India's Strategy in Myanmar

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will visit Myanmar from May 27 to May 29. The trip, the first to Naypyidaw by an Indian prime minister since 1987, highlights the growing importance of Myanmar in India's struggle to secure and integrate the eastern periphery of the subcontinent more closely with its own national core. As India's domestic energy and infrastructure demands grow, meeting them will require developing stronger ties with resource-rich neighbors, especially where other regional powers — such as China, in the case of Myanmar — may infringe upon India's strategic imperatives.

At the same time, India wrestles with several significant internal constraints: limited existing transport and energy infrastructure, political disorganization and bureaucratic inertia. These will continue to undermine India's efforts to build a more integrated, stable and economically prosperous subcontinent with itself at the center.