Geopolitics

Myanmar Elections and Impact on the Region
Star Rating Loader Please wait...
Issue Net Edition | Date : 20 Mar , 2016

Newly elected President Htin Kyaw and Aung San Suu Kyi

In the words of Thant Myint-U, “China and India have always been separated not only by the Himalayas, but also by the impenetrable jungle and remote areas that once stretched across Burma. Now this frontier is vanishing – forests cut down, dirt roads replaced by super highways – leaving China and India closer together than at any time in history.” He further adds, “With the emerging new strategic importance of Burma, the two raising giant powers are vying for supremacy.”

Myanmar’s geographical location is such that there is plenty of room for a healthy, cooperative relationship…

Broad Spectrum

Will the November 08, 2015 elections propel this isolated region into a peaceful, prosperous and a well-developed destination, or, will Myanmar emerge as an arena to jostle for supremacy between India and China?

In the words of Thant Myint-U, “China and India have always been separated not only by the Himalayas, but also by the impenetrable jungle and remote areas that once stretched across Burma. Now this frontier is vanishing – forests cut down, dirt roads replaced by super highways – leaving China and India closer together than at any time in history.” He further adds, “With the emerging new strategic importance of Burma, the two raising giant powers are vying for supremacy.”

A Hope

While India and China may compete in some areas, Myanmar’s geographical location is such that there is plenty of room for a healthy, cooperative relationship. The evolving democracy and aspirations of the Burmese people coupled with a supporting vision of its neighbour, Myanmar has great potential to shape up a bright future for the complete region.

In this context, it is important to understand the country’s dramatic move towards democracy, its implications for India and the region. Before we extrapolate the future trajectory, understanding of Myanmar’s history and its geography is of high relevance.

Strategic complications can be severe in a Sino-India conflict scenario in case Myanmar is under unfriendly influence…

Myanmar

Myanmar is divided into four regions:

  • Mountainous area in the North and West ranging from about 1,830 to 6,100m including the Arakan coastal strip
  • The Shan Highlands in the East, a deeply dissected plateau and extends southward into the Tenasserim Yoma; a narrow strip of land projecting some 800km along the Malay Peninsula in the Southeast.
  • Central Myanmar, a principal area of cultivation is bounded by the Salween River in the East and the Irrawaddy River and its tributary, the Chindwin, in the West.
  • Fertile delta and lower valley regions of the Irrawaddy and Sittang rivers in the South cover an area of about 25,900 sq. km. This area forms one of the world’s richest rice granaries.

Myanmar consists of 14 provinces or seven states representing the areas of seven main ethnic races and seven divisions. All seven states are more or less mountainous. The administrative divisions are mainly in plains, with the exception of Sagaing, Bago and Thaninthayi divisions. The Irrawaddy River, the principal river of Myanmar, runs through the centre of the country. Myanmar’s most important commercial waterway, it is about 2,170km long. Its valley forms the historical, cultural, and economic heartland of Myanmar. Mekong, Salween, Chindwin and Kaladhan are the other important rivers. Rivers Irrawaddy, Mekong and Salween originate in China. Myanmar shares her land borders with Bangladesh 193 km, China 2,185 km, India 1,463 km, Laos 235 km, and Thailand 1,800 km.

Geo-politically, a friendly Myanmar is essential for India’s ‘Look East’ policies of building up relationships with South East Asia…

There are eight major national ethnic races as per the Myanmar government which include the Bamar (68%), Shan (9%), Kayin (7%), Rakhine (4%), Mon (2%), Chinese (3%), Indians (2%), Mon (2%) and others (5%). Despite years of isolation, Myanmar has a surprisingly developed transportation network. It has 66 airports, eight airlines and more than 5,500km of rail and 1,50,000km of road network.

Historical Perspective

Burmese expansionism in the late eighteenth century caused strife with China. And conquest of Assam in 1824 pitted Burma against an enemy that would come to occupy it – Britain. After the third Anglo-Burmese war in 1885, Britain completed the total annexation of Burma. The British viewed Burma not so much as land that they definitely needed to control, but as a market they needed to capture and as a backdoor to lucrative trade with China. The British made Burma a province of India in 1886 and instigated far-reaching changes to the country’s make up. Indians were brought in to fill civil-service jobs and the business interests of Indians and Chinese in Burma were encouraged. This bred resentment.

