Sharing the Spoils: Winners and Losers in the Belt and Road Initiative in Myanmar

Abstract

This article studies the impact of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) on economic actors in Myanmar. It hypothesizes that the BRI has strong transformative potential, because Chinese projects are likely to transform Myanmar’s economy on different scales and influence the allocation of economic benefits and losses for different actors. The study identifies economic actors in Myanmar who are likely to be most affected by BRI projects. It also discusses how BRI-related investments could affect the country’s complex conflict dynamics. The article concludes with policy recommendations for decision makers in Myanmar, China, and the international community for mitigating the BRI’s possible negative impacts. The analysis draws on secondary sources and primary data collection in the form of interviews with key actors in Hsipaw, Lashio, and Yangon, involved with and informed about the BRI in Myanmar at the local, regional, and national levels.

Sovereign anxiety in Myanmar: An emotional geopolitics of China's Belt and Road Initiative

“…As scholars demonstrate, it is difficult to determine which projects are part of the CMEC (Mark et al, 2020). In Myanmar, apart from elite political leaders, residents often do not know the details of BRI projects.…”

“…He points towards ‘weak law enforcement and corrupt officers’ for heightening his anxieties over Chinese investment. The CMEC favours businesses who already have close links with the Myanmar government and military while leaving others in the lurch, unsure of what to expect (Mark et al, 2020). While the former experience the CMEC as bringing prosperity to Myanmar, others see it as removing resources that are rightfully theirs.…”

“…Moreover, the CMEC has been associated with the rise of a new, under‐studied security complex. To secure its CMEC investments, the Chinese government hired the Frontier Services Group, which worked with the American military in Iraq (Mark et al, 2020). Already in other Chinese‐funded projects, private security forces have distressed locals who ‘feel China is penetrating into their land’ (military analyst, cited in Mark et al, 2020, p. 395).…”

Uneven Frontiers: Exposing the Geopolitics of Myanmar’s Borderlands with Critical Remote Sensing

“…This uneven geography of authority, conflict, natural resource extraction, and informal migration has structured Myanmar's development prospects, especially along its borders with China, Thailand, Laos, India, and Bangladesh. After reforms began, China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which launched in 2013, targeted Myanmar's borderlands at the crossroads of South and Southeast Asia with ambitious plans for infrastructure projects ranging from domestic hydropower plants to cross-border transportation corridors [27][28][29][30][31]. At the same time, the Myanmar military's violent persecution of the Rohingya in Rakhine State, in western Myanmar bordering Bangladesh, led over 900,000 people to flee the country after the genocide intensified in 2017 [32].…”

Environmental Challenges, Opportunities, and Policy Implications to Materialize China’s Green Belt and Road Initiative

“…Despite those potential economic benefits, such a large, cross-border project entailing the expansion and upgrading of such colossal infrastructure as roads, railways, airports, ports, power stations, and pipelines, comes with considerable risks. In addition to causing possible economic issues to local communities, such as disproportionally reallocating economic benefits and losses [6], it may pose daunting environmental and climate challenges. China has proposed to construct a green BRI [7], but still, possible environmental repercussions, such as worsening pollution, depleting resources, and sabotaging land, water, and wildlife as well as escalating climate change, have become a cause for deep concern and a target for criticism [8][9][10].…”