Shifting ties: 

Shifting ties: 

Context:

• PM Modi’s recent visit to Myanmar marked 70 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Issues:

•  Shifting India-Myanmar ties
•  Slow pace of India’s reflexes vis-a-vis China to influence neighbours and safeguard their strategic and economic interests.
•  Rohingya Issue

Shifting India-Myanmar ties

•  Over the last 25 years, India has shifted its stand in a bid to square a complicated relationship.
•  On the side of high principle India stood by Aung San Suu Kyi.
•  Later, India wooed the Myanmar junta which had imprisoned her for nearly two decades.
•  After Suu Kyi was released and Myanmar transitioned to democracy, India had to make another shift.

Slow pace of India’s initiatives under the Look-East policy

•  The Kaladan multi-modal project to connect the north-east Indian states to the rest of India via Myanmar is still incomplete.
•  The contracts for the remaining work on the ambitious trilateral highway project connecting Manipur to Thailand through Myanmar are yet to be awarded.
•  The offtake of $500 million-dollar credit line for developmental projects is sluggish.

China taking the lead

•  The Myanmar Army continues to play a major role in domestic politics. The generals are more comfortable doing business with China.
• China has investments in an already operational oil and gas pipeline from Myanmar to china, port projects, Myanmar-China railway project, mining and hydro-power projects.

Rohingya crisis

•  Myanmar has been under severe attack from the international community in recent times for what is being considered as ‘genocide’ against the Rohingya Muslims.
• Considered by the United Nations as the “most persecuted minority group in the world”, the Rohingyas are a stateless group of people concentrated in western Myanmar, facing brutal assaults from the Burmese state and military.
•  PM Modi, on his visit to Myanmar, called it a security issue and did not acknowledge the human rights dimension of the crisis.
•  This came as a respite to the Myanmar leadership, who is facing international condemnation for its handling for the crisis.
•  However, India’s stand has given rise to dissatisfaction in Bangladesh who has been considerably affected by the crisis.
•  Later, New Delhi had to modify its position on the Rohingya issue, to also acknowledge that there is now a refugee crisis.