India - Myanmar: Meeting the Chinese Challenge
Asia News Agency
This month, the military junta ruling Myanmar began preparations for fresh elections that are to be held by December.
For India, writes Praveen Swami (contributing editor at ThePrint) “the elections pose a complex challenge. The collapse of the junta’s authority in the face of an increasingly successful campaign by ethnic rebels has left space for insurgents from India’s Northeast to expand their presence and infrastructure. For its part, China is exercising its deep influence with insurgents in northern Myanmar to ensure it has a chokehold over the new government.
"To retain influence in Myanmar, India will have to maintain ties with both the new regime and ethnic insurgents, which hold territory along its borders—no small ask.”
Linkages of Northeast insurgents: Experts recall, that following the 1990 elections, the Generals refused to recognise the results and continued to hold on to power. The military consolidation had serious consequences for India. The regime of General Than Shwe, who took power in 1992, allowed ethnic-Meitei insurgent groups from Manipur to embed themselves across the border in the town of Tamu. Factions of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (NSCN) also found refuge in Sagaing, together with the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA).
Soon after it took power in 1991, Prime Minister Narasimha Rao’s government sought to rebuild ties with the Generals. The results, however, writes Swami “were slow to come. Efforts to restore ties with the junta continued. The Myanmar military reciprocated. Last month, Indian forces were reported to have used drones to target camps run by the ULFA and the People’s Liberation Army of Manipur in Sagaing.”
The Chinese game plan
Even more consequential than insurgent bases, writes Swami “is the influence that China will exercise over the new government in Yangon. Ethnic armies closely linked to China—key among them, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) in the Kokang region—control large swathes of territory in northern Shan state. Together with the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, the Kachin Independence Organisation, and the Shan State Progress Party, insurgents control all but a small part of the critical trade highway from Mandalay through Lashio into Muse.”
Worst-case scenario for India: The worst-case scenario looming for India, in the view of Swami “is that it finds itself without influence both among the Generals and the proxy parties that will prop up the regime after the elections, as well as insurgents along its borders. Even though China, unlike Pakistan, has seen no strategic interest in sustaining a significant insurgency targeting India, that could change.”
Journalist Rajeev Bhattacharya has reported Chinese intelligence officers visiting camps at Myanmar’s Taga and urging all groups in the Northeast to unite.
Athena Awn Naw argues China seeks to create a new order, held up by three pillars—ethnic insurgents, civil society, and the military—but all held in check by their dependence on Beijing. The Chinese government is also committing growing levels of military force to protect its interests, using private military contractors drawn from its army.
India needs to play its cards carefully and forcefully
In the circumstance, India “has few cards in play. The long-delayed Kaladan transport project, meant to speed connectivity between the Northeast and the port of Sittwe, is scheduled to be completed by 2027. Almost all of the Rakhine province is militarily contested, with the Arakan Army (AA) insurgent group holding the entire province bar the towns of Sittwe, Kyaukphyu, and Manaung. The prospects for the project are, therefore, uncertain.”
For decades now, concludes Swami, “India’s policy on Myanmar has been to deal with its Generals and maintain a distance from the country’s insurgent groups and political struggles. That policy could lead to New Delhi being dealt out of the game—another defeat in the region, which will have long, profound consequences.”
