China’s dangerous double game in Myanmar
China’s dangerous double game in Myanmar
WRITTEN BY HUNTER MARSTON
20 May 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored Myanmar’s reliance on its giant neighbour China’s assistance in times of crisis. Beijing has delivered testing machines and medical supplies and has sent teams of doctors to work with Myanmar’s health care providers and in military hospitals. However, it had become increasingly clear prior to the outbreak of the virus that bilateral relations had largely reverted to their historic closeness, which was briefly interrupted by Myanmar’s democratic transition and short-lived opening to the west from 2010-2015.
The humanitarian crisis in Rakhine State, which erupted in 2016 and 2017, has curbed the interest of western investors and dampened Myanmar’s relations with the United States and European Union. Both foreign governments imposed sanctions on Myanmar’s military in reprisal for its targeted clearance operations that led to the exodus of nearly 800,000 Rohingya, a Muslim minority group that had lived in Rakhine, which borders Bangladesh.
In January, Chinese leader Xi Jinping paid a highly symbolic visit to Myanmar and signed 33 agreements with State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, covering infrastructure projects, cross-border trade, and special economic zones. The trip marked the first visit by a Chinese head of state since that of Jiang Zemin in 2001. Aung San Suu Kyi has also made two state visits to Beijing since 2015 and attended two Belt and Road Forums there in 2017 and 2019. In the past decade, Myanmar has become central to China’s regional strategy, with major implications for security, trade, and energy supplies. Yet few analysts pause to assess Chinese interests in Myanmar or — more importantly — the alignment of Beijing’s ends, ways, and means in its pursuit of those interests.
China presents itself as a good neighbour intent to help along Myanmar’s ceasefire negotiations, but it has refused to distance itself from its more nefarious connections to armed groups in the country
China’s strategic interests in Myanmar fall into two broad categories: economic (trade and investment); and political (peace and security). In essence, Beijing seeks to ensure a dominant position in Myanmar that maintains its economic and political influence. This simplistic description overlooks certain complexities, but Beijing generally follows a two-pronged approach.
First, China seeks a stable investment landscape for its infrastructure projects, natural resource extraction to fuel Chinese economic growth, and cross-border trade. Myanmar represents a market for cheap Chinese products, while Chinese consumers have enormous appetite for jade, teak, and other illicit exports, such as endangered wildlife products, from Myanmar. China benefits by offloading surplus infrastructure production while at the same time pumping enormous quantities of oil, gas, and electricity back to China from pipelines and hydroelectric dams in Myanmar, part of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor tied to its global Belt and Road Initiative.
The second prong of Beijing’s approach pertains to its functional involvement in Myanmar’s peace process. Chinese stakeholders have facilitated the peace process by active shuttle diplomacy (literally flying representatives of various ethnic armed groups to negotiation summits). At the same time, however, Beijing maintains leverage over Naypyidaw by holding the ceasefire hostage via its (mostly indirect) provision of arms to ethnic insurgents in Shan and Rakhine State.
Herein lies the paradox. Not only are Beijing’s means and ends not aligned (Chinese investment in conflict zones, particularly Rakhine and Kachin State, risks further destabilising Myanmar’s interethnic strife), but Beijing’s two-pronged approach is inherently contradictory, for it cannot advance the peace process as long as ethnic armed groups are fighting with Chinese weapons.
China presents itself as a good neighbour intent to help along Myanmar’s ceasefire negotiations, but it has refused to distance itself from its more nefarious connections to armed groups in the country, which it retains as a hedge against instability that could bring about political change unfavorable to China’s position. Beijing appears to have calculated that cutting ties with non-state actors would undercut its leverage over the central government.
There are signs that Beijing’s double game is backfiring. Despite China’s palpable influence over Myanmar’s internal affairs, a new Asian Barometer Survey conducted by scholars at National Taiwan University revealed that a majority of Myanmar citizens perceive China as doing more harm than good in their country. According to the survey, Myanmar tracks closely with the Philippines and Vietnam, which hold similarly negative views of China’s regional impact.
Myanmar has a history of racially tinged animosity toward China. In the 1930s and 1960s, riots broke out targeting Chinese communities. Myanmar’s military and ordinary citizens have long distrusted perceived Chinese interference in the country’s internal affairs, dating back to Mao Tse-tung’s support for the Communist Party of Burma in the 1960s and the Nationalist Kuomintang’s occupation of Burma’s northern territories after 1949 in its fight against Chinese communist forces.
Bilateral relations have come a long way since then. While the relationship reached something of a high point under the previous military junta, the State Peace and Development Council (formerly the State Law and Order Restoration Council), China’s and Myanmar’s leaders continue to refer to a special bond, pauk-phaw (‘brotherly’) friendship, between the two countries. However, the relationship is now at an inflexion point.
While in the near term Beijing benefits from Myanmar’s paralysis, ultimately peace and stability present greater opportunities for China’s investment aims, cross-border trade, and bilateral ties more broadly. Sooner or later Beijing will have to make a decision: to play a responsible, proactive role in Myanmar’s future, or to remain the source of the country’s instability by fanning the flames of conflict. It cannot have it both ways forever.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Hunter Marston is a PhD candidate at the Australian National University and frequently writes about Southeast Asian politics with a focus on Myanmar. Image credit: Guillén Pérez/Flickr