Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia.

• Author: Hman, Hnin Wint Nyunt
• Position: Book review

Where China Meets India: Burma and the New Crossroads of Asia. By Thant Myint-U. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011. Hardcover: 361pp.

Thant Myint-U's book is essentially a travelogue. Yet readers who also expect a solid political, economic and strategic analysis of Myanmar's relationship with China and India will not be disappointed. Indeed the author's intricate weaving of the personal, the historical and the political both inform and captivate the audience.

The book is divided into three parts: the first part is devoted to Burma/Myanmar's turbulent modern history; the second focuses on Sino-Burmese relations both past and present; and the third examines the colonial histories and legacies of India and Myanmar. Most current affairs observers tend to characterize Myanmar-China-India dynamics only in terms of the interests of Yangon, Beijing and Delhi. But the book reveals a much more complicated relationship with a detailed analysis of how the rural provinces of China and India are important drivers in national policy planning. Indeed, as the pages turn, it becomes more obvious that the policies dictated by governments in faraway capitals are themselves governed by the need to develop their rural areas and promote cross-border trade.

The very first page of the Prologue posits that since imperial times China has searched for a back-door passage to India through the lands of present-day Myanmar. Chinese policy-makers today have successfully realized the imperial plans of their forebears and are building a direct route to the Indian Ocean via Yunnan and through Myanmar. Additionally, India's north-eastern provinces have always looked to links with northern Burma for mutual prosperity. Both countries harbour an age-old dream of connecting trade and commerce through Myanmar. But history tells us that building these trade links have taken centuries and that they are not yet complete. Colonization and World War II put the otherwise unnoticed and remote areas of Myanmar on the radar of national governments, but they also left behind a succession of armed conflicts, mostly provoked by centuries of migration, racial tensions and geopolitics.

As Thant observes, present-day Myanmar's borderlands are far from peaceful. Although ceasefires have been signed with various ethnic militias, a viable and long-term political solution is yet to be put on the table. Moreover, the northern Chin, Kachin and Shah states each have not one but many armed...