ABSTRACT
The chapter analyses China’s attempt to build an illiberal regional order in the Indo-Pacific by its Belt and Road Initiative with special reference to the bid to bring Myanmar within its orbit via the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) infrastructure development projects. It finds that while the authoritarian collaboration between China and Myanmar continues after the February 2021 coup, this order is far from stable. Although both China and the military junta try to legitimize CMEC by framing it to be economically beneficial to the people of the host country, the investment projects have been largely restricted to the China-Myanmar borderlands, evading most of the heartland of the country where the Bamar, the majority ethnic group, live. This chapter argues that it is due to the lack of legitimacy of both China and the military junta among the Bamar. A strong anti-Chinese feeling, albeit already prevalent among them for decades, has been recently heightened by the widespread belief that China was complicit in the coup. Averse to any risk of economic damage to its investment caused by this anti-Chinese sentiment, China opts for a ‘compartmentalization’ policy to undertake CMEC in the borderland areas, populated by Beijing-friendly ethnic minorities. On the other hand, the junta is losing territorial control over the country to the opposition forces. Its claim to rule based on economic performance does not resonate with the Bamar. With few economic tools to pacify the vast Bamar population, the military regime has resorted to violence and coercion to suppress the anti-government movement. Despite with powerful economic clout, China does not behave as an authoritarian gravity centre for its failure to craft a stable illiberal order in its neighbourhood by promoting its autocratic norms and practices, notably economic growth overriding democracy and social justice, across the borders. This chapter concludes that an economically powerful autocracy does not always succeed in creating a stable regional order congenial to it if it ignores the significance of legitimacy in order-building.
