Understanding porous borders: China and Myanmar amid a Military Coup and COVID–19

Abstract

Since the start of the COVID–19 pandemic, Myanmar has had multiple severe outbreaks of the virus, all of which have been exacerbated by rising following instability after the successful coup d’état launched by the military in February 2021. In response to this government takeover, China tightened its migratory controls and constructed border walls to enhance border security in Muse (Myanmar) and Ruili (China), the main border-crossing towns between the two countries. While there has been ample research on China–Myanmar bilateral relations, very little of it has explicitly focused on the changes in China–Myanmar border dynamics between 2020 and 2021. Based on both traditional and nontraditional approaches to security, this thesis delves deeper into this particular topic to achieve a new understanding of the less porous China–Myanmar border amid a turbulent period marked by a pandemic and a military coup. This qualitative research employs a single-case setup—with the unit being the China–Myanmar border—to explore the factors that drive border security from both traditional and non-traditional security perspectives. Traditional security threats include weapons, armament systems, and militaries, which can generally be addressed using diplomatic means. Nontraditional security threats cover the gamut of human security concerns, including climate change, infectious disease, and transnational crime. In this thesis, I use process tracing to plot independent variables elaborated in this study with the aim of understanding how and when they came to play a determinative role in shaping my dependent variable: the less porous China–Myanmar border between 2020 and 2021. This thesis argues that geopolitical competition, the Belt and Road Initiative, and ideological infiltration interactively shaped the border between China and Myanmar during the period marked by the COVID–19 pandemic and the military takeover of Myanmar. China’s desire for border control stems from its geostrategic objectives of guaranteeing domestic energy security and strengthening its regional dominance. Meanwhile, the security of the Belt and Road Initiative and ideological dynamics in the border area both stem from China’s political claims to the Asia–Pacific. Overall, instead of merely consulting the dichotomy between traditional and non-traditional security paradigms, this thesis uses the case of the China–Myanmar border to achieve a greater understanding of the combination of traditional and non-traditional security-related scenarios and explain China’s efforts on the China–Myanmar border—including its attempts to define border security. Furthermore, this study’s findings will undoubtedly be useful for policymakers and decision-makers involved in homeland security initiatives, especially those pertaining to Southeast Asian countries on the Chinese border.