Agriculture was geared towards export and Burma became the world’s largest exporter of rice. Resistance to British rule continued in the northern territories up until 1890, when the British finally destroyed entire villages in order to halt guerrilla activity – a tactic still practiced by its military. Here, as elsewhere, divide-and-rule was characteristic of British governance, with certain ethnic groups being favoured over others, creating clashes of loyalties.

Protests by university students in 1920 were the first signs of renewed resistance against British rule. Strikes and anti-tax protests followed, with Buddhist monks playing a prominent role and even leading armed rebellion. Rangoon University was a hotbed of radicalism and a young law student, Aung San, gained increasing prominence in the movement for national autonomy. He and fellow student Nu (a later Prime Minister of Burma) joined the ‘Thakin’ movement – the name, which translates as ‘master’. The Burmese citizens wanted to be masters of their own destiny.

The Myanmar government has had a contentious relationship with Burma’s ethnic groups…

The start of the Second World War saw the administration of Burma separated from India. With the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942 came the growing realization that one set of colonialists had been exchanged for another. The Japanese were successfully expelled from Burma in May 1945. However, many parts of the country lay in ruins, devastated by war.

A military administration resumed in Burma under the British. Aung San eventually managed to negotiate Burma’s independence from Britain in January 1947. Aung San also concluded an agreement with the country’s ethnic nationalities for a unified Burma. Aung San and his ministers got down to the business of drafting the country’s constitution – but not for long. On July 19, 1947, at the instigation of an opposition politician, Aung San and several members of his cabinet were gunned down. Aung San’s colleague, the charismatic U Nu, now took over the reins and Burma finally became independent on January 04, 1948. Anti-British sentiment was so strong that Burma decided not to join the British Commonwealth, unlike other colonies that had also gained independence.

U Nu’s government faced many challenges from the outset – disgruntled communist factions and ethnic groups, who felt excluded from the deeply Buddhist Nu’s vision of the country, began insurgencies, as did Kuomintang Chinese nationalist forces in Northern Burma.

In 1958, the army took over for the first time under General Ne Win. This ‘caretaker government’ purged ‘communist sympathisers’ and forced the minority states to bow to the central government. Elections in 1960 brought U Nu back as Prime Minister but the days of democracy were numbered. Having had his taste of power, Ne Win staged a coup in 1962, and the country’s decline under military dictatorship began.

In reality, the likely motivation for China’s engagement with Myanmar is strategic…

Driven by economic desperation and seeing a chance for change, demonstrations broke out in the country in the ‘democracy summer’ of 1988. But on August 08, 1988, troops began firing into the crowds, eventually killing over 3,000 people. Thousands of politically engaged people were forced to flee the country, but they continued their resistance, forging alliances with the ethnic nationalities’ resistance movements.

In Rangoon, Aung San’s daughter Aung San Suu Kyi, returned to the country to nurse her dying mother, she soon joined the democracy movement. The military imposed martial law; the country was to be led by a 19-member State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). Aung San Suu Kyi, who had captured the people’s hearts with her non-violent stance and political integrity, was placed under house arrest. Surprisingly, SLORC honoured its promise to hold multi-party elections in May 1990 and, even more surprisingly, they were free and fair. But when Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy won overwhelmingly the military refused to hand over power.

In 2003, an open-ended seven-step ‘roadmap to democracy’ was announced and the sham National Convention reconvened in 2005. In September 2007, there were widespread street protests in Rangoon and across the country, after a huge increase in fuel prices. In 2011, the country returned to a quasi-democratic form of government after nearly a half century of direct military rule. The military presence (Tatmadaw) continued to be a major political force represented by its presence in the parliament (Hluttaw) and regional legislatures, where its unelected members have one-quarter of all seats and, through a constitution contrived in their favour, the ability to thwart the emergence of new, fairer constitutions.

However, since the unexpected release in 2010 of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from years of house confinement, and her election to parliament in 2012 as leader of the National League for Democracy (NLD), the political status quo in Myanmar political dynamics completely changed thereafter.

Unlike the revolutionaries, ethnic insurgents were interested only in ruling their own people and territory and sought either greater autonomy from the central government or outright independence.

