_______ Team InfinIdea The Rakhaine State in Myanmar bears varied strategic importance to Bangladesh, regional and the global powers. The Rohingyas are an indigenous Muslim minority from Rakhine. Roughly 3.5 million Rohingyas are dispersed worldwide. Before August 2017, the majority of the Rohingyas in Myanmar resided in Rakhine State, where they accounted for nearly a third of the population. Ethnically, linguistically, and religiously, they diverge from Myanmar's dominant

Why is Rakhine so contested? Because Rakhine holds truly a critical position in Myanmar and has a strategic standpoint equally for China and India. For last couple of decades, China has been highly instrumental in investing significantly in Myanmar. The China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) aims to provide China comfortable entree to the Bay of Bengal (BoB) by linking Kunming in Yunnan in China to the erstwhile minor port town Kyaukphyu in Rakhaine through both land route an