India accuses China of helping rebel groups on its Myanmar border
- New Delhi officials say armed groups in Myanmar are acting as Beijing’s proxies by supplying weapons and providing hideouts to Indian insurgents
- It has sparked concern that India’s military is becoming stretched as tensions with China and Pakistan continue along its 14,000km land border
India warns China to prepare for the long haul in border talks
China’s Foreign Ministry denied claims the country was supporting armed groups against India, saying it does not interfere in the affairs of other countries. “China has always taken a prudent and responsible attitude toward arms exports,” the ministry said in written responses to questions. “We only conduct military trade in cooperation with sovereign states and do not sell arms to non-state actors.”
The United Wa State Army also denied a role in providing any aid or support to Indian rebel groups on China’s behalf, citing, among other factors, the over 800km (500 miles) between their headquarters and the India-Myanmar border.
The group does not “have any connection with India’s national security, and we do not harm that country at all. So, we think we don’t need to comment on such kind of allegations,” Nyi Rang, the spokesman of United Wa State Army said, adding that accusations his group acts as a proxy for China “are groundless”.
Indian officials said the recent upsurge in violence stems back to September, when Naga insurgents walked away from decadeslong peace negotiations. On September 28, Indian border guards intercepted a large cache of weapons meant for Indian insurgent groups along the India-Myanmar border and arrested three suspected gunrunners, according to officials with direct knowledge of the matter.
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The officials said those arrested explained that Indian insurgents were being supplied weapons by the Arakan Army, which in turn received China’s support to protect investments such as roads and gas pipelines in an economic corridor stretching from Sittwe port to Kunming. China was also helping Indian rebels with weapons and logistics including hideouts along the India-Myanmar border, the officials said.
Several dozen armed militias are active in India’s northeast, fighting for independence or greater autonomy. Asked by reporters on November 6 whether China was using armed ethnic groups in Myanmar to support Indian rebels, a senior Indian Home Ministry official declined to answer directly. “Some of the insurgent groups are troublemakers, but we are negotiating peace with others,” Ajay Bhalla, the Home Ministry’s top bureaucrat, said at a webinar hosted by the National Defence College.
Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun of the Myanmar Army did not respond to emailed questions. Myanmar earlier this year designated the Arakan Army as a terrorist organisation.
India’s army chief arrived in Nagaland on November 24 for a three-day visit, underscoring the renewed intensity of the conflict. In late October, Indian and Myanmar troops launched joint operations targeting Indian rebel groups, including one named the People’s Liberation Army of Manipur. Myanmar’s military, meanwhile, has been targeting armed ethnic groups like the Arakan Army on its side of the border.
To be sure, the level of Chinese support to insurgents in the region is not close to the levels of a few decades ago.
As armed ethnic insurgencies erupted across India’s remote northeast states in the 1950s and 1960s, it was bitter rival Pakistan that first supplied the armed groups with weapons. Soon, however, “it was China that became the main provider of munitions for the ethnic insurgents. Many were also trained in China,” Swedish journalist and regional expert Bertil Lintner wrote in his 2012 book The Great Game East: India, China and the Struggle for Asia’s Most Volatile Frontier, adding that “today, the Chinese government does not openly support those groups, but they have had access to the so-called black – in reality more grey – arms market in China”.
Fan Hongwei, a professor at the Research School of Southeast Asian Studies at Xiamen University, said
China is unlikely to use a third country to pressure India because that would prompt leaders in New Delhi to do the same in return.
“China would hope to resolve bilateral issues between the two countries, rather than make it more complex, which would not keep with China’s consistent policy and interests,” he said.
India and China gear up for a new battle, this time over water
Both India and China are investing in Myanmar for strategic reasons. Beijing is investing in gas pipelines and roads to link its southern province of Yunnan with the Bay of Bengal, allowing for key imports to bypass the Malacca Strait between Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. India, meanwhile, is investing in the US$292 million Kaladan Multimodal project to connect its underdeveloped northeastern states to the Bay of Bengal.
“China knows that the region is crucial to India’s future connectivity into Southeast Asia,” said Ian Hall, professor of international relations at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, and author of Modi and the Reinvention of Indian Foreign Policy. “It knows too that securing the region is challenging and has been very costly to New Delhi in the past.”