Indian Army chief Naravane, Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla to visit Myanmar amid stand-off with China

Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla and Chief of Army Staff General M M Naravane will on Sunday and Monday visit Myanmar, which not only shares boundaries with India and China but also has a tripoint with the two nations.

New Delhi is reaching out to Nay Pyi Taw at a time when the Indian Army and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) are engaged in a military stand-off along the disputed boundary between the two nations in eastern Ladakh.

The five-month-long stand-off not only took India-China relations to a new low but also brought under focus the competition between the two nations for geopolitical influence in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region.

Shringla and Gen Naravane will call on Myanmar’s State Counsellor and de facto Head of Government, Aung San Suu Kyi, during the two-day visit to Nay Pyi Taw.

They will also have a meeting with Commander-in-Chief of the Myanmar Armed Forces, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, before returning to New Delhi, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) stated in a press release on Saturday.

New Delhi is sending the high-level delegation to Nay Pyi Taw amid signs of stress in Myanmar’s relations with China.

Nay Pyi Taw is purportedly upset over the continued flow of arms originating in China to the militant organizations in Myanmar.

The Royal Thai Army a few months back intercepted a huge consignment of illegal arms and ammunition, which had its origin in China and which was being smuggled into Myanmar.

Besides, Suu Kyi’s government is also re-assessing some of the infrastructure projects Beijing is keen to bankroll under the proposed China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), apparently out of concerns over debt-trap the Belt-and-Road Initiative – the ambitious cross-continental connectivity project launched by the communist country a few years back – entails.

Shringla on Thursday had a virtual meeting with his counterpart in the Myanmar Government, U Soe Han, and reviewed the development and connectivity projects funded by New Delhi in the neighbouring country.

With several insurgent organizations operating in northeast India having bases in Myanmar, New Delhi has been maintaining close security cooperation with the neighbouring country.

The two nations in July 2019 inked a pact to step up bilateral defence cooperation. Sources said that New Delhi would convey to Nay Pyi Taw during the visit of the Foreign Secretary and the chief of the Indian Army and New Delhi remained committed to help the Myanmar Army in capacity building apart from enhancing cooperation to address mutual security concerns.

India is also keen to ink a MoU on Maritime Security Cooperation with Myanmar, apart from starting exchanging data on the movement of commercial and non-military ships in the maritime neighbourhood of the two nations. The Indian Navy is also likely to provide the Myanmar Navy one of its submarines.

With no sign of an early end to the India-China military stand-off in eastern Ladakh, Gen Naravane and Senior Gen Aung Hlaing are also likely to discuss the security of the India-Myanmar-China boundary tripoint in Diphu Pass. Myanmar and China in 1960 demarcated the boundary between the two nations in the tripoint. New Delhi, however, has not yet accepted it and it remains unsettled, just as the rest of the boundary between India and China.

“India-Myanmar relations are historic, multifaceted and marked by mutual trust and respect,” Anurag Srivastava, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), said. “India attaches high priority to its relationship with Myanmar in accordance with its Neighborhood First and Act East policies.”

He said that both sides had strengthened cooperation in several areas, including connectivity and trade, development projects, energy, capacity building, defence and security and culture and people to people links.