China’s Engagement With Myanmar Cross-border Inter Ventions Against Drug Trafficking

The thesis’main topic is China-Myanmar cross-border interventions to fight against drug trafficking. As a premise, I pointed out that China has different interest levels in Myanmar, geo-strategic, dealing mainly with energy resources, economic, since China is Myanmar’s first economic partner for import, and regional, dealing with all the problems the region faces, such as drug trafficking, human smuggling, terrorism, piracy and so on. What I would like to demonstrate with this thesis is that China, with anti-drug engagement with Myanmar, is using the regional institutional framework and bilateral collaboration to achieve different purposes. Firstly, to solve the problem of drug trafficking, perceived as the most serious cross-border problem among the two countries. Secondly, is a way to avoid a failed Myanmar, since drug trafficking is in the hand of Burmese armed forces which are not under the control of the central government. A failed Myanmar would probably cause disorder on the already fragile Chinese border minority areas and an intervention of the United States in the area that China will not tolerate. Related to this there is the third purpose, that is China’s firm adherence to regional autonomy: drug trafficking in Southeast Asia and related problems are regional problems and regional institutions and concerned states are the only which have the right to deal with them. This is in line with China’s quest for an international order based less on US influence than on heightened cooperation between states. Fourthly, cooperation based on the regional institutional framework is a way to engage with a "rogue" state like Myanmar (in spite of the recent events) and trying to ameliorate its intern conditions through collaboration. Compared to economic sanctions and military interventions usually carried out by the West, this is probably a more convenient and useful way to engage. Finally, in using the institutional framework China is also reassuring Southeast Asian neighbors about its rise. China’s economic, military and soft power is progressively increasing but how this power will be manifested is still unknown. The unpredictable onset of this power is making Asian states nervous and prone to defensive means. The fact that China is showing its willingness in cooperating in different fields to solve common problems and in accepting the basis of the institutional framework is a way to portray a positive image of the country, as of a cooperative neighbor and a "responsible stakeholder"All this different interests have led China to develop a sophisticated foreign policystrategy which stresses the importance of enhanced cooperation, mutual respect and regional institutions which have become China’s new interest asset. Cooperation, in this case, has been a way of solving common problems, but also a way of reshaping the interests, identity and actions of China, deploying a constructivist approach in international relations. According to constructivism in International Relations theory, institutions and norms created by states through their interrelation contribute, with the passing of time, to change states’ interests and behaviors. This happened also for China:continuous cooperation through regional institutions has driven the country to deploy a cooperative position in the area and redefine its own principle and interests of foreign policy.