Myanmar’s Insurgencies

Ethnic minorities make up about a third of Burma’s population of roughly 50 million. Ethnic minorities live throughout Burma, but are concentrated mainly in the seven states and divisions named after the Shan, Kayah, Karen, Mon, Chin, Kachin, and Rakhine ethnic groups. The British policy, developed first in India, was to interfere as little as possible in the internal affairs of the minority groups and to separate their administration from that of Burma Proper.

The Myanmar government has had a contentious relationship with Burma’s ethnic groups, many of which fought for greater autonomy or secession for their regions after the country’s independence in 1948. At the time of independence, only Rangoon itself was under the control of national government authorities. Subsequent military campaigns brought more and more of the nation under central government control.

Given the difficulty of finding an acceptable solution to the problem of political and ethnic diversity, it was not surprising that the new leadership was unable to reconcile the differences and that the resilience of the newly forged union was tested almost immediately. Within several months of independence, communist bands were in armed rebellion, seeking to overthrow the central government. Several months thereafter, elements of the Karen minority-the largest of the discontented ethnic groups launched their own revolt, as did members of other ethnic minorities, all seeking a territory for their own group and greater decision making authority in matters affecting its future. Wholesale Karen desertions played havoc with Burma’s armed forces, and dissidents soon occupied much of Lower Burma and spread elsewhere.

By 1951, however, in part because the insurgents were never able to unify their efforts and in part because of U Nu’s determined response, the reconstructed armed forces had brought the insurgency substantially under control, although insurgents continued to dominate much of the countryside. For over six decades, the army has battled diverse ethnic insurgencies. These ethnic minority insurgent groups have sought to gain greater autonomy, or in some cases, independence from the dominant ethnic majority. The Government justifies its security measures as necessary to maintain order and national unity. However, most major insurgent groups have reached individual accommodations which provide varying levels of stability and autonomy from central government control.

Unlike the revolutionaries, ethnic insurgents were interested only in ruling their own people and territory and sought either greater autonomy from the central government or outright independence. Warlord associations were organised feudally around one or more leaders in order to conduct illicit market activities and control trade routes. These were essentially armed economic enterprises and included, among others, the Chinese groups and the Shan United Army.

http://www.lancerpublishers.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1533

Click to buy

In 1989, the government began a policy of seeking cease-fire agreements with most ethnic insurgent groups along the borders, and the regime entered into a series of ceasefire agreements with insurgent groups, though a few armed groups remained in active opposition. Following the breakdown of its cease-fire with the separatist Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP) in 1995, the army began an offensive in 1996 against the KNPP that continued through to the year’s end. As part of its campaign to deny the guerrillas local support, the military forces forcibly relocated hundreds of villages and tens of thousands of Karenni civilians. In central and southern Shan state, the military forces continued to engage the Shan State Army (SSA), and began a campaign of relocation against the villagers in the region. Many thousands were forcibly removed from their villages. There are credible reports of retaliatory killings, rapes and other atrocities committed by the army against civilians.

The Karen National Union (KNU) was the largest single insurgent group that continued to fight against central government rule. In 1997, cease-fire talks between the KNU and State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) broke down and were followed by an SLORC offensive that pushed the KNU out of its last strongholds in Karen state. As a result, over 20,000 Karen civilians fled to Thailand. In conjunction with the military’s campaigns against the Karen, Karenni, and Shan insurgents, it was standard practice for the Government’s armed forces to coerce civilians into working as porters in rural areas in or near combat zones.

China has invested heavily in oil and gas pipelines in Myanmar…

Cease-fire agreements helped to curb armed conflict. Burma’s military government had reached cease-fire agreements with as many as 17 of the country’s rebel groups. Many of the agreements were reached in talks with officials led by Prime Minister Khin Nyunt. In 2009, the regime began pressuring ceasefire groups to join a Border Guard Force (BGF)-an integrated unit of Burma Army and ceasefire group soldiers, with Burma Army soldiers occupying the key positions; no major ceasefire group has agreed to these demands. In June 2009, the Army launched an attack against the Karen National Union. In August 2009, the Myanmar Army defeated the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army. In this offensive thousands of people fled to China and the Army destroyed weapons and narcotics processing facility in the Kokang region.

In the wake of the November 2010 elections, the Myanmar Army launched a series of attacks against armed ethnic groups in Karen and Shan States. In June 2011, fighting broke out between the Army and the Kachin Independence Army in the Northern Kachin State.

