Sittwe Port Deal With Myanmar: India Will Have To Combat Dual Challenges Of Chinese Competition And Local Insurgency

Just a few days back (7 April), India secured rights to operate Myanmar’s Sittwe Port. However, this longstanding quest to acquire the port is far from over.

India’s work has just begun, as it now faces the dual challenges of local insurgency and competition from China.

Sittwe Port, situated in the restive Rakhine state on the western coast of Myanmar, became operational after a two-decade-long effort by India.

The port is part of the ambitious Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project (KMMTTP) envisioned to provide alternative connectivity to India’s northeastern states, bypassing the long and treacherous mountainous route that gets cut off from the rest of India during monsoons due to frequent landslides.

This alternative route was considered key to unlocking the economic potential of India’s North East by connecting it to Myanmar and then to Thailand and the rest of South and Southeast Asia.

Conceptualised in 2003 under the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and signed in 2008 by the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, the KMMTTP had two components.

First, the water component, which involves transporting goods from India’s Kolkata port to Sittwe Port, from where they will take a 157-kilometre inland waterway route over the Kaladan River to Paletwa in Rakhine state.

Second, the land component, which involves a 109-kilometre-long highway connecting Paletwa to Zorinpui in Mizoram.

The water component is now complete with the operations of the Sittwe Port handed over to India, including dredging of the Kaladan River and a jetty at Paletwa.

However, construction of the land component has not even started, against the deadline of 2014, due to various factors including bureaucratic delays and opposition from local communities and civil society groups.

But now, after the military coup of February 2021, the Rakhine state has entered into a bloody phase of fighting, with ethnic groups and insurgents led by the Arakan Army (AA) capturing major towns of Rakhine from Myanmar’s military, casting a shadow over the project's future.

India, just two months ago (February 2024), issued an advisory warning Indian citizens not to travel to Rakhine state due to the danger of getting caught in the crossfire between the insurgents and the military junta, and the fear of being kidnapped by insurgents.

Notably, in 2019, ten people, including four Indian nationals working on the KMMTTP project, were kidnapped by the AA. They were safely returned, but not before one Indian died of a heart attack in AA’s captivity.

The AA, however, has shown some signs of allowing the project to proceed. A spokesperson for the AA, in an interview in February 2024, said that the future of the Kaladan project is safe and would not be harmed.

India also tried to take advantage of this opening.

K Vanlalvena, a Rajya Sabha MP from Mizoram, visited Myanmar in late February near Paletwa and met with leaders of the AA to discuss the KMMTTP, and how the it can be restarted.

The situation is further complicated by infighting between different ethnic groups. Paletwa town, where the land component of the project starts, borders both Bangladesh and India, and lies within the territory of the Chin National Army, another ethnic group.

The capture of the town by the AA has raised tensions between the two, further compounding the situation. Balancing both the Chin and Arakan Army will be a key factor in determining whether India can restart the construction of the road from Paletwa to Zorinpui.

Another sticking point is the Chinese.

They are building the Kyaukphyu deep-sea port, again on the western coast of Myanmar, just 120 kilometres away. Kyaukphyu, with a higher depth, is planned to be a bigger project than Sittwe port.

Moreover, China and India are themselves in a geopolitical rivalry, with China trying to increase its influence and displace India as the prime naval power in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). It is expected that the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) will deploy an aircraft carrier battle group in the Indian Ocean in the 2030s.

Letting an Indian project go through, so close to their own strategic project is not exactly in Chinese favour right now.

The Kyaukphyu project is also supposed to be another route to bypass the vulnerable Malacca Straits, across which more than 60 per cent of Chinese trade passes.

Furthermore, the Chinese also exercise considerable influence over the Arakan Army. While the Indian KMMTTP project was stuck, the Chinese projects were not, hinting at some sort of a tacit understanding between the Chinese and the AA.

The Chinese can use this influence with the AA, or with other insurgent and ethnic groups, to make life hard for India, further delaying the project.

The more the project is delayed, the better for the Chinese, especially since one of the reasons for conceptualising the KMMTTP project was to find an alternative route to prevent northeastern states from being cut off from the rest of India, if the Chinese were to capture the Siliguri Corridor (the Chicken Neck area), in the event of a war.

The Siliguri Corridor is a small patch of land that is 20-22 kilometres wide at its narrowest area, with Nepal and Bangladesh on either side, connecting the northeastern states.

Therefore, even though India has gained access to Sittwe, a lot of hard work and time still need to be spent before India starts reaping some benefits from the project.