India “Acts” in Myanmar

Placing the second word of the header in quotation marks is due to the fact this is related to the meme well-established during the last three years in India (Act East Policy) indicating the intention of the country’s authorities “to act” on the territory east of the national borders.

This expression has over 25 years of history. However, until the middle of 2014, its first word reflected what was de facto in India’s Eastern politics, namely, “a look” to the East. This is because after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which was the main pillar of India on the world stage, Delhi had not been up to foreign policy activity over a long period.

A significant replacement in the meme now representing a major component of Indian foreign policy was made by the current Minister of Foreign Affairs Sushma Swaraj during her visit to Vietnam in August 2014. Three months later, a new version of the meme was “approved” by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his speech at the 25th ASEAN Summit, i.e. before the leaders of the countries which are implied as the main targets of India’s “actions.”

However, the idea of the necessity for such replacement belongs not to Swaraj, but to the other determined lady from world politics Hillary Clinton, who, three years earlier (during her tenure as U.S. Secretary of State), advised the Indian administration “not only to look, but to act in the East.”

The motivation of this advice resulted from the U.S. desire designated at the beginning of the last decade to transform India into one of the main (along with Japan) regional balances as a counter to the fast-growing China, which, even then, was regarded by Washington as its main geopolitical opponent in the 21st century.

The same “Chinese motif” gradually emerged in the Indian Eastern politics. Mrs. Clinton’s advice, therefore, was welcomed with open arms by the government of the right-wing Bharatiya Janata (which convincingly won the general elections in spring 2014), whose leader Mr. Modi has been heading the government from that moment on.

Political activity in India with the obvious anti-Chinese overtones is observed in all countries neighbouring China. And not only in the East, but also in the North (Mongolia) and North East (South Korea, Japan).

However, special attention has recently been paid to Myanmar (former Burma). Having met with the Commander-In-Chief of the Myanmar Defence Services General Min Aung Hliang on July 14 this year, Mr. Modi has designated the country as a “key pillar” of India’s “Act East” Policy. And for good reason.

The NEO recently referred to the topic of the exceptional strategic importance of Myanmar for both major world players, i.e. China and the United States.

Let us recall that the exhausting and tough U.S.-China struggle for dominant influence on this country, which lasted from the early 90s until the end of the 2000s (apparently not very noticeable), ended in the beginning of this decade by the ascension to power in Myanmar of a group headed by the icon of the universal “human rights” movement Aung San Suu Kyi. This served as a battering ram to overthrow the Pro-Chinese military regime, but did not meet expectations.

This is due to the fact that the new Myanmar administration has not become Pro-American and “human rights-oriented”, but has been engaged in what any responsible administration of a country of the third or fourth level of significance should be engaged in, namely balancing between the leading global players on the international arena. The country’s administration continued to pursue the domestic policy of the previous military leadership, thus benefitting (to put it mildly) different kinds of ethno-religious, ideological-social and bandit groups.

Although Beijing had to abandon its plans to use Myanmar territory for addressing the critical strategic objective of securing land access to the Indian Ocean (with the transfer of these plans into Pakistan), the status of neighbourly relations (at least outwardly) was not damaged, and China remains the main trading partner of Myanmar.

Chinese border troops have recently conducted joint operations with their counterparts from Myanmar to suppress the increased activity of some of the many armed groups in the area of the bilateral border. However, Myanmar has made transparent hints that this very activity was provoked by Beijing, which, however, has rejected such insinuations.

As for India, it seems that in the struggle with China for influence in Myanmar, it has accepted the baton from the United States, which, long before the ascension to power of Donald Trump’s administration, had started implementing a strategy of “offshore balancing” that envisaged the alignment of its allies to the forefront of the confrontation with its main geopolitical opponents.

But in India, let us recall, there is an increased motivation to compete with China for influence in the adjacent countries, which has repeatedly been discussed in the NEO. In this case, all available tools are used – from economic and military to cultural and educational.

Plans for the development of comprehensive relations between India and Myanmar are detailed in two Joint Statements, which in the interval of two months were adopted in the second half of 2016 following the visit to Delhi first by President of Myanmar Htin Kyaw, and then by Mrs. Suu Kyi, that is, the actual (albeit unofficial) leader of the country. In the “duplicate” nature of the visits to India of Myanmar senior officials, the specifics of its current public administration system, when, along with the official President, there is his informal “curator” who considered it necessary to supplement (and possibly to fix) certain results of the visit by the first, were revealed.

In addition, there has always been the military, who are not just watching what is going on in the country, but also continuing to participate actively in the public administration by supervising key defence engagement with India. This is evidenced by the above-mentioned fact of the visit to Delhi of the Commander-In-Chief of the armed forces of Myanmar and his talks with the Indian Prime Minister.

This visit was a response to the visit to Myanmar of the Commander-In-Chief of Indian land forces Bipin Rawat carried out just one and a half months earlier, during which the parties discussed the specifics of the development of bilateral relations in the sphere of defence spelled out in the Joint Statements of the Heads of States. Naturally, all these events are being closely watched in Beijing.

Amid rising tensions in Indo-Chinese relations, in general, much attention was paid to an article in one of the most influential newspapers “The Indian Express” as of July 19 dedicated to the topic of the necessity for building trust and confidence between the two Asian giants. It was written by a Chinese expert, although in the texts and speeches of Indian experts and politicians, nothing similar was not marked. On the contrary, the statement of former Minister of Defence M.S. Yadav, made at the same time on July 19 in Parliament, about the “big threat coming from China, which is ready to attack India”, was impossible to miss.

The most disturbing is that these kind of “philippics” have long become a routine in India. After a long (1962) relative lull in the mutual information war, the “China–Enemy Number 1” thesis from the end of the 90s was reproduced by the then Minister of Defence George Fernandes. However, he immediately resigned thereafter (however, for a short time). At the beginning of 2017, the aforementioned General Rawat talked about the reality for India of the perspective of “war on two fronts”, that is, simultaneously with China and Pakistan.

The intensification of India’s “actions” in one of the key countries of South-East Asia is being conducted against such a by-no-means positive background in Sino-Indian relations.

Vladimir Terekhov, expert on the issues of the Asia-Pacific region, exclusively for the online journal – New Eastern Outlook.