South China Morning Post
2012-01-30
Insight
The strategic importance of Myanmar to China is often overblown; it’s not part of some grand scheme. Rather, Beijing’s focus is on managing relations in the border regions
Zha Daojiong
One after another, Western dignitaries are travelling to Myanmar. A standard interpretation of the change in attitude is that Myanmar is finally demonstrating the courage and means to break away from China. But was Myanmar in the Chinese “geopolitical grip” in the first place?
When international observers look for manifestations of a Chinese grand scheme relating to Myanmar, they have plenty of examples. For one, there is the notion that Myanmar represents a “land bridge” for China to gain strategic access to the Indian Ocean. That imagery immediately brings India, which is supposed to be locked in a geo-strategic rivalry with China, into the picture.
A Chinese reach into the Indian Ocean carries added regional and even global implications. But observers outside China often miss two elements of this eye-catching vocabulary. The first is that Chinese promoters of this notion are usually based in institutions in Yunnan province. For them, the rule of the game is to compete in claiming to have found national and even global significance in a local project. The second is that, in Chinese, the word “strategy” is loosely used.
The natural gas/oil pipeline from the shores of western Myanmar to Yunnan was promoted as a project of “strategic significance” for China. It is supposed to help bypass the Strait of Malacca, a choke point for China. Alas, Myanmar’s first choice of the final destination for its offshore gas fields was India. Only after India was unable to implement a pipeline agreement, after three years, did Myanmar turn to China as an outlet for sales.
Besides, a pipeline is a far less expensive target of deliberate sabotage than an oil or gas tanker in the ocean. The oil to fill the pipeline will have to come from the Middle East or Africa. A potential adversary could possibly deter movement of that oil before it gets close to the shores of Myanmar. But what basis is there to assume that Myanmar would accept collateral damage should there be a truly strategic (read: military) showdown between China and an adversary, whoever that might be?
Myanmar’s strategic importance to China is not a function of how that country matters in China’s relationship with a third country. That importance reflects an ultimately local concern: the border regions the two countries share. Clashes between Myanmar government armed forces and guerillas dotting the border have repeatedly led to inflows of refugees and the loss of innocent Chinese lives caught in the crossfire.
Regardless, Myanmar is a neighbour. Decision-makers in Beijing have few choices other than hoping that by promoting development across the border, fuller bellies would find less of an incentive to take up guns. Sticking to this approach does not help China win any international sympathy. But what alternatives are there?
For most of its history after the second world war, Myanmar had stronger economic ties with its former coloniser’s markets – India, Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries – than to China. Border trade routes between the two countries were not officially open until 1986. The formidable terrains of transport, dramatically more backward levels of local development, on top of the complexities coming from ethnic minorities who disregard nation-state boundaries, bring added costs to the management of trade and other interactions.
Then Myanmar’s diplomatic ties with its traditional markets soured, and opening the border wider to China became a necessity. For China, closing the border would not be conducive to lifting the locals out of poverty.
The one area China has failed, strategically speaking, is to have more orderly cross-border business. When Chinese traders and businessmen display their wealth by opening gambling parlours across the border, they lose the goodwill needed on the part of the local population for protecting their lives and property.
Investment in large development projects such as roads and hydropower dams in Myanmar is a normal path to growth, according to Chinese experience. In the 1970s and 1980s, China welcomed large investments from governments like Japan and international development banks.
It is now China’s turn to be the overseas infrastructure investor. Worldwide, pursuit of development has changed from accepting growth as the key rationale to a greater focus on rights. International anti-dam movements have persisted and view the ethnic minorities in Myanmar with sympathy.
As support from local societies fell, Chinese dam operations ran into formidable opposition. Yet, China’s state-owned companies still see their action as implementing government-to-government agreements and little else; they badly need basic lessons in risk management.
Meanwhile, Myanmar needs a vibrant economy to support changes in its domestic political arrangements. Improvement in road, power and other basic infrastructure is essential. Reference to “will of the people” in announcing cancellation of controversial projects such as the Myitsone dam (funded by China) and the Dawei power and industrial projects (funded by Thai interests) is smart domestic politics. Yet the Myanmar government still has to find a way out of the twin challenge of fast provision of better infrastructure and not-in-my-backyard societal opposition. To achieve the former, foreign capital and operators cannot be avoided.
An end to Western sanctions offers an opportunity for streamlining Myanmar’s laws and investment rules. When the investment climate becomes more internationalised, improved rules of competition can help weed out Chinese business practices that anger local populations. That will benefit both sides.
Myanmar is finding pride in being a normal party with which all major governments can interact. There is a lot of work ahead, for all interested parties, to assist in restoring the normalcy and vibrancy all people of that proud country want and deserve.
Zha Daojiong is a professor of international political economy in the School of International Studies at Peking University. Distributed by Pacific Forum CSIS. Copyright: Pacific News Service
