13 February 2021
It may appear that events in a foreign country 10,000 km away have no relevance to New Zealand until we take a geopolitical view of things.
The following are extracts from an article, dated November 2020, by G. Parthasarathy, a former high ranking Indian diplomat.*
The Quad, especially India, must leverage Myanmar to counter China, which uses our neighbour to push separatism in North-East India.
The visit to India by US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Defence Secretary Mark Esper has caught the world’s attention. It clearly signalled the beginning of a new and more activist defence relationship between India and the US. The visit followed the tensions between India and China, which had led to the deployment of thousands of troops, backed by tanks, armoured personnel carriers, artillery, and air power, on both sides of the border.
What, however, predictably received relatively little attention was an unprecedented visit jointly by India’s Army Chief Manoj Vikram Naravane and Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shingla to Myanmar, just before Pompeo and Esper arrived in India. There is, however, a common link between the challenges we face in Ladakh and the developments across our borders with Myanmar. While we are confronting direct Chinese aggression in Ladakh, the challenges in Myanmar arise from Chinese policies designed to use Myanmar soil to promote separatist violence in our north-eastern States.
Virtually every armed insurgent group in our North-East has links with armed insurgent groups in north-western Myanmar, notably the Kachin Independence Army, which also operates across Myanmar’s borders with China’s bordering province of Yunnan. China’s relations with Myanmar are quite unique. Given existing sanctions by both the US and its European Allies, especially after the Rohingya refugee crisis, Myanmar has become heavily dependent on China.
The Myanmar-China border has become the epicentre of local armed separatist groups operating on Myanmar soil, and Indian groups, ranging from ULFA in Assam to the NSCN (IM) in Nagaland. Members of these Indian groups enter China’s Yunnan after crossing the border into Myanmar’s Kachin Province. They are welcomed, armed, trained and even financed in the Yunnan Province before crossing back to India.
There are 26 indigenous armed separatist groups in Myanmar including the powerful 12,000-15,000-strong Kachin Independence Army, which operates along Myanmar’s borders with both India and China, and the 20,000-25,000- strong United State Army, deployed along the China-Myanmar border.
These groups are armed and used as leverage by China to interfere in and influence Myanmar’s internal affairs. China even has an Ambassador to liaise with armed groups operating along and across the China-Myanmar border.
Strategically, India has established its presence across the shores of Myanmar, in the Bay of Bengal, as a result of participation of ONGC in successful offshore oil exploration projects. It also has a presence in Sittwe Port that it has built on the Bay of Bengal, principally for transportation of goods from Mizoram and other north-eastern States, across the Bay of Bengal, to Kolkata, this is particularly important as, in the meantime, China is keen to invest $7.2 billion on building the Bay of Bengal Port of Kyaukphyu, together with oil and gas pipelines, linking the Port to its Yunnan Province. The Kyaukphyu port is located not far from the Sittwe Port built by India.
There are naturally concerns in Myanmar of facing a “debt trap” situation on the Kyaukphyu port project, akin to that faced by Sri Lanka on the Hambantota Port, built by China.
Moreover, we would be well-advised in joining with our partners in the Quad on issues ranging from dealing with Rohingya refugees to projects involving large investments, if we are to seriously challenge Chinese ambitions in Myanmar.
And there is the rub. India’s issues with its own internal problems in the North-East states are directly affected by China’s activities in Myanmar. Because of all the linked issues it now involves the “Quad” (India, Japan, USA and Japan).
Myanmar lies on the crossroads between India and Bangladesh, on the one hand, and ASEAN countries, on the other. It is on the crossroads of South and South-East Asia. It has to be an integral part of any strategy the Quad adopts to balance Chinese power in South and South-East Asia.
The Quad will have to pay due attention to the problems and challenges that Myanmar faces from China while dealing with the challenges posed by a growingly aggressive and assertive China.
Source The Hindu Nov 2020.
Derek Mitchell, former USA Ambassador to Myanmar (2012-2016) said in Foreign Policy magazine:
“Since the alienation of the West over the Rohingya issue, China has seen a new opening and a new opportunity in this, and they are more able to have their say in Naypyidaw and push their line there,” said Mitchell, now the president of the National Democratic Institute, a nonprofit that supports democracy around the world. “They use it as an opportunity to invest, whether through the Belt and Road or the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, or the peace process—those are all different ways to ensure that Burma remains in its sphere of influence.”
The Aung San Suu Kyi government was pushing back against the Chinese (but still playing off the West and China against each other) and the coup was an attempt by China to pre-empt all the Western activity and take the opportunity to cement its strategic developments with the help of the generals. It will put pressure on India.
From Southeast Asia to the Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea, the coast of Africa, the Mediterranean, the North Sea, and even in Latin America, China in recent years has acquired outright ownership, development rights, or a management concession to a bevy of strategically located ports. Chinese port deals in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Djibouti, the Maldives, and the Seychelles have all made headlines and chilled Indian planners who fear being choked by a Chinese “string of pearls.”
The ports are meant as commercial trading posts to enhance China’s world-leading shipping industry and bolster the country’s exports. But they have increasingly come to play a potentially more menacing role as dual-use ports that can give the beefed-up Chinese navy a global reach it lacked entirely just a few years ago.
Source Foreign policy magazine 2020
The deep-water port in Kyaukpyu being built by China gives them access and possible military opportunities across the Indian Ocean, linking to the China seas and also negating the choke point of the Malacca Straits. From the Southern Indian ocean, it is developing links to Indonesia, PNG and the Pacific Islands. The opportunity is then there to gain unhindered access down to Antarctica.
So, they will have developed trade control and strategic military bases right into New Zealand’s backyard.
We have now arrived at why Myanmar is of importance to New Zealand. It is another step on the ladder to form both a barrier and an access point between south-east Asia and the Pacific.
New Zealand is not a member of The Quad and with the other 5 Eyes nations becoming distrustful of the Ardern government there is a wedge being driven between Australia and New Zealand which China will encourage and exploit.
It is essential that New Zealand helps to prevent Chinese activity 10,000 miles away rather than when their influence reaches closer to home.
*Gopalaswami Parthasarathy served as Ambassador of India to Myanmar, 1992-95, High Commissioner of India to Australia 1995-98, High Commissioner of India to Pakistan 1998-2000 and High Commissioner of India, Cyprus (1990-92). Mr Parthasarathy was Spokesman, Ministry of External Affairs, and Information Adviser in the Prime Minister’s Office with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi (1985-90). Mr Parthasarathy is Visiting Professor at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, and a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in New Delhi. His areas of interest are developments in India’s neighbourhood and issues of economic integration, energy and national security and terrorism.
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