Myanmar Gen connects,plays India and China in new Bay geopolitics

But that is unlikely to bother the General,who has mobilised Myanmar’s two large Asian neighbours as powerful shields against Western criticism. Monumental evidence of Than Shwe’s skill in leveraging ties with China and India is coming up in the form of two very special infrastructure projects.

India plans to develop a transport corridor in its North-East,and China is building a twin set of pipelines to move oil and natural gas into China’s Yunnan province. The two projects,running through Myanmar territory,come face to face in the waters of the old city of Sittwe.

In facilitating highly valued access to the land-locked regions of India and China,Than Shwe has won their unstinting political support.

Widely seen as rivals in Myanmar,China and India shower generous economic aid on Myanmar. The two projects converging at Sittwe are fully financed by Delhi and Beijing.

India’s current access to the North-East is through a thin sliver of its territory in West Bengal,called the chicken’s neck. Geography would say Bangladesh offers the simplest way in and out of the North-East.

Relations between Delhi and Dhaka are now on the upswing,but transport networks connecting eastern India,Bangladesh and the North-East will take some time to develop. In the interim,Delhi had been looking to Myanmar.

In giving Mizoram and other parts of the North-East much-needed port access outside India,Myanmar is altering the economic geography of the eastern subcontinent. In letting China build pipelines across its territory,Myanmar is redrawing the connections between the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

Currently,most of China’s oil imports from Africa and the Gulf must travel across the Indian Ocean and pass through the narrow Malacca Straits before being unloaded at the consumption centres along its eastern seaboard.

In what is now being called China’s “Malacca Dilemma”,Beijing fears the United States and its allies might want to choke off China’s energy lifeline at the Malacca Straits in a future confrontation. The project for the oil and gas pipelines across

Myanmar’s territory is part of China’s effort to overcome the “Malacca Dilemma” by short-circuiting the Straits.

India’s transport corridor into the North-East begins at Sittwe,and has three components — building a modern port facility at Sittwe,dredging the river Kaladan to make it navigable,and building a port- and road-head that will take goods overland into Mizoram and the rest of the North-East.

An Indian company,Essar,has won the contract from the Government of India to build the Kaladan project,worth around $120 million. If all goes well,goods could start moving from Kolkata to the North-East via Myanmar in about four years.

China’s pipeline project,costing around $4 billion,is far more ambitious and is expected to be operational in the next two years. The gas pipeline will be fed from offshore,and the head of the oil pipeline will be at Kyaukphyu on the Ramree Island located south of Sittwe.

Last month,during his visit to Myanmar,Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao underlined the importance of more transportation projects that connect southwestern China with Myanmar.

During Than Shwe’s visit to India too,connectivity will be part of the agenda. The two sides are likely to agree on smaller projects that facilitate trade and economic interaction between India’s North-East and Myanmar.