INTERNATIONAL POLITICS: Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia,By Thant Myint-U. Faber and Faber, 358pp. £20
LAST SUMMER, Burma’s then head of state, Gen Than Shwe, made a high-profile official visit to India, meeting the prime minister, touring an IT centre and a car factory, and being shown the place where Buddha found enlightenment. It is inconceivable that the general would be allowed to make such a journey to Europe or the US, where his country, and its ruling junta, are accorded pariah status. But while many Indian politicians share the West’s distaste at the suppression of democracy and human rights in Burma, the Indian government knows it needs to be pragmatic. If it doesn’t move fast, it will miss out on a one-off chance to shape Burma’s future.
Gen Shwe had barely unpacked his Indian souvenirs when he hosted a high-profile guest of his own, the Chinese prime minister, Wen Jiabao. With new border crossings and ever-increasing economic ties, the reality is that China has far more to offer Burma, and is pushing ahead in the new Great Game.
Thant Myint-U was eight when he first visited the former British colony, for the funeral of his grandfather, U Thant, the former UN secretary general. A personal history of his ancestral homeland, The River of Lost Footsteps, was published five years ago. Now he has returned to explore Burma's potentially lucrative position at the "crossroads of Asia". Its cities may be run-down, its economy devastated, its population cowed, but the country now finds itself in a position to woo, gently seduce and ultimately bargain with its two super-powerful neighbours.
Burma’s great strength is its location, says Thant Myint-U. Draw a circle around the second city, Mandalay, with a radius of 1,000km or so, and you take in Bangladesh, the Indian city of Kolkata, Yunnan and Sichuan (two of China’s fastest-growing provinces), parts of Tibet, and most of Laos and Thailand. “Within that circle,” he writes, “are the homes of no fewer than 600 million people, nearly one in 10 of all the people on the planet.”
And Burma has a valuable coastline. China has already begun building an oil pipeline that will stretch from the Bay of Bengal to Kunming, for which Burma will receive 50,000 free barrels a day in rent. High-speed rail links are planned with a new Burmese port, giving Chinese shipping a more secure and quicker route to the West, avoiding the Straits of Malacca.
India, too, hopes that access to the sea via Burma will open up its remote northeastern states, landlocked and almost cut off from the rest of the country since partition in 1947.
Where China Meets Indiais a curious mix of travel writing, current affairs and academic history. Some of the descriptive material, the tales of journeys made and people met, feels a little contrived. The detail of obscure tribal languages and ancient power struggles sometimes gets in the way of what is a fast-moving modern tale. In a sense this isn't a book about Burma; it's the compelling story of a land well placed, sandwiched between the world's fastest-growing and, arguably, most influential countries. Aung San Suu Kyi, the figurehead of Burmese democracy, gets no more mentions than Chiang Kai-shek, the Chinese nationalist leader.
At the heart of the book is a journey around Yunnan Province, the region of China that abuts Burma. The border has become blurred, and it is estimated that millions of Chinese have crossed it. In Mandalay an old family friend tells the author that the new arrivals have priced out the locals: “Very few other than the Chinese can afford to live downtown any more.”
In the hills and mountains along the border, Burmese minority groups, such as the Wa people, are now at the centre of the action. After years of waging war against the government, “they no longer find themselves living at the back of beyond but on the margins of China, the emerging superpower . . . BlackBerrys don’t work in Rangoon, but they do in the Wa area.”
But there has been a price for dealing with China, including a bleak trade of mercilessly chopped-down teak, endangered exotic animals, and heroin from the Golden Triangle. And there is a real threat of environmental catastrophe if China goes ahead with a joint Sino-Burmese plan to build a hydroelectric dam on the Salween River, “the longest pristine river system in the world”.
Separated from the rest of India by Bangladesh, and linked by a narrow corridor of land known as “the chicken’s neck”, states such as Manipur, Assam and Tripura would benefit hugely from a new link with Burma. Remote, poor and racked by revolutionary fighting, a connection to China and the sea would give them a key role in the region. But whereas China courts Burma with great assurance, India’s approach is more considered. At a university in Gauhati, the largest city in Assam, Thant Myint-U hears a long and heated discussion on Indo-Burmese relations. “I bet the Chinese are not having a seminar like this and just debating endlessly,” comments one participant.
With Europe and the US out of the picture (“I hope western sanctions will remain forever . . . they help us a lot,” a Chinese businessman tells the author), the power clearly lies with the country’s big neighbours.
“Burma’s rulers,” concludes Thant Myint-U, “continue to play their balancing act, trying to secure the best possible deals from Beijing whilst cultivating other potential partners and allies.”
But, for now at least, a clear winner has emerged, as “no one else can really compete with China”.
Petroc Trelawny broadcasts for the BBC and has travelled extensively in Asia
