China and India Compete for Influence in War on Border

China and India have found themselves embroiled in a battle for influence in neighboring Myanmar as a guerrilla war rages in the tropical jungles behind their shared borders.

The Burmese civil war had been simmering since a military coup in February 2021 toppled Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government. The conflict has taken on a new dimension with recent revelations of Indian fuel and weapons sales to mysterious entities behind Myanmar’s junta.

Both Beijing and New Delhi have lent some form of support to the military government next door in an effort to control the fighting and prevent it from spilling over, while trying to ensure the regime does not completely fall under the other camp’s influence.

The regional rivalry between the two Asian giants, who have their own long-running disagreements at their contested Himalayan border, doubtless is part of the equation. However, with vital economic and strategic interests in Myanmar, China is making a point of talking to both the junta and the rebels—ethnic groups that described themselves as insurgents.

The United Nations last month estimated that the civil war had already sent thousands of refugees fleeing into neighboring countries and displaced nearly 2 million people within Myanmar itself.

The situation in war-torn Myanmar remains fluid, with or without India-China competition, but the conflict’s resolution may yet determine the region’s balance of power.

India has called for the restoration of democracy in the country, but it remains entangled in a complex web of relationships with the ruling powers. A separate U.N. report last May said Indian entities had dispatched $51 million worth of military-related exports to Myanmar since the junta took power.

This month, the Frontier Myanmar magazine in Yangon said the state-owned Indian Oil Corp., known for its history of supplies to Myanmar’s military, had sold over $3.7 million worth of fuel, including more than $1.5 million in navy-grade diesel, to a Burmese consignee known simply as “The Master.”

Since the company established a trade link with Myanmar in 2017, it has shipped $284 million worth of fuel, oil, gasoline, and related materials to the country, mostly to Myanmar Chemical and Machinery, a firm accused of brokering arms deals for the military junta, and whose director, Aung Hlaing Oo, has been sanctioned by the United States, Canada and Britain since 2022, according to the news outlet.

Indian Oil Corp. ceased shipments of oil refinement products to the Myanmar company shortly after the sanctions, but it continued to send fuel, Frontier Myanmar said.

Myanmar risks becoming a pawn in a geopolitical chess match involving multiple stakeholders whose decisions could have far-reaching implications.

Angshuman Choudhury, an associate fellow at the New Delhi think tank Center for Policy Research, said India’s support for Myanmar’s junta hinges on preserving influence and balancing China’s presence in the country.

“However, in my opinion, this is a miscalculation as the junta is thoroughly unpopular in Myanmar, and the ground reality has dramatically changed in the last few months in favor of the pro-democracy resistance,” Choudhury told Newsweek. “The junta is in no position to protect Indian strategic, political, and economic interests in Myanmar, including along the borders.”

“If Delhi really wants to offset the Chinese presence, it should have ideally opened communication channels with armed groups close to its borders while speaking up more clearly in favor of a federal democracy in Myanmar and keeping its contact with the junta to a bare minimum,” Choudhury said.

“As the biggest democracy in the region, that would have significantly boosted India’s image—and hence political leverage—in Myanmar, projecting it as a real alternative to China, whose authoritarian style of governance doesn’t cohere with the pro-democracy revolution,” Choudhury added.

The junta, meanwhile, could try to limit any outside attempts to engage with the Three Brotherhood Alliance rebels, according to Aparna Pande, a research fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Hudson Institute think tank.

In an October analysis for the Geopolitical Intelligence Services website, Pande wrote: “The regime is aware of the strategic competition between India and China and will seek to play one against the other to obtain benefits from both.”

“Beijing’s support for the junta has never been unconditional. When the junta infringed upon China’s core national interest—in eliminating cyber scam operations—China had every reason to want to slap the junta on the wrist. But that punishment is not unlimited. China is not aimed at pushing the junta out,” said Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington, D.C.

Sun told Newsweek that Beijing does not necessarily view New Delhi’s support for the junta as detrimental to its interests.

“The competition in Myanmar has not been between China and India. Instead, in the Chinese view, it has been between China and the U.S.,” Sun said. “China does not see India as having as many resources or the will to wage those resources in Myanmar.”

The fuel trade is merely one facet of India’s alliance with Myanmar’s government since the coup d’etat nearly three years ago, but observers said that relationship should be made more transparent.

Daw Yadanar Maung, a spokesperson for the Justice For Myanmar activist group, told Frontier Myanmar that New Delhi was complicit in the junta’s actions by legitimizing it. Indian Oil Corp. should disclose “the importer and end-user” of its fuel because it risks landing in the hands of the Myanmar Navy, Yadanar Maung said.

On the ground, the rebel offensive known as “Operation 1027″—initiated in late October—has rattled Myanmar’s military, which has lost key outposts and border crossings near China and India. Aside from refugees, Burmese junta troops have also been sighted fleeing into India, China, and Thailand.

“The junta was wrong to assume that ethnic armies would crumble under pressure. In fact, the 2021 coup exacerbated ethnic minority anxieties and pushed even signatories of the 2015 Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement—signed by Naypyidaw and nearly 10 different rebel groups—to the jungles,” Avinash Paliwal, a reader in international relations at SOAS, University of London, wrote in the Foreign Affairs magazine this week.

In recent months, the situation at the border with India has rapidly deteriorated amid intense fighting. In November, New Delhi issued a travel advisory, urging Indian nationals to avoid nonessential visits to Myanmar and cautioning Indians already residing in the country to avoid violence-affected regions.

On Thursday, a Myanmar military aircraft overshot the runway at Lengpui Airport in India’s northeastern Mizoram state, injuring at least 14 people on board. The plane was there to repatriate soldiers who had escaped conflict zones.

According to Myanmar’s local news outlets, more than 250 soldiers crossed into India this month alone after armed opposition groups seized control of military outposts near the border. The Indian government is sending them back.

The Chinese and Indian foreign ministries did not return Newsweek‘s requests for comment before publication.