The past two decades have placed Myanmar at the center of the India-China rivalry in Southeast Asia, resulting from India's shift in its Myanmar policy in the early 1990s. After harshly denying any legitimacy to the military government that took power in September 1988 in a bloodbath, India decided to engage Myanmar in the 1990s, as part of its Look East Policy that aimed at gaining from the fast-growing Southeast Asian economies.

However, another factor also dictated this turnaround - China. The Chinese threat - or its perception - was nothing new to Indian foreign policy, but at the time there seemed to seep into the establishment the idea that principles could, and should, be shed in the face of China's deepening clutches on the Myanmarese military regime. From India's late reaction sprang a new flashpoint of Sino-Indian competition. Courting the Myanmarese generals in order to advance their positions, India and China, apart from countering each other's might, crystallized their rivalry around three parallel sets of interests.

First, India and China both needed to secure and/or develop a peripheral region, respectively, the Indian Northeast and Yunnan. To compensate for its being left behind in China's economic reforms, China's Yunnan enjoyed great autonomy in interacting and integrating with its geographical neighbours. As a result, regional projects such as the Greater Mekong Subregion and the Kunming Initiative came up. However, India remained entangled in a security approach towards its Northeast, unsuccessfully attempting joint counter-insurgency operations with the Myanmarese military, until a more developmental approach took over when, in 2004, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh "commit[ed] [the Indian] Government to making Assam the centre of [a] great economic enterprise towards the East." Despite such enthusiasm, Northeast India has by no means received the kind of autonomy Yunnan has.

Second, both India and China saw Myanmar as a bridge - while India considered Myanmar as the gateway for its Look East Policy, China wished to gain access to the Indian Ocean through the Irrawaddy valley, in the hope of building an alternative import route. As of now, none of these projects have been effectively concretized.

Finally, India and China have been running after Myanmar's natural resources -particularly natural gas - and garnered criticism for disregarding that country's human rights record. By massively exporting natural resources - to gas, one should add teak and precious stones - the military government showed great ability in utilizing its neighbours' ambitions to maintain a constant inflow of foreign currency.

India has always felt uneasy in dealing with Myanmar's repressive government and despite its courting of the junta, India's benefits from of its engagement policy remain to be seen. China, meanwhile, seems to be growing wary of an unreliable dictatorship that requires constant feeding and patting in exchange for loyalty.

Therefore, one may wonder whether the time has not come for India and China to see Myanmar as a uniting link rather than a place where their interests clash. Could not India and China promote their interests together?

An institutional springboard - the Kunming Initiative - already exists, through which Myanmar can act as a uniting factor in Sino-Indian relations. In order to "strengthen regional economic cooperation and cultural exchange among the contiguous regions," the 2000 China Report on the Track II organization states, "the role of academia is to conceptualise the idea of regional cooperation", that of the governments to facilitate the process, and that of business and industry to implement this grand design on the basis of equality and mutual benefit."

The Initiative brought back to the table the project of the reopening of the Stillwell Road that is currently stalled in the Kachin hills of Myanmar. Ledo in Assam is just about 800km away from the Yunnan border east of Bhamo in Kachin State. If this linkage can truly contribute to mutual prosperity in a substantial way, then India and China should pool in money and construct a shining highway that will efficiently carry trade through.

In addition to enhanced connectivity between India's Northeast and China's Yunnan, trade potential should be furthered by developing private joint-ventures involving India, China and Myanmar, an objective included in the Kunming Initiative. Numerous joint-ventures have already taken place between India and China: in healthcare IT for instance, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council reported a joint-venture between Yunnan Sunpa Image Tele Tech Co. Ltd. and India's Sobha Renaissance Information Technology in 2007. If Guwahati and Kunming are just a few days' drive away, joint-ventures between the two regional capitals should easily be achieved in the future.

However, to turn Northeast India-Yunnan trade by road into a stable reality, certain political reforms have to be pushed for coordinately by India and China so that economic opportunities can flourish in Myanmar. The military government could, like many Asian regimes, choose to stress economic rights over political rights. This may be the key to the region's development, keeping aside happier options like the success of the pro-democracy movement. Crucial reforms in Myanmar will first have to address the absence of rule of law by protecting property rights and ending forced labour, and deal with the rampant inflation largely due to irresponsible money minting. Only then can Myanmar unite India and China rather than divide them.