Enter the Dragon

Episode #517: “They are using each other for their own benefit.” With this line, Wai Yan Phyo Naing frames a sober account of SinoMyanmar relations. A researcher and lecturer in international relations and modern history who studied in Moscow and later worked with migrants in Thailand, Wai Yan Phyo Naing brings both scholarship and field experience to the conversation. For Wai Yan Phyo Naing, the relationship is transactional. “China is only interested in its national interests,” he says. “China is ready to communicate with whoever becomes powerful in Myanmar.” Myanmar engages because it must, yet, as Wai Yan Phyo Naing insists, “Myanmar is a sovereign, independent state—not a province of China.” Geography drives the rest: China seeks an outlet to the Indian Ocean, and Myanmar’s coast provides it. The pipelines from Kyaukphyu to Yunnan are operating; the rail vision remains contested—proof, Wai Yan Phyo Naing says, that consent and fair terms decide outcomes. Security realities push cooperation, as Wai Yan Phyo Naing notes that China brokered talks with MNDAA, TNLA, and AA, even “opened the observer office in Lashio,” and, as the generals realized the limits of unilateral force, they came to “appreciate the Chinese intervention.” The darker side of crossborder interdependence is the scam economy, which Wai Yan Phyo Naing calls “like a cancer.” Strategically, Wai Yan Phyo Naing recounts how Beijing once “wanted to create the tunnel… to the Ayeyarwady River and then to the sea.” That was rejected, but “the port project, gas and oil pipeline” are now real, and China is “ready to continue their highspeed railroad from Yunnan.” The moral is unchanged: both states pursue advantage, and Myanmar must bargain hard. Wai Yan Phyo Naing cautions against extremes. “Whoever holds power in Myanmar cannot forget China’s presence,” he says. “Please don’t forget we are just beside China… we shouldn’t see China as a ‘bad guy’ all the time.”