Myanmar’s recent coup d’etat became a global news story earlier this year. After the National League for Democracy (NLD), Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, won the most seats in their election, the Burmese military (Tatmadaw) took control of the government citing a fraudulent vote. The country was plunged into yet another state of military rule with a year-long state of emergency having been declared.
Burmese citizens have since taken to the streets in protest against military rule. The government has cracked down on the protests and over 230 people have been killed. The military junta has received widespread condemnation – not just from Western governments few governments in Southeast Asia have expressed concern about the military junta. Singapore has notably spoken out; foreign affairs minister Vivian Balakrishnan has called for an end to the use of lethal force. Now, as Burmese refugees begin to flee into neighbouring Thailand and India, the geopolitical implications of the coup will become apparent to Myanmar’s neighbours – including many member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
For many analysts of Asian geopolitics, the question was inevitably raised: what is China’s place in all of this? China’s great military and economic influence in the region could result in some kind of pressure from the Chinese government on the Myanmar issue. Commentators naturally began to speculate, while the Chinese Communist Party – through its state-run propaganda outlets – generally took their usual non-interventionist line of argument and criticised the West for intervening in other countries’ internal affairs.
Meanwhile, the protests in Myanmar have taken an anti-China turn. Protestors began to vandalise and destroy a number of sites of Chinese infrastructure, including factories and oil pipelines causing damage to the value of nearly $37 million, according to Chinese state-run media CGTN. Myanmar has little industry of its own and combined with its strategic location on the Bay of Bengal, it has resulted in large amounts of Chinese investment. China has also long seen Myanmar as the potential gateway to the Indian Ocean for China’s poorer southern provinces. Consequently, China has had a cordial relationship with the Burmese military governments of the 2000s.
Despite China’s ardent non-interventionist foreign policy, it now faces a difficulty in that its lack of condemnation for the junta is quickly making it unpopular with Burmese citizens. On 2 February China vetoed a UN resolution condemning the coup. Although this could be argued as being consistent with China’s non-interventionist foreign policy, the action nonetheless drew great ire from many Burmese protestors. It now seems that China’s silence is speaking volumes.
It is therefore notable that state-run media have issued statements like the following, from the above-mentioned CGTN article: “If the authorities cannot deliver and the chaos continues to spread, China might be forced into taking more drastic action to protect its interests.”
The US and many Western countries have strongly condemned the coup and the violent actions of the junta in suppressing protests. China now has the diplomatic problem of having to appear neutral whilst its economic investments in Myanmar are being destroyed by protestors. There might still be far more anti-China rhetoric from the protestors, which could then spill over into the international realm, with other nations accusing China of having a finger on the scale in favour of the Tatmadaw.
Conversely, it’s hard to deny that Myanmar governed by the Tatmadaw is more favourable to China than supposedly democratic government of the NLD. Even though China had a warm relationship with Myanmar while it was governed by the NLD prior to the coup, it’s hard to turn a blind eye to the geostrategic facts at hand. A military government being ostracised by the West would be an easy excuse for the Chinese government to try and exert more regional power. Add to this the fact that Myanmar has a long coast on the Bay of Bengal as well as a long border with India and the picture begins to look a lot more advantageous for China.
China’s entire east coast is lined with a chain of island nations preventing access to the Pacific Ocean – and most of these are close allies of the US. So dire is China’s geostrategic position along its maritime coast that even a tiny nation like Singapore could potentially block much of China’s access to the Indian Ocean if it were to block off the Straits of Malacca.
Myanmar shares a long border with China’s Yunnan province and thus, a new friendly regime on China’s border – with an Indian Ocean coast to boot – would be a major geostrategic win. The potential for western allies to drive the Tatmadaw into the arms of the CCP with sanctions and ostracism is real. This would not be the first time in history when such a foreign policy has backfired for the west either, and thus, it’s not hard to see it happening.
This might mean that China’s diplomatic power temporarily takes a hit if it is perceived as supporting the Burmese junta in any way. It would fly in the face of China’s fierce commitment to non-interventionism. However, the international realm of politics is not likely to be subject to principle and moral virtue when political expediency has the upper hand. Vietnam knows this all too well having been invaded by China during a 3-month war in 1979.
It remains to be seen what further response will be had from Myanmar’s neighbours in ASEAN. What will be important to understand, however, is the long-term potential gains for China which are at stake here in the context of East Asian geopolitics. Do not be fooled by thinking that simply blaming the coup on China will necessarily result in weakness for China.
Power, it turns out, is much more a question of who has the most guns rather than who is most popular.
[Photo: iStock/Getty Images]
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