New Delhi: Amid the process of disengagement that has set in with the Chinese military in eastern Ladakh after a nine-month-long escalation, India may be inwardly quite concerned about China spreading and consolidating its influence in Myanmar where the country’s military, also called the Tatmadaw, seized power in a coup-like situation on February 1.
India has invested heavily in its pivotal ‘Act East Policy’ (AEP) where Myanmar is a vital bridge for vastly improving connectivity and linkages with countries in Southeast Asia and East Asia right up to Japan.
What may further raise India’s antennae is a report in a leading Australian publication from the ASPI stable on Tuesday on secret night flights—up to five a night—in registered and unregistered aircraft between Kunming in southern China and Yangon in Myanmar.
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ASPI (Australian Strategic Policy Institute) is a leading Australian think tank on defence and strategic issues that is funded, among others, by both the Australian and the US departments of defence.
State-owned Chinese media have spewed venom on a report that reported on a series of secret nighttime air flights between Kunming in southern China and Yangon in Myanmar in the weeks after the February 1 coup by the Tatmadaw.
“It (the report) is filled with guileful fabrications, mischievous innuendoes and baseless allegations, with the vile purpose to slander China of secretly supporting Myanmar's present military authorities, the Tatmadaw, after the domestic incident in Myanmar in early February,” the Communist Party mouthpiece 'Global Times' published in an opinion article on Friday.
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Such articles are invariably vetted by Beijing and are understood to be reflective of the Chinese Communist Party’s stand on issues.
The detailed report in the ASPI-funded ‘The Strategist’ hints on two possibilities—either they are flying in Chinese troops and cyber specialists ‘to help the Tatmadaw control access to information and the internet’ or weapons are being ferried to Myanmar.
Myanmar is in the news because of a sudden Tatmadaw takeover on February 1 after an electoral verdict that overwhelmingly favoured Daw Aung San Suu Suu Kyi-led National Democratic League (NLD).
The NLD bagged 396 seats of the total 476, while the junta-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) got just 33.
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The Myanmar coup has presented a foreign policy challenge for India where it has to tread the fine line between not being very critical of the Junta so much so that the Tatmadaw rushes into China’s open arms, the AEP goes into jeopardy as does counter-insurgency operations across India’s Northeast.
At the same time, with the US-led west being vociferously critical of the February 1 coup, India, being at the vanguard of the pro-democracy forces, can ill-afford to remain quiet.
Australia is a member of the ‘Quad’ grouping that is understood to be an anti-China alliance comprising India, US, Australia and Japan. Australia is one of the five members of the 80-year-old shadowy ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence-sharing network comprising English-speaking countries that has of late taken on China on numerous issues.
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