Why India is snubbing the Myanmar junta’s foreign minister at ASEAN meet
According to media reports, New Delhi won't invite the Myanmar coup regime's foreign minister for the upcoming India-ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting. Here's why.
This piece was first published in the 3 June 2022 edition of The India Cable and has been republished here with permission. Read the original piece here.
The Hindu reports that India is “likely to not include” Myanmar’s junta-appointed Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin for the upcoming India-ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting. New Delhi will instead invite the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, U Chan Aye.
According to the report, India did this to “follow the consensus of ASEAN countries” which had also boycotted the minister and instead, invited U Chan Aye ― a “non-political”, “non-military” representative ― to its ministerial meeting in Cambodia. In response, the junta had boycotted the ASEAN meeting. The Chindwin reported that India’s decision was influenced by “direct pressure from its Quad allies” at the recent Tokyo summit.
To be clear, U Chan Aye too is junta-appointed. So, India isn’t completely shutting out the military regime that grabbed power on February 1, 2021 and later installed the ‘State Administration Council (SAC)’.
But India, which had refused to take coercive or isolationist action, has shifted the needle just a bit. It followed ASEAN’s lead despite knowing that the junta hadn’t taken its past snub lightly. It’s not a wholly insignificant diplomatic downgrade.
It remains to be seen if the junta accepts the “non-political” invite or completely boycotts the meetings like it did with ASEAN. This is important, because the junta has received some degree of legitimacy from India.
Last December, New Delhi sent Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla to Naypyitaw to meet coup leader Min Aung Hlaing, among others. The Ministry of External Affairs had referred to Hlaing as “Chairman, State Administration Council”. I had earlier argued that this was tacit recognition of the regime. The junta had flashed images of Shringla meeting Hlaing on the front page of its propaganda mouthpiece.
In April, India’s newly-appointed ambassador to Myanmar, Vinay Kumar, presented his credentials to Hlaing, which was seen as recognition for the junta. Photographs of a smiling Kumar shaking hands with the coup leader received much flak on Burmese social media.
Amidst global criticism of the coup, Western sanctions and cold shoulders from ASEAN, “normal” diplomatic engagement with India is valuable currency, so the junta might feel the pinch of New Delhi’s downgrade more keenly.
But really, why did India suddenly change its tune, even if marginally?
As The Hindu and The Chindwin have speculated, ASEAN and Quad could have played a role. Since the coup, India has supported ASEAN’s attempts towards resolution, and over-relied on it to navigate a complex situation. It has outsourced its Myanmar diplomacy to the 10-member organisation, which struggled to deal with the issue coherently.
By inviting a “non-political” representative from the junta, it can simply say that it is following ASEAN’s suit. This also fits with “ASEAN Centrality”, a key element of New Delhi’s Indo-Pacific narrative.
Pressure from the Quad members, especially the US, is also likely. Two months ago, The Wire revealed that the US had issued a demarche to India after BIMSTEC invited the Myanmar junta’s foreign minister for its Colombo summit. The US had urged “the grouping to isolate the junta diplomatically and follow the ASEAN model of permitting only ‘non-political’ involvement.” At that time, India had defended BIMSTEC’s decision.
But now, it might be acquiescing to American pressure. What changed? India’s neutrality on Russia has created turbulence in the India-US relationship and by compromising on Myanmar, India might be offsetting it.
Pressure from Australia, which recently downgraded its diplomatic presence in Myanmar, is also possible. In India’s evolving foreign policy calculus amidst complex geopolitics, engaging with the junta might be important, but so is preserving its relationship with the Quad partners.
But, it may not be just about ASEAN and the Quad.
In an interview with me, published by the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in February, the Foreign Minister of Myanmar’s civilian National Unity Government (NUG), Daw Zin Mar Aung, sharply criticised India for not taking a harder stance against the junta. She had equally harsh words for New Delhi in an earlier interview with Deccan Herald: “The people of Myanmar will not forget where the Government of India stood in their trying times.”
India has political, strategic, commercial and developmental interests in Myanmar. New Delhi may realise that it cannot stand by the junta if it wants to protect them. Its recent downgrade might be a reconciliatory signal to the NUG.
The NUG foreign minister recently travelled to Washington DC during the US-ASEAN summit and met senior government officials, including Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman. She also met the Malaysian foreign minister on the sidelines of the summit, which didn’t include any representative from the junta. These marked the NUG’s first major public engagement with an ASEAN country and the top rung of the Biden administration.
India might have taken a cue to make space for its own channels of communication with Myanmar’s shadow government. Whether New Delhi will actually do that anytime soon is another matter altogether.
The other reason behind the downgrade could be the junta’s underhand tactical alliance with Indian insurgent groups operating along the Northeastern borders, which makes New Delhi deeply uncomfortable. The ministerial snub could be India’s shot across the junta’s bows.
For now, India will most likely continue to engage with the Burmese junta bilaterally, and follow the ASEAN track in multilateral formats. Simultaneously, it might begin to diversify its relationships with other actors in Myanmar. Tightrope diplomacy will be sustained, but with new flavours.