Borderlands

This chapter discusses China's interest in feeding its energy requirements partly from the Bay of Bengal has contributed to producing a heightened military-economic approach to managing 'border development' in contemporary Myanmar. It focuses on 'borderlands' issues of economic imbalance, constraint and opportunity, which also arises from a long process of historical interaction with different regimes at 'the centre'. Myanmar's modern borders started to materialise at the end of the eighteenth century and the initial process was also influenced by humanitarian crisis that saw hundreds of small vessels set out on a journey from the Bay of Bengal transporting people in search of refuge. Under General Ne Win's rule, the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) government's decision to resort to increasingly violent and coercive means to secure authority over border areas invariably served to inspire greater resistance. New opportunities and motivations to consolidate state power were also emerging, which the State Law and Order Restoration Council was quick to act upon.