Myanmar’s President U Min Aung Hlaing visited India from 30th May to 03rd June 2026. This was his first foreign visit since taking the oath as the President of the Union of Myanmar. During the highly anticipated visit, the President was accompanied by a delegation comprising the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Revenue and Finance, Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation, and Industry and MSME Business Development. Along with the state officials, Myanmar’s business leaders from various sectors, such as pharmaceuticals and energy, were also part of this delegation. During the 5-day visit, the President visited Bodh Gaya, New Delhi, and Mumbai. He offered prayers at Bodh Gaya before leaving for Delhi, where he held extensive talks with the Indian Prime Minister and President. He separately met the Minister of External Affairs, S. Jaishankar, and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, signifying Myanmar’s importance as a pivotal state for the security of India’s eastern borderlands and Southeast Asia policies. Indian PM Narendra Modi intimated this factor to the President and stated that “Myanmar lies at the confluence of India’s Neighbourhood First, Act East and MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions) policies”. Another important aspect of the visit was the widespread agreement that both sides need to be sensitive to each other’s security interests by “preventing the misuse of sovereign territory for activities inimical” to those interests.
Apart from security and foreign relations, trade and economic relations were other functional areas that both sides deliberated upon as the President delivered a keynote speech at the India-Myanmar Business Conclave in New Delhi. From Delhi, he departed for Mumbai, where he met the state officials, including the CM and Governor of Maharashtra. Naturally, the visit was a heavily covered one, and New Delhi’s media and strategic/policy community wrote extensively about its implications. Most of the commentators rightly covered how Myanmar is significant for India’s national security, for balancing China in the region, and for its neighbourhood policy. However, one often forgets Myanmar’s agency as an actor with its own interests when talking about the country. After India’s visit, President U Min Aung Hlaing is currently visiting China from 15th June 2026 on a five-day visit.
Myanmar as a Hinge State in the Southeast Asian Region
Despite internal economic and security challenges and diplomatic boycotts, Myanmar’s ruling regime understands that its location at the crossroads of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Bay of Bengal makes it a hinge state. A “hinge state” can be defined as a state that has the potential to decisively shift the balance of international order as a result of its strategic choices. By exercising its strategic autonomy, the hinge state can curtail or aid the strategic ambitions of the major powers.
In the regional context, Myanmar certainly has the potential to shift the strategic balance in the Indo-Pacific region. India’s engagement with Myanmar is not only about China’s presence in Myanmar but rather how that also provides China access to the eastern Indian Ocean. In that sense, Myanmar significantly impacts India and China’s larger Indo-Pacific strategy. Naypyidaw understands this and exploits it to the fullest extent as it engages both sides.
When seen through the lens of Myanmar’s locational advantages, India’s engagement with the country is not a simplistic balancing behaviour. It is rather a state desperately maintaining its presence in an important hinge state that links it to continental Southeast Asia. The success of India’s Act East Policy rests on Myanmar, as it is India’s gateway to Southeast Asia. India understands this, and India-sponsored connectivity projects that pass through Myanmar were one of the major areas of deliberations between the two sides.
Another important factor that emerges is that Myanmar exploits these diplomatic visits as a tool for enhancing the legitimacy of the junta regime. Globally, the junta regime is under severe stress due to major players like the European Union’s sanctions. India and China are two states that cannot afford, due to strategic reasons, not to engage with the regime. This provides the newly sworn-in ‘civilian’ President with the perfect opportunity to seek legitimacy and economic engagement with the two powers. Hence, one can see how enhancing economic engagement with India was one of the major priorities for Myanmar. The President, during his visit to India, met Indian business leaders extensively, marking the clear intention of the regime to bring in foreign investment and partly ease the economic impact of sanctions or non-engagement.
India’s engagement with Myanmar is a strategic necessity. Geopolitical realities defy neat moral dichotomies between democracy and authoritarianism. Myanmar’s geographical location does not afford the luxury of moral posturing to Indian policymakers. India’s major power ambition rests on successfully managing the rise of China while enhancing its presence in the Southeast Asian region. Unlike Europe, which has the luxury of distance, the Myanmar-India partnership is a necessity for India’s connectivity projects, maintaining a strategic foothold in the eastern borderland region, and managing its internal security.
Way Forward: Engagement Without Legitimacy
After India’s visit, the Myanmar President is currently visiting China, clarifying the continuance of Myanmar’s long-standing policy of maintaining ties with both states. India cannot avoid engaging Myanmar, but it must not allow engagement with the regime to become an endorsement of the regime. The regime, with these visits, is trying to seek legitimacy and recognition. The complicated task before the policymakers, then, is not whether India should engage Myanmar, but rather how it should engage with the country’s regime. It is this question that will decide the future of India’s ties with Myanmar. One must not forget that Myanmar is a deeply divided country. There is a thin line between engagement and legitimisation. Legitimisation is not just morally problematic but also a strategically naive policy choice, as it alienates public opinion and actors that might play an important role in the future.
The way forward should rest on the principle that India’s actions should not be seen as an endorsement of the junta regime. This can be achieved by following the three steps. First, India must continue to preserve its strategic access that limits China’s exclusive access in the country. Second, India must not forget that the connectivity projects are geopolitical instruments on which rests India’s presence in continental Southeast Asia. The connectivity projects like the Kaladan and India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highways must be protected from instability in Myanmar and linked with the development of India’s northeast region. Only then can the true geopolitical potential of these projects be realised. Finally, India must widen the engagement beyond the regime. This can be done by enhancing its direct engagement with the common people by use of humanitarian aid, cultural diplomacy that exploits the shared legacy of Buddhism, and, in general, people-centred linkages. Only then will India’s policy not be seen by the common people as simplistic government-to-government relations. Myanmar may be a hinge state, but India’s major challenge is to ensure that this hinge does not swing decisively towards rising China or collapse under the weight of Myanmar’s own internal disorder.
