"Against the ominous question mark hanging over Myanmar’s remarkable encounter with COVID 19 – no recorded cases to date — it’s easy to view the country’s ethnic conflicts as mere off-stage business-as-usual. In western Myanmar, an area that brings India and China’s strategic interests face-to-face, that would be a serious mistake. Whatever the toll of the virus in the coming months, the sharp deterioration of the military situation in Rakhine and neighboring areas of Chin state will shape in a far more profound sense both Myanmar’s political future and India’s plans to push back against growing Chinese influence. The gravity of the crisis was plain to see on March 10 and 11 when the Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw, suffered its most stinging reverse to date at the hands of the Arakan Army (AA), the most aggressive of a range of ethnic forces demanding autonomy after seven decades of centralized Bamar-dominated misrule..."