Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia.

• Author: Chen, Xin
• Position: Book review

WHERE CHINA MEETS INDIA: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia

Author: Thant Myint-U

Published by: Faber and Faber, London 2011, 358pp, US$18 (hb), $13.40 (pb).

The recent armed conflict, escalating from a ground war to airstrikes, between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and Myanmar's (Burma's) armed forces has added more uncertainty to the prospect of the truce talks between the two sides. The crisis in Kachin state has meanwhile heightened Chinas dismay over the intensified unrest along its ethnically-diverse south-west border. China is also being torn between supporting Myanmar's government and maintaining business ties with the Kachins. India, too, has reportedly registered discomfiture over a similar dilemma of endorsing the punitive action against the KIA but risking pushing the latter deeper into alliance with ethnic insurgent groups in its own troubled north-east or tacitly backing the Kachins but compromising its effort to catch up with Chinas comprehensive and already well implemented relationship with Myanmar.

All the above has highlighted an intricate link in the interactions among the three neighbouring countries that Thant Myint-U (grandson of former UN Secretary-General U Thant) argues is largely overlooked internationally. Much has been said and written about the intentions, approaches, and potential regional and international consequences of the Myanmar-China-India three-way engagement and competition. Critical comments focus on Beijing's diplomatic and economic support of the 'padah' regime for access to Burma's natural resources and the Indian Ocean. In that regard, the former junta and the current quasi-civilian government of Myanmar are typically criticised as well for their exploitation of Chinas hunger for energy and anxiety over the 'Malacca dilemma' to offset international pressure for democratic reform and human rights compliance. India, on the other hand, seems to attract both sympathy and disappointment for its lack of the political and economic muscle to knock Myanmar off Chinas orbit and balance Chinas rising profile as a 'two-ocean' country.

There is little doubt that China sees an energy/resource conduit through Myanmar as a strategic hedge against its over-dependence on the Malacca Strait. Yet in his book, Thant Myint-U accompanies his readers surely and rightly through the meanders of another related daunting challenge that China hopes that its involvement in Myanmar may help meet. That challenge is to...