The US visit of Myanmar President Thein Sein raises hopes for increased cooperation and commerce, but some in Washington unrealistically view the country as a tool in the containment of a rising China.

Naturally, there is an appropriate US interest in developing commercial relations with Myanmar and in helping promote a modernization process there.   Beginning in 2009, Washington has taken steps to develop a new and constructive relationship with Nay Pyi Taw.   

But some US strategists look beyond economic relations and assign a geopolitical role to Myanmar as part of the US "pivot" to Asia. The theory of a China threat serves as the basis for such strategists' concepts.

Alarmists in then US president George W. Bush's Department of Defense (DOD) advanced the notion of a maritime "string of pearls" being constructed by Beijing from China to Port Sudan. This so-called string of pearls was said by US defense officials to threaten important global sea lines of communication.

Geographically, the maritime dimension includes such "choke points" as Lombok Strait, Sunda Strait, Strait of Malacca, Strait of Hormuz, and Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb. 

According to a 2005 US DOD report, the so-called threat consisted of China's building commercial, military, and diplomatic relations with countries such as Pakistan, Somalia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Maldives. Beijing's relationship with Myanmar falls within such a purview.  

Although expanding commercial and diplomatic activity is normal for a major power wanting to build economic and other relations on a global basis, in the case of China, such activity provides justification for the US military-industrial complex to advocate hegemonic strategy and increase military spending.

Historically, the Indian Ocean has been a crossroads for many cultures for millennia. Ancient Egypt traded with the Harappan civilization of India.  Skilled Malay mariners navigated to Madagascar and to the eastern coast of Africa.

In the 15th century, China's famous admiral Zheng He made extensive voyages across the Indian Ocean, coming into contact with Arab, African, and other civilizations. A stone monument he left was discovered in Sri Lanka a century ago.

Today, Washington's jitters with China's constructive engagement in the Indian Ocean region spur official and think tank strategists into flights of geopolitical fancy. 

As a result, new doctrines such as the "Air Sea Battle" and "Indo-Pacific" concepts unnecessarily promote securitization of the Pacific and Indian Ocean basins.

It is in this context that Washington's relations with Myanmar must be examined.

Myanmar borders on China's Yunnan Province in addition to its location on the Indian Ocean. When the US turned its back on the country, its neighbor China offered a helping hand.

There are many opportunities for significant cooperation between Beijing and Nay Pyi Taw for transportation infrastructure and other development projects. Such infrastructure today includes significant pipelines for seaborne hydrocarbons bound for China via Myanmar.

Some US officials and strategists, however, fear this pipeline project with Myanmar will undermine their "defense" scenarios and plan concepts which, for example, envisage cutting off China's maritime hydrocarbon supply routes. 

Myanmar, however, is not the only target of such geopolitical hysteria. Similar fears are expressed by US strategists about Thailand's ambitious Kra Canal project, which would bypass the Strait of Malacca, and about major railway and port projects in Cambodia involving China.

Although it should be obvious that such major infrastructure projects in Myanmar and in Southeast Asia are historic and fundamental contributions to international development and commerce, some officials in Washington accept a negative geopolitical view.

One gets the impression that in their newly found enthusiasm, some US officials have romantic notions of what was then Burma in the days of the British Empire. But as George Orwell said in his first novel, Burmese Days, imperialism is the lie that Britain was present to uplift rather than to rob.

While it is commendable for the US to promote relations with Myanmar for peaceful cooperation and development, using Myanmar as a geopolitical pawn in the Asian "pivot" is counterproductive.

The author is an educator and former senior professional staff member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn