ABSTRACT
The ethnic dynamics between China and Myanmar belong to the classic genre of shared borders and histories that have characterised the several states of South and Southeast Asia. Like India, China and Myanmar have a long border inhabited by ethnic groups having strong cross-border kinship ties. It was not without a strategic forethought that the leadership of Burma and China embarked upon a shared relationship of friendship, termed the pauk phaw, or fraternal relationship. The premise of such a shared friendship was laid down during U Nu's visit to China in 1954 and an ensuing joint communiqué of the leaders of the two states. The premise was sought to be further consolidated during the agreement on peaceful co-existence in the Afro-Asian Conference in Bandung in 1955. Pauk phaw or fraternal friendship was reiterated once again by Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, on an official state visit in 2019, on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of Sino-Myanmar diplomatic relations. China and Myanmar, further, pledged to strengthen communication and high-level exchanges, according to a meeting held between Myanmar's State Counsellor and Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi and Wang Yi. Wang had called for a comprehensive push forward to cooperation in areas including economy, trade, people-to-people, and cultural exchanges. As Myanmar has manoeuvred towards China, the latter's great power ambitions have aimed at manipulating ethnic minorities, especially in resource-rich and strategically important zones of contact. China's diplomacy, today, unambiguously assumes control over ethnic minority groups in conflict zones of the border states as a key component in furthering its national interests. Sino-Myanmar relations have gradually evolved on this very premise of managing ethnic minority groups, both by overt and covert means. Thus, China's balancing act in the case of Myanmar, has been to manage the government of the day as also simultaneously engage with the ethnic groups to protect its investments in the state.
