Mynamar, India and China - Great Game

[madd0ct0r]

With permission from the Mynamar military, Indian forces went into Mynamar to kill rebels that attacked an Indian Convoy last week.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/new ... 601222.cms

By most accounts, the attackers — which the Army believes is a mixed group of Meitei militants led by the KYKL faction while internal agencies point to the Khaplang faction of the NSCN as the main player — managed to cross the international border into Myanmar by Thursday afternoon.

I can't find anything on the Meitei militants, beyond the Meitei being a small ethnic group.
The NSCN is the National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplan - militants trying to unite the Naga people on both sides of the India-Mynamar border


Indian officials are blaming China for supporting the NSCN: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/ ... k-leaders/

Now, even a decade ago, when I was in India the news channels were deomonstrating the range of India's new missiles based on where in China they could hit, so bit of jousting and mudslinging that way is not surprising. Even so, Welcome to the Great Game, Eastern Expansion

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Myanmar has been pretty much doing this for a long time. You don't think the release of Aung San Suu Kyi was out of altruism did you?

[madd0ct0r]

Well, I.thought that was more abiut opening up the country so senior officials could profit from mining contracts?

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Well, I.thought that was more abiut opening up the country so senior officials could profit from mining contracts?

That one was because they needed political cover after pissing off China by cancelling a dam project run by a Chinese company.

[Spice Runner]

The geopolitics of South / Southeast Asia have sure become more interesting in the last couple of years.

We Indians are trying to sure up good relations with bordering countries with the exception of Pakistan. For example just this last week the Indian Prime minister was in Bangladesh for the signing of a landmark border agreement deal finally settling issues from partition and the 71 war.

The big fear in Indian government circles whether warranted or not is of Chinese influence in the region. This drives lots of policy decisions. India's look east and act east policies are the results of this. Indian government is working to build good relations with East and southeast Asia. This most recent incursion into Myanmar by Indian special forces shows that those efforts have been somewhat successful.

[Balrog]

In the past I've read that India's foreign policy was so focused on Pakistan it was almost an obsession (apparently the two countries haven't been on good terms for a few decades...) but it's interesting they seem to be paying more attention to China lately. I know they've had some disputed territory with them but it always seemed to play second-fiddle to Kashmir, at least from an outside perspective.

[Spice Runner]

In the past I've read that India's foreign policy was so focused on Pakistan it was almost an obsession (apparently the two countries haven't been on good terms for a few decades...) but it's interesting they seem to be paying more attention to China lately. I know they've had some disputed territory with them but it always seemed to play second-fiddle to Kashmir, at least from an outside perspective.

Indian foreign policy was more heavily focused on Pakistan during the 90's. Kashmir high on the foreign policy issues culminating in the short Kargil war in 1999. In the early 2000s there were several serious attempts at resolving the Kashmir issue but those went nowhere or got derailed by terrorist attacks originating from Pakistan.

After 2001 Pakistan was drafted onto team America's War on Terror so their focus shifted to Afghanistan. Meanwhile in India a new administration (UPA) swept into power in 2007 whose focus was mainly the economy. They kind of ignores foreign affairs including Pakistan except for the occasional cross border exchange of fire in Kashmir.

The 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai made already bad relations with Pakistan worse. The UPA government basically ignored Pakistan while trying to improve Indian influence with the new government in Afghanistan and a greater focus on friendly relations with Iran, East and southeast Asia. Trade and business ties played a large part in this reorientation.

With the nationalist BJP government in power since 2014 India has been more or less ignoring Pakistan. The new administration's foreign policy seems to be more focused on relations with China and our other regional neighbors.

As for Kahmir, while on paper India still claims the entirety of Kashmir as per the 1947 accession, however I believe the government is satisfied with the status quo as it stands with the current line of control. Pakistan can agitate about Kashmir, India just ignores them. Just recently elections were held I'm Indian Kashmir and former separatists from the 80's (PDP) formed a coalition government with the ruling party India (BJP).

[Pelranius]

In the past I've read that India's foreign policy was so focused on Pakistan it was almost an obsession (apparently the two countries haven't been on good terms for a few decades...) but it's interesting they seem to be paying more attention to China lately. I know they've had some disputed territory with them but it always seemed to play second-fiddle to Kashmir, at least from an outside perspective.

The disputed territory in the west (Aksai Chin) is part of India's claimed Kashmir, so resolving it with China is a bit sticky.

China also claims most of the Arunachal Pradesh province, for their part, but I get the impression that they wouldn't be exactly thrilled if New Delhi just handed them the keys to that place tomorrow (Beijing would go crazy trying to maintain law and order in, nevermind integrate, Arunachal Pradesh).

[mr friendly guy]

IIRC correctly, China has at numerous times offered India a solution to their border dispute where both sides just formalise the areas they have under control. India wasn't interested.

[Spice Runner]

IIRC correctly, China has at numerous times offered India a solution to their border dispute where both sides just formalise the areas they have under control. India wasn't interested.

I am baffled by this. I think that would be the ideal solution through bilateral agreement formalize our areas of control with China and with Pakistan. We should formalize Indian sovereignty over Arunchal Pradesh and Chinese sovereignty over Aksai Chin. That would resolve many long standing tensions.

The disputed territory in the west (Aksai Chin) is part of India's claimed Kashmir, so resolving it with China is a bit sticky

I suspect Indian politics has a lot to do with the impasse. Any politician accused of "giving away our rightful land" would be hanged at the nearest lamppost.

[Spice Runner]

Now, even a decade ago, when I was in India the news channels were deomonstrating the range of India's new missiles based on where in China they could hit, so bit of jousting and mudslinging that way is not surprising. Even so, Welcome to the Great Game, Eastern Expansion

Yeah I remember the Indian media outlets dubbing the new ballistic nuclear missiles "China Killer". Sometimes our media is just plain embarrassing. Americans have to put up with one Fox News. Indians unfortunately have to put up with dozens of "Fox News's"

[Pelranius]

Well, we have only one Fox News on TV, but multiple clones on the Internet, and let's not get started on talk radio...

Aung Su Ki (sp) is going to visit China soon, I think she'll even meet with President Xi.

[UnderAGreySky]

In the past I've read that India's foreign policy was so focused on Pakistan it was almost an obsession (apparently the two countries haven't been on good terms for a few decades...) but it's interesting they seem to be paying more attention to China lately. I know they've had some disputed territory with them but it always seemed to play second-fiddle to Kashmir, at least from an outside perspective.

It is my opinion that India started progressing in the world once it stopped comparing everything it was doing to how well Pakistan did the same thing. I know it's a bit of a superficial example, but cricket is the best indicator: we used to be satisfied with beating Pakistan in the world cup no matter how badly we did in the rest of the tournament. Now it's different, beating Pakistan is still regarded as important but doing well in the world cup is equally if not more critical.

It's a bit similar - we now want our cities to look like Shanghai and Singapore and Hong Kong, not better than Lahore or Karachi.

I suspect Indian politics has a lot to do with the impasse. Any politician accused of "giving away our rightful land" would be hanged at the nearest lamppost.

Yup, I'm with you on this. The army and opposing parties will both crucify any government that does an Aksai Chin/Arunachal swap.

Sometimes our media is just plain embarrassing. Americans have to put up with one Fox News. Indians unfortunately have to put up with dozens of "Fox News's"

Just sometimes? Dear God, I can't bear to watch or read half of our media sources at any time. Defence reporting in particular is horrible.

[blowfish]

Remember that time John Oliver (I think) bought a newspaper article to tell everyone he's awesome?