China has also
spent heavily in Myanmar developing offshore oil and gas fields in the Bay of
Bengal, as well as connecting pipelines to China. This was part of a larger overall investment in Myanmar’s
security, transportation, and industrial development, a project that begun shortly
after the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Myanmar, with its long, tentacled coastline and large natural resource
base, served as a Chinese counterpoint to the U.S. presence in Iraq. As it was put by F. William Engdahl:
Beijing poured
billions of dollars of military assistance into Myanmar, including fighter and
transport aircraft, tanks and armored personnel carriers, naval vessels and
surface to air missiles. China
built up Myanmar’s railroads and roads, and won permission to station its
troops in Myanmar. China,
according to Indian Defense sources, also built a large electronic surveillance
facility on Myanmar’s Coco Island and was building Naval bases for access to
the Indian Ocean.[1]
While the U.S.
had just doubled down on its thirty-year old project to militarily control the
Persian Gulf, China was building a similar security bastion across the Indian
Ocean in Myanmar.
The Chinese
government, through state owned companies like the Chinese National Petroleuam
Company (CNPC), also made significant investments into Myanmar’s energy
resources, namely the Shwe offshore gas field, discovered in 2004. China and India had been in competition
to develop and export this field, and in 2007 the Chinese National Petroleum
Company won, signing a 30 year agreement with the Myanmar. China’s project was actually a
tri-project: a large deep-sea port at Maday Island, off the Arakan coast, and a
set of duel 2,300 km oil and gas pipelines from this port to China’s Yunnan
Province.[2] China also set out to build a major oil
refinery in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, and from there distribute the
Myanmar oil and gas to the rest of Southwestern China. The final details of the pipelines,
estimated to cost $1.5 billion for the oil line and $1.04 billion for the gas
line, were agreed to in November of 2008, and construction is still ongoing
today, at a feverish pace, with aim to complete the projects by April 2013.[3] A recent New York Times article on the subject describes “trucks laden with
pipes,” that “trundle through villages around the clock,” and bulldozers that
“dig trenches 12 hours a day.”[4]
Altogether 240,000 barrels per day of crude oil are expected to be shipped to
China, netting the Myanmar government $1 billion a year.
China is also
constructing a high-speed railway, which follows the same route as the
pipeline. It runs from Ruili in Southwestern Yunnan Province and Kyaukpyu Port
along the Irrawaddy River.
Construction, which begun in 2011, is already half complete, with tracks
running north having reached Myanmar’s second city of Mandalay. The 810km line is set to open in 2013.[5] Spurs off of this main line are planned
to Myanmar’s largest city of Yangon, as well as northeast towards Thailand and
Cambodia, eventually creating an entire Southeast Asia trade system.[6]
However, there
is a large amount of controversy associated with the pipelines, and Chinese
projects in Myanmar altogether. Land seizures and displacements along the
pipeline route have caused anger, as has the entire concept of exporting
Myanmar’s energy resources, as many of its citizens go without daily
electricity. In its northern
reaches, the pipelines cut through the Shan state, home to a multitude of ethnic
separatist movements and paramilitaries that wage a simmering conflict with the
(Burmese) government. These areas
can flare up when the Myanmar military, known as the Tatwada Army, conducts
operations, as paramilitary opposition forces like the United We Stand Army
(UWSA) and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) number 30,000 and 10,000
respectively, making them more than capable of causing trouble for government
security and energy operations. [7] A pipeline is an easy target to disrupt
with big political value, and the Myanmar government will be reaping a windfall
in taxes from the gush of oil flowing north to China every day.
One major
Chinese project, the Myitsone mega dam at the northern head of the Irawaddy
River, was already suspended by the Myanmar government in September 2011, after
a large bout of popular protest opposed to the dam’s construction. In the face of this action and other
Myanmar opposition, China has pledged $6 million in aid and $1.2 for school
construction in areas affected by Chinese projects.
Just as with the
High-Speed Rail corridors, China’s goal in building these gas pipelines is to
decrease their reliance on Indian ocean shipping, and specifically the
chokepoint of the Straits of Malacca.
As of 2010, 82% of Chinese oil imports traveled through the Straits,
virtually all oil imported from the Persian Gulf, Africa, or the Americas. By developing energy infrastructure in
Central Asia and Myanmar, China is able to cut down on its usage of this
southern shipping route, which after the Straits of Malacca includes the
contentious South China Sea. While
China will certainly not abandon shipping oil from areas like Africa, where
they have made significant investments in the Sudan and Angola, the overland
routes from neighboring states are of vital worth, as they provide diversity if
one of the world’s shipping chokepoints (Straits of Hormuz, Straits of Malacca)
were to be closed due to conflict.
The Chinese dreams is for their reliance on energy shipped through the
Straits of Malacca to be reduced
to zero, with the Myanmar port and pipeline handling all cargo.
[1] F. William
Engdahl, Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World
Order (Baton Rouge: Third Millenium Press,
2009), p. 94.
[2] Ibid., p.
95.
[3] “China,
Myanmar to Build $2.5 billion Pipelines, Nikkei Says,” Bloomberg News, 11/17/08. (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a7TZ0v82ODSA)
[4] “Myanmar
Reforms Set U.S. and China in Race for Sway,” New York Times, 3/31/12. (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/31/world/asia/myanmar-reforms-set-us-and-china-in-race-for-sway.html?pagewanted=all)
[5] “China’s
Pipelines in Myanmar,” Shivananda H, Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses
(India), 1/10/12. (http://www.idsa.in/idsacomments/ChinasPipelinesinMyanmar_shivananda_100112#.T9Inv679WMU)
[6] “China
outward bound through Myanmar,” Bryan McCarten, Asia Times, 1/8/11. (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/MA08Ae01.html)
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