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The road to Naypyidaw
- Analysts at home and abroad find the temptation to view the India-Myanmar bilateral relationship through the distorting China prism very hard to resist.
- Dr Singh and Sein are fully conscious of the real and undeniable triangular dynamic between New Delhi, Naypyidaw and Beijing.
- His surprising and positive effort to implement long overdue political reform, reclaim Myanmar’s rightful role in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and rebuild bridges with the United States and the West, opens up unexpected space for Dr Singh to embark on some creative diplomacy with our very special neighbour to the east.
- While Vietnam and Myanmar are two large nations that are capable of influencing the balance of power in Asia, the latter is on the periphery of both India and China. India and Vietnam are both neighbours of China, but do not share land borders with each other. Myanmar in contrast shares long land borders with India (about 1,600 km) and China (nearly 2,200 km).
- It also shares a long maritime border with India in the Bay of Bengal.
- Myanmar has long been seen as the “back door” to China. In the 19th century, the British Raj explored the possibilities of opening the overland routes into China through Myanmar that could short-circuit the long sea lanes to the nation’s east coast via the Malacca Straits.
- Geographic proximity made eastern India, Myanmar, and southwestern China part of a single strategic theatre.
- As rapid economic growth in China and India spills across their national borders, Myanmar has become more important for them in both geopolitical and geoeconomic terms.
- Sixty years ago, in July 1951, India and Myanmar signed a treaty proclaiming the desire to build “everlasting friendship” between the world’s newest democracies.
- India and Myanmar, however, drifted apart from the 1960s for a number of reasons and the triangular dynamic tilted towards a stronger Sino-Burmese linkage.
- As India and Myanmar began to re-engage since the early 1990s, the bilateral relationship has acquired new depth and breadth. But Myanmar’s international isolation, enforced by the West, has driven Naypyidaw into a tighter embrace with Beijing.
- As Sein alters the internal dynamic in Myanmar towards greater political liberalisation, seeks peace with the warring ethnic minorities in northern Myanmar and an end to the nation’s international isolation
- Delhi must press the US and Europe to lift all international sanctions against Myanmar, contribute to internal peace-building, assist in the democratic transition, facilitate greater bilateral economic integration and promote greater physical connectivity.
- Dr Singh, instead, must explore with Sein the prospects for codifying the new priorities in a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement modelled after the one that Delhi and Dhaka signed last month. Such a pact will provide the basis for an equal, mutually beneficial and sustainable long-term cooperation between India and Myanmar.
