Myanmar's ongoing liberalization and its normalization of relations
with the outside world have the possibility of profoundly affecting
geopolitics in Asia -- and all for the better.
Geographically, Myanmar dominates the Bay of Bengal. It is where the
spheres of influence of China and India overlap. Myanmar is also
abundant in oil, natural gas, coal, zinc, copper, precious stones,
timber and hydropower, with some uranium deposits as well. The prize of
the Indo-Pacific region, Myanmar has been locked up by dictatorship for
decades, even as the Chinese have been slowly stripping it of natural
resources. Think of Myanmar as another Afghanistan in terms of its
potential to change a region: a key, geo-strategic puzzle piece ravaged
by war and ineffective government that, if only normalized, would unroll
trade routes in all directions.
Ever since China's Yuan (ethnic Mongol) dynasty invaded Myanmar in
the 13th century, Myanmar has been under the shadow of a Greater China,
with no insurmountable geographic barriers or architectural obstacles
like the Great Wall to separate the two lands -- though the Hengduan
Shan range borders the two countries. At the same time, Myanmar has
historically been the home of an Indian business community -- a
middleman minority in sociological terms -- that facilitated the British
hold on Myanmar as part of a Greater British India.
But if Myanmar continues on its path of reform by opening links to
the United States and neighboring countries, rather than remaining a
natural resource tract to be exploited by China, Myanmar will develop
into an energy and natural resource hub in its own right, uniting the
Indian subcontinent, China and Southeast Asia all into one fluid,
organic continuum. And although Chinese influence in Myanmar would
diminish in relative terms, China would still benefit immensely. Indeed,
Kunming, in China's southern Yunnan province, would become the economic
capital of Southeast Asia, where river and rail routes from Myanmar,
Laos and Vietnam would converge.
Much of this infrastructure activity is already under way. At Ramree
Island off Myanmar's northwestern Arakan coast, the Chinese are
constructing pipelines to take oil and natural gas from Africa, the
Persian Gulf and the Bay of Bengal across the heart of Myanmar to
Kunming. The purpose will be to alleviate China's dependence on the
Strait of Malacca, through which four-fifths of its crude oil imports
pass at present. There will also be a high-speed rail line roughly along
this route by 2015.
India, too, is constructing an energy terminal at Sittwe, north of
Ramree, on Myanmar's coast, that will potentially carry offshore natural
gas northwest through Bangladesh to the vast demographic inkblot that
is the Indian state of West Bengal. The Indian pipeline would actually
split into two directions, with another proposed route going to the
north around Bangladesh. Commercial goods will follow along new highways
to be built to India. Kolkata, Chittagong and Yangon, rather than being
cities in three separate countries, will finally be part of one Indian
Ocean world.
The salient fact here is that by liberating Myanmar, India's hitherto
landlocked northeast, lying on the far side of Bangladesh, will also be
opened up to the outside. Northeast India has suffered from bad
geography and underdevelopment, and as a consequence it has experienced
about a dozen insurgencies in recent decades. Hilly and jungle-covered,
northeast India is cut off from India proper by backbreakingly poor
Bangladesh to the west and by Myanmar, hitherto a hermetic and
undeveloped state, to the east. But Myanmar's political opening and
economic development changes this geopolitical fact, because both
India's northeast and Bangladesh will benefit from Myanmar's political
and economic renewal.
With poverty reduced somewhat in all these areas, the pressure on
Kolkata and West Bengal to absorb economic refugees will be alleviated.
This immeasurably strengthens India, whose land borders with semi-failed
states within the subcontinent (Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh) has
undermined its ability to project political and military power outward
into Asia and the Middle East. More broadly, a liberalized Myanmar draws
India deeper into Asia, so that India can more effectively balance
against China.
But while the future beckons with opportunities, the present is still
not assured. The political transition in Myanmar has only begun, and
much can still go wrong. The problem, as it was in Yugoslavia and Iraq,
is regional and ethnic divides.
Myanmar is a vast kingdom organized around the central Irrawaddy
River Valley. The ethnic Burman word for this valley is Myanmar, hence
the official name of the country. But a third of the population is not
ethnic Burman, even as regionally based minorities in friable
borderlands account for seven of Myanmar's 14 states. The hill areas
around the Irrawaddy Valley are populated by Chin, Kachin, Shan, Karen
and Karenni peoples, who also have their own armies and irregular
forces, which have been battling the Burman-controlled national army
since the early Cold War period.
Worse, these minority-populated hill regions are ethnically divided
from within. For example, the Shan area is also home to Was, Lahus,
Paos, Kayans and other tribal peoples. All these groups are products of
historical migrations from Tibet, China, India, Bangladesh, Thailand and
Cambodia, so that the Chin in western Myanmar have almost nothing in
common with the Karen in eastern Myanmar. Nor is there a community of
language and culture between the Shans and the ethnic Burmans, except
for their Buddhist religion. As for the Arakanese, heirs to a
cosmopolitan seaboard civilization influenced by Hindu Bengal, they feel
particularly disconnected from the rest of Myanmar and compare their
plight to disenfranchised minorities in the Middle East and Africa.
In other words, simply holding elections is not enough if all
elections do is bring ethnic Burmans to power who do not compromise with
the minorities. The military came to power in Myanmar in 1962 to
control the minority-populated borderlands around the Irrawaddy Valley.
The military has governed now for half a century. Myanmar has few
functioning institutions that are not military-dominated. A system with
generous power awarded to the minorities must now be constructed from
scratch; peaceful integration of restive minorities requires vibrant
federal institutions.
Myanmar, it is true, is becoming less repressive and more open to the
outside world. But that in and of itself does not make for a viable
institutionalized state. In sum, for Myanmar to succeed, even with
civilians in control, the military will have to play a significant role
for years to come, because it is mainly officers who know how to run
things.
But given its immense natural resources and sizable population of 48
million, if Myanmar can build pan-ethnic institutions in coming decades
it could come close to being a midlevel power in its own right --
something that would not necessarily harm Indian and Chinese interests,
and, by the way, would unleash trade throughout Asia and the Indian
Ocean world.
From stratfor.com
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