THE COVETED STRATEGIC GEM - RAKHINE !!!

Why Rakhine is 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 and Gas-Oil pipeline. Kyaukpyu Port ranks highly on a long list of controversial Chinese development projects in Myanmar. It further enables China to circumvent chokepoints like the so called “Six Degree Channel” (located between the Indian Great Nicobar Islands and Indonesia’s Sumatra Islands) and the Malacca Strait controlled by the US and associated local naval powers Navies. It also allows Chinese commercial vessels to evade the fearsome local pirates - and thus evade the so called “Malacca Dilemma”, an undeniable vulnerability for its economic lifeline. Rakhine additionally provides China access to the Bay of Bengal and equally the Indian Ocean. Such access ultimately facilitates Chinese trade and military relations with Pakistan and Middle East. Add its base in Djibouti, a highly potential future footprint in Gwadar of Pakistan, and the alleged Listening Stations in the Great Cocos Island in southern Myanmar (along with a highly likely potential air base), Rakhaine likewise offers China the capability to influence the sea lanes from the East Africa and the Persian Gulf region upto the Far Eastern Asia. The Chinese have allegedly reached a deal with the victorious Arakan Army in Rakhine (won over the Military Junta there) regarding the port at Kyaukphyu. I parallel, China is rumoured to establish joint security company with the Junta Government and already rumoured to have deployed 500 “Private Security Company (PMC)” personnel for the protection its interests in Rakhaine State. All these may trigger Indian and US responses.

Indian interests are also strong in Rakhine. It is also negotiating with the Arakan Army leadership to keep its Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project (KMTTP) Project functional, for it is the only alternative for its Siliguri Corridor for now - through the Sittwe Port in Rakhaine connecting the remote northeastern “Seven Sisters” with the Indian Mainland. The Sittwe Port and the KMTTP in Myanmar are thus of paramount importance to India. With a Rakhaine foothold, India will also be able to interfere with the Chinese investments and Road-Oil-Gas connectivity from Rakhaine to China.

The Chinese invested Kyaukphyu and Indian influenced Sittwe port are a meager 105 kilometers away from each other. Such close proximity of these archrivals may spark sudden hostilities in the region, the potential belligerents countries may be craving forward to ensure exert influence, and simultaneously neutralising and countering each other.

The other power USA will also see Rakhine through its strategic lenses since this area oversees the connectivity between the Indian Ocean and the South and East China Seas in the Indo-Pacific Region (IPR).

RAKHINE'S STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE

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