For all but the most recent bit of human history, India and China have been the two great civilisations of the world. Although they look adjacent on a map, in reality they are separated by a corridor of highly inhospitable territory _ great deserts, huge mountains, fierce rivers. The southern part of this barrier is formed by a knot of hills and great rivers on the upper border of Southeast Asia. Armies struggled across this barrier in the Second World War, but the routes promptly disappeared like tracks in the sand.
WHERE CHINA MEETS INDIA: Burma and the new crossroads of Asia By Thant Myint-U Faber and Faber, 2011, 384 pages Available at Asia Books and other shops, 650 baht
Now China and India are both booming and expanding. The technology exists to breach this barrier and the political will, too. Planners have drawn roads, railways and pipelines across the map. But Myanmar is in the way, and in recent decades Myanmar has been in a mess, both politically and economically. When this great historical barrier is breached, will Myanmar prosper as a crossroads or get trampled underfoot? That is the question of this book.
Thant Myint-U is a prominent figure among the many Myanmar people who have been made expatriates by their country's politics, but remain passionately involved with its future. He has written the best account of Myanmar's encounter with colonialism and an elegy entwining his own family chronicle with Myanmar's fateful history. Here he presents a Myanmar slant on the massive geopolitical shift of our time. It's a big book in every sense.
Thant structures the book as three journeys towards the point where this great historical barrier is being breached. The first journey begins from Yangon. As we move north, Thant sketches the changing landscape while tossing off slabs of Myanmar's history and anthropology. As we close on the border, the geography becomes choppier, the ethnic pattern more complex, and the history nastier and bloodier. At the same time, the evidence of Chinese encroachment steadily increases, especially their command of commerce and their extraction of natural resources. The message is understated, but clear: Is Myanmar's failure to manage the complex politics of this contorted border region allowing China to take all the benefit of this historical moment?
The second journey from Beijing through Yunnan offers a stark contrast. Thant had visited the area 20 years earlier when it was remote and ragged. Now he is gobsmacked by the wealth, the amount of construction, the avalanche of mass tourism into this exotic area. As in Myanmar, nearing the border the hills get choppier, the ethnicity more complex, and the history more tumultuous. But unlike on the Myanmar side, here everything is smoothed down by surging prosperity and Beijing's firm hand. China's leaders see breaching this barrier and finding a short route to the sea as key to developing the backward western interior. In Kunming, builders are already at work on a 72-storey complex named South Asia Gate in the confident belief that breaching the barrier will create a new commercial artery on a par with the Silk Road.
The third journey is across India. It presents another contrast and is perhaps the most thoughtful and intriguing section of the book. While Beijing is driving the destruction of this historic barrier, Delhi seems intent on looking the other way. India's businessmen fear the competition of Chinese products and its statesmen are still traumatised by the disastrous 1963 war with China. India's modern development is weighted to the country's west. Mumbai and Delhi are booming, while Kolkata is crumbling. Prosperity is calming politics in India's western regions, while the east has seen a resurgence of tribal conflict and Maoist insurgency.
Among India's politicians and intellectuals, Thant finds no interest in the historical significance or commercial prospects of breaching the border. His journey into what he terms "India's melancholy northeast" offers a complete contrast to his China trip. The border area is remote, jungly, backward, politically troubled. He cannot reach the actual border because of political restrictions. There is little tourism and no sign of a 72-storey complex anticipating prosperity.
In the finale, Thant paints two scenarios. In the first, breaching the border creates greater instability and conflict by reigniting the rivalry between China and India which then ratchets up the ethnic rivalries within Myanmar and the gangsterism along the border. "A crossroads is established, but a dangerous one." In the second scenario, Myanmar gets its act together to grasp the potential of this historical moment, and "a unique meeting place of cultures and peoples is created, at the new centre of the Asian world". Thant is careful not to hector Myanmar's leaders, but his message is powerful and clear.
Since Thant finished the main part of this book, events have begun to move faster. By 2015, the railway and pipeline across the barrier from China to the Arakan coast will be complete. The logjam of Myanmar politics has begun to loosen. India has woken up and taken a renewed interest in its northeast. For the moment at least, the signs are pointing towards the second scenario, but there is a long way to go.
This magnificent book maps the extraordinary complexities of economy, politics, ethnicity and history bound up with the China-India border. Its plan of three journeys provides a framework for marshalling an enormous amount of description and detail. It is beautifully written and is much less daunting to read than its size suggests. For the jacket flap, the publishers have chosen a photo in which Thant seems about to break into tears, but the story of the book is more like a thriller than a tragedy.
Chris Baker is a historian and currently a visiting fellow at Kyoto University.
