How Manipur conflict fits into broader game plan of China

In the Hollywood cult classic The Usual Suspects there is a profound dialogue, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist.”

China is the devil behind the current conflict in Manipur and it intends to see the conflict spread across the North-Eastern states of India.

China is threatened by India’s ‘Act East Policy’.

The ‘Act East Policy’ of Prime Minister Narendra Modi aims to deepen India’s connectivity with Southeast Asia and expand India’s economic and political integration into East Asia and the Pacific through bilateral and multilateral economic and political arrangements.

Besides the economic and political focus of the AEP, there are pertinent emphasis put on variety of security-related arrangements that aims to deepen India’s security policy cooperation with regional partners and interlink the geostrategies of India with that of other regional players by ‘coupling’ the geographical sphere of the Indian Ocean with that of the Pacific.

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One of the most ambitious plans of the Indian government’s AEP is the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral (IMTT) Highway. This transport network, agreed on in 2009, will connect the Indian town of Moreh in Manipur to Mandalay in Myanmar and from there onwards to Western Thailand. Within Thailand, rail networks connect the transport chains to the east to Bangkok and to the south to Malaysia and Singapore, making Thailand subsequently operate as a distribution point for further trade networks that connect India to Southeast Asian markets, thereby reducing India’s reliance on maritime traffic and choke points such as the Malacca Strait and the Lombok Strait. Since 2019, there have also been talks of extending the Trilateral Highway to the bordering countries of Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, and the strategic significance of mainland Southeast Asia is further embodied by the growing Indian investment in these countries.

According to the European Foundation for South Asian Studies study paper titled, From Look East to Act East: India’s Changing Posture in the Indo-Pacific and the Containment of China, “The AEP has significantly shifted India’s geostrategic posture in the Indo-Pacific and has reformulated India’s approach to one that is more strategically assertive. In an often realist-controversial security environment, the AEP can thus be conceptualised as a counterbalancing effort against Chinese influence in the Asia-Pacific that seeks to not openly antagonise China but does not necessarily succeed in doing so.”

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In order to put a spoke in India’s AEP especially the IMTT Highway plans, China needs to create conflict in the North-East states of India.

On 23 June 2020, a joint task force of the Thai military and police carried out a raid on a house in Mae Tao in Mae Sot district, which in recent years has emerged as a hotbed of insurgents of all ideological persuasions and a preferred staging area for the transportation of arms and ammunition, and uncovered a large cache of Chinese-made weapons. It comprised AK47 assault rifles, machine guns, anti-tank mines, grenades and ammunition, the total value of which to be close to USD 1 million.

Such was the importance and seriousness of this development, that India’s Ambassador to Thailand Suchitra Durai on 20 July 2020 held a meeting with Unsit Sampuntharat, the governor of the Tak province of Thailand in which Mae Sot is located. The Thai delegation at the meeting included the police chief and immigration officials. Indian security agencies have also reached out to their counterparts in Myanmar and Thailand to ascertain more details about the consignment.

It is a brutal truth that insurgents from the North-Eastern states of India who have been sheltering for years in Myanmar, have their roots in the Rakhine state of Myanmar and this presents security challenges for India. Indian geopolitical and military strategists opine that the progress of India’s Act East projects has assumed weight in China’s strategic thinking. The influx of Chinese weapons is, accordingly, in tune with such thinking to stir trouble in the North-East states of India.

In 2020, China’s propaganda arm warned the Indian Government against signing a much-speculated trade pact with Taiwan, threatening that Beijing could retaliate by supporting North-East insurgents.

China perceives that India’s AEP and closer relations with Southeast Asian nations pose a serious threat to its ambition to establish its hegemony in the region. Hence, China would like to keep the North East boiling so that India may be forced to divert its forces to this region. They may try to unify different insurgent groups to increase pressure on the Indian security forces with calibrated escalation. This appears to be the game plan of China.

Fitting into the game plan of China is the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Manipur modelled around the People’s Liberation Army of China. This insurgent group intends to liberate Manipur from India.

In 2019, certain sections of mainstream Indian media accessed a confession CD of a PLA member Sergeant Ronny. He was arrested by the Manipur state police and Indian army in August 2019. His aliases were Robindo and Roger. In his statement, he revealed, “China’s People’s Liberation Army remains in contact with Manipur’s PLA. Sixteen platoons of militants have come back to India after getting trained in China.”  He further revealed, “The Chinese army is training the young recruits of the PLA. The militants sent back to India have been trained to use big weapons. The training of PLA militants also goes on continuously in Burma. There are many temporary camps in Manipur as well, such as Soibolkuki and Singhat. We train with big guns.”

According to the South Asian Terrorism Portal, “PLA aims to organise a revolutionary front covering the entire Northeast and unite all ethnic groups, including the Meiteis, Nagas and Kukis, to liberate Manipur. PLA is also reported to have contacts with Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). The ISI’s nexus with the PLA came to notice through a document recovered in January 1991 from a man nicknamed German, the Finance Secretary of the RPF (the political wing of the PLA).”

In 2003, PLA-Manipur was suspected of being behind the unsuccessful attack on the life of the Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh of Manipur on 27 July 2003. The PLA-Manipur is also suspected to have ambushed soldiers of Assam Rifles in 2020, leaving three jawans dead and six others critically injured. This was reportedly the second major attack on security forces by the PLA-Manipur after 2015, when 20 Indian armed forces personnel had lost their lives.

A press release titled, Manipur Not A Part of India, released by the Coordination Committee of Valley Militant organisations (CorCom) on its official website Meeyamgi Ningtam Lanmee on 11 August 2023 in the run up the 76th Indian Independence Day states: “The day ‘15th August’ has been an important day to every mainstream Indian as their Independence Day. The very theme ‘Nation First, Always First’ of the 76th Independence Day clearly affirms ‘Manipur is never a part of India’ which has been substantiated by the present ongoing engineered ethnic crisis in which India has taken sides.”

PLA Manipur has raised its ugly head and its stamp is all over the recent conflict in Manipur and its violence. Over the next couple of weeks, PLA Manipur will use its civilian organisation to create unrest in Manipur leading to clashes with the Indian Armed Forces deployed in Manipur. Their intent is to create a strife by first targeting the Kuki community with the intent to drive them out from Manipur to Mizoram. Second, using the clashes with the Indian Armed Forces to further push their agenda as revealed on the website: “Manipur was living abundantly and self-sufficiently without any aid or support from others but after the forcibly colonised by India, Manipur gradually had to purchase alimental stuff, bit by bit from India to meet the needs.”

PLA Manipur wants to liberate Manipur from India because it believes that India has colonised the people of Manipur. China needs an ally in Manipur to create tension and PLA Manipur wants to separate Manipur from India. It is a perfect relation of convenience.

China is the Lucifer, PLA Manipur is one its demons in the Manipur conflict. They will unleash more violence in a planned and organised manner. They will hide under the cover of the civilian organisations.

The writer is an author who writes on religious, political and social issues impacting India and the world. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost_’s views._

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