MYANMAR
The bilateral relationship between Myanmar and India is significantly influenced by the Chinese factor. A common aspect is that both India and China share a long land border with Myanmar. Historically, despite Myanmar (formerly known as Burma) being a part of the colonial British India, it had significant trade relations with China. Ever since its independence in 1948, China has provided considerable material assistance, including support to its Armed Forces, and such assistance has seldom been tied to Myanmar’s political transition from a functioning democracy to military rule. China’s consistent track record of association in Myanmar makes it a formidable force that India must reckon with in its efforts to improve relations with Myanmar.
In the early years following India’s independence, India and Myanmar enjoyed much bonhomie and a cordial relationship marked by the signing of a Treaty of Friendship in 1951. The first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, and its Premier U Nu worked together to build the Non-Aligned Movement. The substantial person-to-person contacts, with around 2.5 million Indians residing as citizens of Myanmar, contributed to fostering this friendship. However, since the late 1960s, the two neighbours began to drift apart despite sharing a 1,600 km-long border with the four northeastern states of Mizoram, Nagaland, Manipur, and Arunachal Pradesh, as well as a maritime border along the Andaman Islands.
The porous northeastern states’ border with Myanmar became a route heavily used by drug traffickers and other smugglers besides insurgent groups for re-grouping and training. This included the Nagas and Mizo secessionists, and militant elements of ULFA in Assam seeking shelter in Myanmar. Since then, internal security has been a significant dimension in bilateral relations. In recent years, Rohingya Muslim minorities have been fleeing to India to escape persecution, with reports indicating that a few among them have joined Pakistan’s terror groups and the extremists fighting in Kashmir. The recent decision of the Indian government to construct a fencing along the entire border in the next four years should help check such activities though it would imply all the visitors from both the sides, including the hitherto exempted corridor of 15 miles on either side, requiring a visa to enter.
Both India and Myanmar have, fortunately, closed ranks and initiated joint action against illegal migrants. India, which in the past was rather vocal about the protection of human rights and frequently defended protestor Suu Kyi, the daughter of the first Prime Minister Aung San, has become more circumspect. It has reduced its opposition and publicly taken the stand that the “Myanmar’s people have to achieve their democratic status on their own.” This shift in stance is notable, especially considering that in the last few months, Myanmar’s forces, engaged in fighting armed resistance groups demanding an end to military rule, are facing challenges and getting pushed out in the provinces of Chin, Shan, and Sagaing.
Over the years, India has provided financial and other assistance to Myanmar, in addition to developing trade relations. Myanmar stands as India’s fourth-largest trading partner, following Thailand, China, and Singapore. Importantly, imports such as pulses, soy, beans, and forestry products surpass Indian exports of finished and semi-finished products year after year. Noteworthy projects funded by Indian financing include the 160 km-long Tamu-Kalewa-Karanya road, a high-speed data centre in 32 cities built by TCIL, the supply of railway engines, coaches, and parts by RITES, a heavy turbo-truck assembly plant by Tata Motors, and a joint hydrocarbon project involving ONGC Videsh, GAIL, and Essar. India is also actively involved in the completion of the 1,595 km first phase of a triangular highway connecting northeastern India through Myanmar up to Mandalay. Once the equally long Thailand phase, extending via Mae Soi up to Bangkok, is completed, the entire land route to South Asia from India will become operational.
Simultaneously, there is consideration for a plan to link Mandalay with Cambodia and Vietnam under the Mekong-Ganga Cooperation within the broader framework of the Asian Highway Network. This initiative could establish a new economic zone extending from Kolkata on the Bay of Bengal to Ho Chi Minh City on the South China Sea. India has also proposed the establishment of a gas pipeline from Myanmar to India, having extended a $500 million loan for its development in 2013, including as military assistance.
In 2020, India further contributed to Myanmar’s naval modernization by gifting a Kilo-class submarine, INS Sindhuvir, in response to China’s upgrade of Myanmar’s naval base at Sittwe. India should continue to provide assistance in a comprehensive manner, allowing the host government flexibility in its utilization. Focusing on building physical infrastructure, such as transportation, telecommunication, energy, agriculture, and food processing, through both funding and implementation, could be a significant avenue for assistance. Scaling up the latter would also ensure more optimal utilization of funds.
Rather than engaging in a serious race with China over the supply of arms and military hardware, the India-Myanmar relationship should be based on India providing assistance to help Myanmar reduce its international isolation, even though it was partly caused by its own actions over the years. While Myanmar’s presence is recognized and welcomed in regional formations like BIMSTEC and the Mekong-Ganga Cooperation in South Asia, its acceptance and role in the larger international community are minimal. This has hindered its ability to secure aid from global multilateral development institutions, both bilaterally and in tapping private finance. To improve its standards of living, increase its growth rate, and boost international trade, accelerating capital formation and developing physical and transportation infrastructure is imperative. Given India’s emerging status as a global power and a potential leader of the Global South, it can lend its voice internationally in support of Myanmar and help mitigate the past prejudices against it. Several African and Latin American nations under authoritarian regimes continue to receive better treatment from international funding agencies and capital markets, and there is little reason for such discrimination against Myanmar to persist.