President U Thein Sein’s peace offer was extended in August 2011. By early 2012, a total of 12 armed groups had respectively signed preliminary peace agreements with the government at state or central levels. At the end of 2012, the government had reached preliminary cease-fire agreements with all major armed ethnic groups except the KIA in Kachin State, where armed conflict continued and escalated in December 2012. A tentative peace agreement on May 31, 2013, between the Burmese government and Kachin rebels was hailed as a breakthrough after recent intense fighting along the border with China. The pact was one of the last to be reached with armed ethnic groups, raising hopes of a nation-wide peace.

An unfriendly Myanmar hosting foreign naval presence would be a grave threat to India’s security…

On December 02, 2014, twelve of Myanmar’s ethnic rebel groups announced the establishment of a Federal Army, a move likely to anger the national government. The new force, called the Federal Union Army (FUA), will be under the supervision of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), an umbrella group that has been trying to negotiate a nationwide ceasefire between ethnic minorities and the national military. Among the country’s major ethnic rebel groups, only the Wa Army has refused to participate in the FUA.

The Chinese Angle

Myanmar’s political transition has spawned debates and deliberations in policymaking circles and strategic communities across the world. The economic and strategic spinoff of the political changes has generated immense attention and interest. Not least in China. As recently as 2011, prior to its “opening up,” Myanmar was not only considered cut off from international engagement, it was mostly seen as a Chinese vassal state. The decision by the military regime to open up Myanmar (albeit economically more than politically) has, by and large, been seen as a reaction to the country’s over-dependence on China and the latter’s allies. Proponents of this argument point to the Myitsone dam. The project has prompted protests against the Chinese developers so intense that President Thein Sein elected to cancel it. The issue of the controversial dam is presently uncertain, with China contesting the legality of the cancellation.

In reality, the likely motivation for China’s engagement with Myanmar is strategic. It wants to use Myanmar for the development of Southern and central China. Therefore, the changes taking place here are not as unfavourable for China as is generally perceived. China has invested heavily in oil and gas pipelines in Myanmar, as an alternate energy route that eases its heavy reliance on energy transport through the Malacca Straits. The recent opening of the China-Myanmar pipeline is a step in this direction.

The Kyaukphyu pipelines that run through Myanmar and into the hinterlands of Yunnan Province and the construction of the port at Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ) are indicative of how China is using infrastructure development within Myanmar to promote its energy security. Myanmar also plays a crucial role in China’s One Belt One Road policy and is a significant partner in the Maritime Silk Road initiative being promoted by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The chances of a larger conflict spiralling out of fighting between the Myanmar Army and Koang rebels always persist…

In Myanmar there exists a conflict between its central and the peripheral regions. This coincides with geographical disposition. The ethnic minorities reside in the peripheral areas and the central region is controlled by the majoritarian Burmese group. Most resources such as jade, hydropower, and timber are situated in the periphery, while resources such a natural gas can be found in the centre. As rebel groups from the periphery launch attacks against the central forces, it not only takes a toll on national cohesion but creates problems for neighbours.

Myanmar’s internal churning clearly impacts how external players such as China engage with it, especially since they share a long 2,000km border. The implications are clearly reflected, for instance, in the spill-over of conflict as seen in the recent clashes between the Kokang rebels and the Myanmar army. The infighting has led to the loss of Chinese life. Apart from stray bombs landing within Chinese territory, reports have emerged suggesting Burmese warplanes have entered Chinese air-space and conducted air strikes.

Importantly, the Kokang rebels are ethnically Chinese. According to the provisional results of the 2014 census, the Kokang region has a population of around 95,000 who are predominantly ethnic Han Chinese. The rising hostilities between the rebels and the Tatmadaw could stoke Han Chinese nationalism. Thus the chances of a larger conflict spiralling out of fighting between the Myanmar Army and Koang rebels always persist.

India’s Interests

Myanmar is of great strategic importance to India. It is the second-largest of India’s neighbours and the largest on our Eastern flank. It provides the Eastern littoral of the Bay of Bengal. An unfriendly Myanmar hosting foreign naval presence would be a grave threat to India’s security. Myanmar shares a long border with China in the North. Strategic complications can be severe in a Sino-India conflict scenario in case Myanmar is under unfriendly influence. Furthermore, Myanmar bridges South Asia and India with South-East Asia. It also acts as a buffer between India’s North Eastern States and the Southern provinces of China. Myanmar’s importance to India’s conflict ridden North-East cannot be underscored better, when they facilitated Indian Army to conduct raids on terrorist hide out, on their territory, post Manipur’s ambush last year, in 2015.

