Photographer: Ye Thung Gu / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Ye Thung Gu / AFP / Getty Images
Indian officials say China is helping rebel groups that have stepped up attacks on its border with Myanmar in recent months, and opened another front in the conflict between the two countries, which are already embroiled in a deadly stalemate in the Himalayas.
According to Indian officials, armed groups in Myanmar, including the United States Army and the Arkan Army, which have been designated as terrorist organizations this year, are working with Beijing’s proxies to supply arms and locations to insurgent groups in India’s northeastern states. Asked not to identify due to speaking rules.
A convoy of Indian troops headed for Leh on the highway on the Chinese border on September 2.
Photographer: Yawar Nazir / Getty Images
Officials said several security agencies had warned Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government that at least four of India’s most wanted rebel leaders were in the southern Chinese city of Kunming, so that training and source weapons could be conducted as early as mid-October. The group, which includes three ethnic Naga rebels fighting for a separate homeland in the Indo-Myanmar border region, met with acting and retired Chinese military officials as well as other intermediaries who formed the informal network, Indian officials said.
Rebel Border
Ethnic military groups are active in both India and Myanmar
Source: Bloomberg
Increasing activity along the Myanmar border has raised concerns in New Delhi that the Indian military remains tense with China and Pakistan over other parts of its land border, which stretches for about 14,000 kilometers (8,700 miles). India moved several battalions with about 1,000 troops into the Myanmar border area after a soldier was killed in a surprise attack on October 21, officials said.
Chinese rejection
China’s foreign ministry has denied allegations that it supports armed groups against India, saying it would not interfere in other countries’ affairs. “China has always had a prudent and responsible attitude towards arms exports,” the ministry said in a written reply to questions. “We only do military trade in collaboration with sovereign states and do not sell weapons to non-state actors.”
The United States Army also denied China’s role in providing aid or support to Indian rebel groups, among other factors, at a distance of 50,000 miles from their headquarters and between the Indo-Myanmar border.
The group said, “India has nothing to do with national security, and we are not doing any harm to that country. Therefore, we feel that we do not need to comment on such allegations, “said Nya Range, a spokesman for the United States Army. “
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Indian officials said the most recent uprising in violence was in September, when the Naga rebels walked away from decades of peace talks. On September 28, Indian border guards intercepted a large cache of weapons designed for Indian insurgent groups on the Indo-Myanmar border and arrested three suspected gun operators, according to officials with direct knowledge of the matter.
New Delhi officials said the detainees explained that the Indian rebels were being supplied weapons by the Arkan Army, which in turn had Chinese support to secure investments such as roads and gas pipelines in the economic corridor from Sittwe port to Kunming. China is helping the Indian rebels with weapons and logistics, including residences on the Indo-Myanmar border, officials said. Noticed.
Calls and WhatsApp messages requesting the Indian Home Ministry to comment went unanswered. Repeated attempts to contact senior members of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, whose leaders are believed to be in Kunming, failed.
Armed militia
There are several dozen armed militant groups active in the northeast of India, fighting for independence or more autonomy. Asked by reporters in November whether China was using armed ethnic groups in Myanmar to support Indian rebels, a senior Indian Home Ministry official declined to give a direct answer. “Some insurgent groups are troublemakers, but we are in peace talks with others,” Ajay Bhalla, a top Home Ministry official, said in a webinar hosted by National. Defense College Ledge.
Brig. Myanmar Army spokesman General Zhou Min Tun did not respond to emailed questions. Myanmar earlier this year Arakan designated the Army as a terrorist organization.
The Indian army chief arrived in Nagaland on November 24 for a three-day visit, indicating a new intensity of conflict. In late October, Indian and Myanmar troops launched a joint operation targeting Indian insurgent groups, including one called the People’s Liberation Army of Manipur. Meanwhile, Myanmar’s military has targeted armed ethnic groups such as the Arkan Army along the border.
To be sure, the level of Chinese aid to the rebels in the region is not close to the 1960s and 70s.
Armed ethnic rebels erupted in India’s far northeastern states in the 1950s and 1960s, a bitter rival being Pakistan, the first to supply arms to armed groups. Soon after, however, “it was China that became the main provider of a ceasefire for ethnic rebels. Many were also trained in China. It supports groups, but they have gained access to the so-called black – more gray in reality – arms market in China. “
Interest contest
“China is unlikely to use a third country to put pressure on India because it would persuade New Delhi’s leaders to do the same,” said Fan Hongwei, a professor at Siemens University’s Southeast Asian Studies Research School.
“China will Hope To reconcile rather than complicate bilateral issues between the two countries, which will not take into account China’s consistent policy and interests, “he said.
Both India and China are investing in Myanmar for strategic reasons. Beijing is investing in gas pipelines and roads to connect its southern province of Greece with the Bay of Bengal, so that the key to bypassing the Malacca Strip between Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore can be imported. Meanwhile, India is investing Rs 29 billion (29 292 million) in the Kaladan multimodal project to connect its underdeveloped northeastern states with the Bay of Bengal.
“China knows that the region is crucial for India’s future engagement in Southeast Asia,” said Ian Hall Hall, a professor of international relations. Australia Griffith University in Queensland, Australia and author of ‘Modi and Indian Foreign Policy Reconstruction’. “He also knows that securing the region is challenging and it has been very costly for New Delhi in the past.”
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