BHUTAN
Relations with Bhutan, the Land of High Happiness, have consistently been cordial. Ever since gaining independence from the British rule in 1949, whereafter it was no longer a protectorate, Bhutan’s defence has been India’s responsibility. In matters of foreign affairs, conducted independently, Bhutan’s candidacy for United Nations membership was sponsored by India. In almost all international matters of consequence, the two countries have stood by each other. High-level visits, including summits between the King and the Prime Minister, are regularly exchanged. Economic and other forms of cooperation between the two nations are extensive and continually increasing. Apart from a trade and transit treaty facilitating the free flow of goods between eastern Indian ports and landlocked Bhutan, there exists a unique interdependence in the hydropower segment. India assists in creating generation facilities in Bhutan and purchases the majority of the electricity produced. Approximately 40% of Bhutan’s aggregate exports result from such transactions.
Moreover, a significant portion of its capital expenditure under the five-year development plans is funded by India.
While no major areas of discord exist between the two countries, India must respond more promptly and substantively in light of China’s increasing efforts to forge closer ties with Bhutan. In the longstanding hydropower relationship, it is essential to carefully address the Bhutanese government’s periodic requests, whether for a more favourable tariff, increased involvement of locals in installing and operating generation plants, or extending participation in transmission lines up to power exchange points in India. Additionally, Bhutan is beginning to prefer the Indian private entrepreneurs to establish such facilities, emphasizing the need for a nuanced approach to uphold the strength and resilience of the relationship amid evolving regional dynamics.
India must now grapple with the reality that Bhutan, having transitioned out of the Least Developed Country status, is no longer a third-world nation. Aspiring to attain the status of a developed nation akin to Singapore, South Korea, and the UAE, Bhutan’s 42-year-old King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck has explicitly communicated this vision during his two visits to India in the current fiscal year. While expressing aspirations for assistance from Prime Minister Narendra Modi in improving and expanding major roads, and connecting border towns like Gelephu with railway lines, King Wangchuck has also unveiled ambitious plans for the Gelephu project. This involves the creation of a green smart city with robust connectivity through roadways, border trading, and crossing points into Assam and West Bengal, eventually providing access to Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, and Singapore. Emphasizing the potential of this endeavour to open doors to new opportunities, markets, capital, ideas, and technology, the King envisions Gelephu as a Special Administrative Zone with distinct laws.
In attracting quality investments from specifically screened international companies, the focus is on creating an economic hub with advanced digital infrastructure and skill development projects. While talking of making the country an economic hub with the requisite digital infrastructure and skilling projects, the King’s exhortations included “what we lack in numbers, we have to make up with the quality of our people in skills.”
India must affirmatively respond to such new needs of Bhutan, with which it has had a special relationship. Such an approach is imperative in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), under which China would be too happy to cover almost the entire Gelephu project. The Bhutanese youth are also being lured by it to enroll in colleges and other centres of education in China. India, which has a much more pronounced affinity with Drukyul, meaning the “land of the thunder dragon”, the local name for Bhutan, in terms of ethnicity, the Buddhism-based religion, along with other historical bonds, must willingly and effectively deal with the challenges arising out of such Chinese manoeuvres.
A serious matter is the ongoing bilateral dealings in the decades-old boundary dispute between China and Bhutan since it has security ramifications for India. The Doklam plateau, at a trijunction among the three countries, and close to the Chicken’s Neck region near Siliguri city in West Bengal, is the sole land passage connecting the seven northeastern states to the Indian mainland. Bhutan giving in to China’s taking that in return for giving up its claims over two other pockets in Bhutan’s northern and eastern borders, is understandably not to India’s liking. Also, letting the Chinese come into the development of Gelephu, adjacent to the border with Assam, is hazardous for India’s security. China also wants to have an embassy of its own in Thimphu, the Bhutanese capital. As if these new developments weren’t concerning enough for India, the US government’s envoys have also begun to visit and deal with the Bhutanese directly.
While India has to remain more watchful than before on what’s happening vis-à-vis Bhutan, a new realization must dawn that Bhutan aspires to become a part of the entire comity of nations of South Asia and is no longer limiting its choices between India and China. Southern Asia, with its high potential for economic growth, is likely to become the next centre of several global supply chains. That would attract huge international investment and technological inflows. In the fitness of things, Bhutan must get its share of the consequential prosperity and well-being. India mustn’t resist Bhutan becoming a part of a larger economic and international setup in which China would be just one of the players rather than a dominant one.
Dr Ajay Dua is a former Union Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce & Industry.
Part 8 on China, the final article of the series, will appear next week.