgent groups imposed taxes in their respective domains and dabbled in drug trafficking to facilitate the purchase of weaponry from the black markets of Cambodia, China and Thailand. Given the lack of international support options for a junta-style-Government, it becamefertile ground for tactical arrangements, intrigues and bloody suppressions – just the kind of environment that the Chinese revel in and exploit to create a vassal nation. Chinese are past masters in the game of checks and balances to ensure perpetual control and it tactically managed covert relationships with some of Myanmar’s ethnic-based insurgent groups (especially those with shared Chinese ethnicity) to ensure a counter-lever to the Tatmadaw (as the Myanmar Military or juntais locally known). (Courtesy of dailyexcelsior.com)