The Development-Insecurity Nexus in China’s Near-Abroad: Rethinking Cross-Border Economic Integration in an Era of State Transformation

ABSTRACT

Surprisingly, perhaps, China’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative expresses a familiar mix of the security–development nexus and liberal interdependence thesis: Chinese leaders expect economic development and integration will stabilise and secure neighbouring states and improve inter-state relations. However, drawing on the record of China’s intensive economic interaction with Myanmar, we argue that the opposite outcome may occur, for two reasons. First, capitalist development is inherently conflict-prone. Second, moreover, China’s cross-border economic relations today are shaped by state transformation – the fragmentation, decentralisation and internationalisation of party-state apparatuses. Accordingly, economic relations often emerge not from coherent national strategies, but from the uncoordinated, even contradictory, activities of various state and non-state agencies at multiple scales, which may exacerbate capitalist development’s conflictual aspects and undermine official policy goals. In the Sino-Myanmar case, the lead Chinese actors creating and managing cross-border economic engagements are sub-national agencies and enterprises based in, or operating through, Yunnan province. The rapacious form of development they have pursued has exacerbated insecurity, helped to reignite ethnic conflict in Myanmar’s borderlands, and plunged bilateral relations into crisis. Consequently, the Chinese government has had to change its policy and intervene in Myanmar’s domestic affairs to promote peace negotiations.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• Myanmar
• state transformation
• economic integration
• development–security nexus
• Belt and Road Initiative

Acknowledgements

The authors contributed equally to this article. They would like to thank the editor and anonymous reviewers of the Journal of Contemporary Asia for their valuable comments on earlier drafts, as well as their interviewees for giving their time and generously sharing their insights. Ryan Smith assisted with copy-editing the manuscript. The responsibility for the outcome remains with the authors.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. For example, Dreher et al. (2014) find that African political leaders use Chinese aid to develop their patronage networks.

2. Although co-operation stalled, in 2017 the China Railway Group was working with the Myanmar government to re-start the project (Zhongguo Zhongtie, May 10, 2017).

3. EMRGs’ shift from heroin to methamphetamine production is arguably responsible for the reduction in opium acreages (see Chin 2009; Lintner and Black 2009, ch. 2–3).

Additional information

Funding

This work was generously supported by an Australian Research Council Discovery Project Grant [DP170102647], “Rising Powers and State Transformation”; the Humanities and Social Sciences Project of China’s Ministry of Education [Grant No. 17YJCGJW013]; and Guangdong Province’s Department of Education [Grant No. 2016WTSCX101].