The November 08 election in Myanmar produced a stunning victory for the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD)…

Geo-politically, a friendly Myanmar is essential for India’s ‘Act East’ policies of building up relationships with South East Asia. Geo-economically, Myanmar is rich in natural resources and has appreciable production of crude oil, and natural gas. It has sizeable deposits of copper, lead, tin, tungsten, steel and gold. Some of these especially crude oil and natural gas could be an attraction for India, being next door.

General Election of 2015

The November 08 election in Myanmar produced a stunning victory for the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) and its leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who trounced the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party. However, a clause in the constitution will prevent Suu Kyi from becoming President, and the military is not likely to relinquish its dominance any time soon. Specifically, the 11-member National Defence and Security Council is the highest body in the government, and is dominated by unelected military personnel who have the authority to declare a state of emergency at any time. Significantly, the military is also constitutionally guaranteed one quarter of the seats in parliament plus the ministries of defence, home affairs and border affairs.

Suu Kyi is unlikely to want to ruffle military feathers and indeed has adopted a conciliatory approach, reaching out to incumbent President Thein Sein. Past experience in Asia suggests that this is sensible – leaders who adopt a belligerent approach towards the military before they have consolidated power often stumble, with democracy usually the major casualty. Suu Kyi clearly has her work cut out, needing to respond to the very high expectations of not just her domestic constituents, but also the international community, which will anticipate an acceleration of economic reforms.

Suu Kyi is unlikely to want to ruffle military feathers and indeed has adopted a conciliatory approach…

Regional Impact

One interesting question is the impact of the election outcome on Myanmar’s ties with other parts of the world, especially its neighbours China, Thailand and India. After a long period of cold relations, things have started to change for better. In 2012, Manmohan Singh became the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Myanmar in 25 years, and he also met with Aung San Suu Kyi. Current Prime Minister Narendra Modi also visited Myanmar in 2014 and met not just with Thein Sein, but also with Suu Kyi.

Simultaneously, China has also reached out to the NLD leader. In fact, Suu Kyi visited China and met with President Xi Jinping earlier this year. During an interview with an Indian media channel, she made the very important point that Myanmar can play an important role in improving ties between India and China, and should not be looked at as a theatre of conflict. This is a significant point because analysts in India and China, together with sections of the establishment, have long perceived Myanmar as a battleground.

Conclusion

A peaceful stable Myanmar is in the interest of all the countries in the region. This is going to be the priority of the new democratically elected government of National League for Democracy (NLD). As the Associated Press reported, Suu Kyi declared that she would push for a complete peace accord, one that includes the insurgent groups that did not sign an initial peace framework last autumn. The NLD leader’s participation in the peace negotiations has raised hopes that the government can reach a final, permanent resolution with the holdout militias. Some of the holdout insurgent groups may trust Suu Kyi and the NLD more than the previous government, which was dominated by former military men, including some who had led firefights against the ethnic armies.

A peaceful stable Myanmar is in the interest of all the countries in the region…

The ethnically and religiously diverse country can only be governed successfully under some form of federalism, as politicians from nearly every Myanmar party now recognise. As Kachin leader Tu Ja told the Irrawaddy last week, “We are heading towards a federal union. The president [Thein Sein] said it in his Independence Day speech recently. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has also mentioned this. The only question is what kind of federalism this is going to be.”

The economic development of Myanmar is going to be the litmus test for this new born democracy. Pakistan’s experience has shown that it is not easy for military generals to let the power slip so easily in the hands of civilians. National reconciliation, economic development and confining the military to the barracks are the three fundamental challenges faced by Aung San Suu Kyi. India and China can actually play a major and positive role in addressing these challenges and cooperate if Aung San Suu Kyi pushes for it.

Rate this Article
Star Rating Loader Please wait...
The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of the Indian Defence Review.

About the Author

Danvir Singh

Associate Editor, Indian Defence Review, former Commanding Officer, 9 Sikh LI and author of  book "Kashmir's Death Trap: Tales of Perfidy and Valour".

More by the same author

Post your Comment

2000characters left

2 thoughts on “Myanmar Elections and Impact on the Region

More Comments Loader Loading Comments