The recent civil war that engulfed Myanmar is the most serious in the country’s history as an independent nation state since 1948 according to latest news international. That’s because the present conflict threatens to tear the country apart if not handled well, according to none other than its almighty military rulers.
In this entire destabilizing conflict, the not-so-secret hand of China is visible quite clearly and that is where the security concerns of India come to the foreground. China, which has an unfavorable maritime geography that denies it easy access to open seas, is meddling in and manipulating the internal situation in Myanmar to control it for easy access to the Bay of Bengal. This has also affected India’s crucial economic linkages with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations [ASEAN] as per latest news world.
Source: Irrawaddy.com
History of India’s “Look East” policy
More than three decades ago, an Indian Member of Parliament [MP] from the Northeast had described Myanmar [Burma] as India’s “Distant neighbour” in an op-ed he had written for a leading national fortnightly that also covered latest news international. In that op-ed he expressed his surprise at the lack of interest in the foreign office to engage more meaningfully with a neighbour that shares more than 1600 Kms of border with India.
A few years later a Congress government under the leadership of Narashima Rao came to power at the centre and one of its foreign policy goals was known as the “Look East” policy. The objective of this policy was to redirect a significant part of India’s foreign policy orientation towards East Asia, especially ASEAN.
For such an outreach to be meaningful and effective it was necessary for India to engage more closely with Myanmar as it was literally India’s gateway to ASEAN by land. Going by latest news world of that time, the Rao government was not able to initiate much engagement with the ASEAN as it takes time for such a policy pronouncement to play out on the ground.
India transforms Look East policy into “Act East” policy
In 1998, when the National Democratic Alliance [NDA] led by Atal Behari Vajpayee took office at the centre, there was a renewed commitment towards the Look East policy. Unfortunately, it did not go much beyond trade and left out geo-politics in the ASEAN region according to latest news international. This policy continued with even lesser focus on geo-politics under the UPA government for the next 10 years till 2014, when the NDA returned to power under Narendra Modi.
When the Modi government came to power in 2014, one of its foreign policy goals was to take the relationship with ASEAN to the next level by transforming the Look East policy into Act East policy. As a result the trade volume between India and ASEAN has increased over 90% from around $ 75 billion in 2014 to around $ 135 billion today. Of course, there is enormous scope of improvement in these numbers in the years ahead.
India-Myanmar land connectivity is vital for Act East policy
Much of the promise of India’s booming trade relationship with ASEAN in the years ahead depends on how well India is able to leverage its land contiguity with Myanmar. Going by latest news international, India has already initiated a multilateral road connectivity project that would go up to Thailand through Myanmar known as the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Project (IMTTP).
Another bilateral maritime project with Myanmar known as the Kaladan Multi-Modal Project (KMMP) connects India’s Haldia port in West Bengal to Sittwe port in western Myanmar. Thereafter, a highway of 110 Kms completes the land-bridge to India’s Mizoram state, which will open up the remote southern part of Northeast India to easier and cheaper freight transport from the rest of India.
Chinese meddling in Myanmar’s civil war is a major challenge
China has been funding and arming both the Myanmarese military and the rebel militias for quite some time now. That has created an extremely unstable situation in the country wherein the military itself now admits that the country is on the brink of disintegration as per reports from latest news international.
There are reports of a pushback against this kind of Chinese meddling in Myanmar by both the military and the militias and that has created some additional space for India to step in and help resolve the crisis. Going by India’s current foreign policy, it can be expected that India is doing all that is necessary to help stabilize the internal situation in Myanmar.
India has traditionally been very cautious in its relationship with Myanmar and that could be due to the complicated internal ethnic dynamics of this country. China, with which Myanmar shares a similarly long land border, has plunged headlong into the complex melting pot of this country and has played a major role in creating the current mess there.
For India, it is no longer a wait and watch situation as it used to be years ago. The Manipur situation has a direct connection to the internal complexities of Myanmar and that is a security challenge that India is taking very seriously if the latest news international is considered. At the same time India is now in direct competition with China for influence in the ASEAN region and Myanmar is a vital pivot for India’s Act East policy with special focus on ASEAN. From the geo-strategic point of view, India will not allow China any advantage in the Indian Ocean although China will keep trying to find an alternative to the Malacca Straits choke point that exposes its weakness.
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