The Myanmar Initiative

For New Delhi, these developments must be seen in the context of the relationship between Myanmar and China, and the potential of a strategic challenge on Indias vulnerable eastern flank. Ironically, UN proposed at the end of 1949 that Burma, India, Pakistan and Ceylon should enter into a defence pact against China. Under General Ne Win, however, China has emerged as Myanmars closest ally. Last years bilateral trade between the two countries was valued at $500 million. Clearly, the political purpose of the broad economic and trade cooperation agreement that was signed only last week, when Myanmars national planning and economic development minister, David Abel, and the visiting Chinese minister, Li Guo Hua, also announced a joint works committee for cooperation, was the message that Yangon can depend on Beijing, come what may.

Even more relevant for India was the agreement, announced two weeks earlier, on the joint development of the Irrawaddy river, from Kunming, Yunnans provincial capital, to Ruili on the border, then Bhamo, and 1,300 km down to Yangon. Not only will it open up Chinas Yunnan, Sichuan and Guizhou provinces, but it will also give the Chinese further formal access to the Bay of Bengal. A land-river joint transport pact is expected later this year.

What we are witnessing is the scramble for Myanmar. As countries and companies fall over each other, long-isolated, long-neglected Myanmar is an object study in the triumph of pragmatism over principles. Which is just as well from New Delhis point of view, for an economically vibrant Myanmar that is firmly integrated in Asean cooperation is less likely to be used against India, either by disgruntled rebels or by outside powers.

As for principles, when pressed, Asean spokesmen do plead that dialogue can be more effective than isolation or confrontation in changing the egregious State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). But it is doubtful if any of the seven present members is really bothered. Even the formal defence collapses when Asean members counter attack that no one applies a moral yardstick to United Nations membership.

With Vietnam under a Communist autarky and Indonesia with its pre-determined democracy and rampant nepotism, Asean cannot afford to be fastidious. But since Aseans economic rationale has tamed Vietnamese expansionism and defused all possibility of a recurrence of Indonesias konfrontasi, it can also be relied on to insulate Myanmar from adventurism or exploitation.

Singapore and Thailand, both leading lights of Asean, are the second and third largest investors in Myanmar. For Thailand, clandestine trade, drug trafficking and a great deal of human movement armed rebels and refugees across a straggling jungle border makes cooperation with Myanmar essential. Geopolitics obliges Singapore to interact closely with bigger countries that then acquire a stake in the island-republics viability.

Other countries epitomise expediency. Even while the Japanese Prime Minister, Ryutaro Hashimoto, was warning that Asean membership should not be regarded as a pardon for the SLORC, Tokyo was lending another $17.2 million to Yangon. In the last 20 years, Japan has extended $884.4 million credit to debt-ridden Myanmar. Nor is France deterred by the collective disapproval of the EU of which it is a founding member. A French business delegation was in Yangon only last week, meeting the deputy prime minister, vice-admiral Maung Maung Khin, who is also chairman of the Myanmar Investment Commission. Already the biggest foreign investor in Myanmar, France is now looking for further investment opportunities, and to setting up a French Entrepreneurs Association.

As for the Americans, a rush of beat-the-ban agreements meant that deals worth more than $300 million