The Growing Bangladesh–US–China–Myanmar Tangle

Last Sunday, Bangladesh’s Jamaat-e-Islami Secretary General Mia Golam Parwar made a strange claim: the Arakan Army had entered the Chittagong Hill Tracts and organized Arakanese New Year functions with the tribal civilian population of that area, many of whom are tied to the Arakanese and tribals from northeast India by ties of blood, religion, and, of course,  history.

Mia Parwar, in a strongly worded statement, condemned what he termed an attack on his country’s sovereignty. Though many analysts thought that was a bit rich, seeing how his party had in the 1970s fought to keep Bangladesh under Pakistan’s yoke. The Yunus government, which Jamaat strongly supports, and the Bangladesh Army had either failed to detect these Arakanese intrusions or failed to push out the heavily armed soldiers of the rebel army. 

Over the last year, the Arakan Army has routed the Myanmarese army from almost the whole of Arakan state and much of Chin state. There had been whispers of earlier intrusions and even the takeover of some border posts from the Bangladesh Border Guards by the Arakanese. The Jamaat's statement was the confirmation of what had long been suspected.

The Jamaat is heavily invested in the Rohingya refugees from Arakan, who are camped in two divisions of the Chittagong Hill Tracts area – Cox’s Bazar and Ramu – and are believed to be in touch with Rohingya militants. These rebels, curiously, have been fighting against the Arakanese alongside the Myanmar army, even though it was the Myanmar military regime which turfed them out to Bangladesh.

Some say the Rohingya ire against the Arakan Army may be because they were "paid" to fight them. Others believe the Rohingya rebels see the Arakanese, not the junta, as their bigger enemy. Amidst all this, sources say the Americans have walked in or rather flown in, to Dhaka to sort out the tangle. Two top generals from their Indo-Pacific Command flew into Dhaka some weeks back to meet Gen Waker-Uz-Zaman, the Bangladesh army chief.

Then came two senior diplomats for closed-door discussions with the Yunus government. Though details are not known, the suspicion amongst the diplomatic and intelligence fraternity is that the Americans want Bangladesh, Arakan Army and even the Rohinyas to smoke the peace pipe as they would like to use the Chittagong port to send supplies through to the rebel province. The motivation seems clear: the rapid and remarkable advance by the Arakanese, part of a three-rebel army front, allows Washington to first establish a foothold in resource-rich Myanmar, and two, jeopardise China’s plans for a strategic corridor to the Bay of Bengal.

To be fair to the Americans, they may not at all be interested in the route or may also be considering it as a humanitarian corridor to reach earthquake-devastated areas in Arakan and Chin states, regions now beyond the Myanmar military junta’s control. The Yunus government has also been getting cosy with Beijing. Dhaka had earlier, during Sheikh Hasina's reign, awarded China the contract to build the Pekua naval base near Cox’s Bazar.

Yunus has now offered a stake in the Mongla port. China, which supplies over 70% of Bangladesh’s military hardware, is said to be keen on Pekua now that its base at Ramree Island in Myanmar is threatened by the Arakanese advance. Pekua port has berthing facilities for half a dozen submarines and eight large warships (Bangladesh has just two old Chinese-made subs, no destroyers, and a few small frigates). Bangladesh is extremely sensitive to any Arakanese move into the Chittagong Hill Tracts because of history.

The Arakanese and Tripura royal families have, at various times, ruled over these very hills and even Chittagong proper. The CHT region itself has long simmered with rebellion. After independence, Dhaka sought to forcibly alter the region’s demography by settling Muslim farmers from the mainland, provoking a tribal insurgency. A fragile peace, brokered under Sheikh Hasina, still holds. But it’s fraying.

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