Myanmar President’s visit to India was a highly anticipated diplomatic event for both states. Naturally, the visit attracted considerable attention from policy analysts due to its strategic and diplomatic significance. After the India visit, Min Aung Hlaing officially visited India’s strategic rival, China. His visit to China from 15-19 June was at the behest of Chinese President Xi Jinping. During this visit, he met President Xi Jinping, Premier Li Qiang, and Zhao Leji, the chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. Beyond political leadership, Hlaing also addressed the investment and trade summit in Shanghai.
A cursory reading of the visit might point to similarities with Hlaing’s India visit. Still, a closer reading of the joint statements by India-Myanmar and China-Myanmar reveals a different level of engagement between the two sets of dyads. The China visit reveals Myanmar’s strategic agency as a hinge state at the intersection of South Asia, Southeast Asia, and China, providing India and China with access to continental Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean, respectively. During a business summit, Hlaing, while attempting to woo the investors, described Myanmar as a “land bridge linking China, India, and wider Southeast Asia”.
This article addresses three key issues: First, what are the significant takeaways from the visit for the China-Myanmar partnership? Second, what does the visit reveal about the nature of already close bilateral ties between the two? Third, how does that differ from Hlaing’s India visit?
This article offers a close reading of the joint statement and the news coverage of China’s visit to discuss Myanmar’s agency and strategic prudence. When compared with India’s visit, a clear pattern emerges. While Myanmar chooses to cooperate with both states on consequential strategic matters, India receives strategic accommodation, whereas China receives strategic alignment. This difference is fundamental to Myanmar’s complicated and varied relationship with India and China. This also reveals how consequential regional players can play a significant role in the larger geopolitical chessboard, prudently exercising their agency. This aspect is often missing in the debates on Indo-Pacific and the larger balance of power politics in Asia.
Recent India-Myanmar Bonhomie and their Pragmatic Strategic Cooperation
In a previous article, Min Aung Hlaing’s visit to India was analysed in detail. In hindsight, what is noteworthy about the visit is that the India-Myanmar Joint Statement was a pragmatic understanding between the two sides, which pledged enhanced cooperation over border security, connectivity, trade, counter-insurgency, development, Act East, and respect for each other’s security interests. While promising enough for India’s security and strategic needs, there is still no endorsement for its larger grand strategic vision. Furthermore, India as a democracy is hesitant about being too close to the junta regime, thereby avoiding any reference to Myanmar’s diplomatic isolation in ASEAN or globally. This is significantly different from how China endorses and legitimises the regime.
Myanmar-China Joint Statement: Strategic Alignment Through Reciprocal Legitimacy
Four central themes emerge from Hlaing’s China visit that point to a strategic alignment between the two states that goes much beyond India-Myanmar strategic cooperation. First is Myanmar’s endorsement of China’s vision of international order, thereby legitimising President Xi Jinping’s grand strategic initiatives like “a community with a shared future for humanity, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilisation Initiative, and the Global Governance Initiative”. This is not mere policy endorsement but an acknowledgement of China’s status in the international order as a great power that seeks to shape international norms and global practices. This legitimises China’s status in the society of states, especially in the Indo-Pacific, as a norm setter.
The second important theme that emerges from this visit is the Burmese endorsement of Xi Jinping’s economic statecraft initiatives, like the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Both sides reiterated their commitment to the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) and interconnected mega projects like Kyaukpyu Deep-Sea Port and the Muse-Mandalay Railway. For Myanmar, this project is a vital economic and development initiative, but for the Chinese, these projects are “designed to establish a permanent Chinese footprint in the eastern Indian Ocean”.
The third major leitmotif was the endorsement of each other’s regimes and their legitimacy. Myanmar recognised the One-China policy and reiterated that Taiwan is the “inalienable part” of China. The Burmese side also recognised the fact that Hong Kong, Xinjiang, and Xizang are China’s internal issues and outside powers should not interfere in such matters. China, on the other hand, openly welcomed the recently conducted general elections in Myanmar that were heavily criticised globally as sham elections. More importantly, China indirectly rebuked any attempt to diplomatically isolate Myanmar in ASEAN by providing support to the “full, equal, and constructive participation of Myanmar in all ASEAN mechanisms and processes”. This is one of the most important outcomes of the visit, as the junta is under pressure both regionally and globally over its failure to implement the Five Point Consensus and restore civilian government.
Finally cementing this strategic alignment between the two states are their historical ethnic ties (pauk-phaw), China’s people-to-people initiatives, and deep engagement beyond the central government that far outweigh any other state’s presence in Myanmar. While India’s engagement is primarily security and economically driven, the Chinese presence goes much beyond that, as it is not merely investing in the economy but also providing institutional durability to the junta regime. Both sides reiterated that the engagement between them must happen “at all levels”. Both sides called for a deepening of “exchanges on governance experience, and strengthen exchanges and cooperation between the two governments, legislative bodies, and local authorities”.
Way Forward
Myanmar is an indispensable state for India’s Act East and Indo-Pacific strategy. In that sense, an understanding of Myanmar’s interests, strategic intentions and the nature of its ties with China is pertinent. Naypyidaw exploits its geographical centrality through differentiated engagement rather than equidistant balancing. China remains Myanmar’s indispensable strategic partner, while India serves as an essential counterweight that expands Myanmar’s diplomatic and economic options. A successful Indian policy towards Myanmar and the larger Southeast Asian region must remain cognisant of these nuances. Myanmar must be seen as an active, not passive, actor that will shape India’s foothold in the Southeast Asian region. Managing important actors like Myanmar is essential to the future balance of power in the Indo-Pacific.
