Shortly thereafter, I found myself to be one of the few foreigners in constant contact with Myanmar’s current de facto leader, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, as international censure mounted on his consequential action. My enduring engagement with him underscores Japan’s near century-long special relationship with Myanmar, an oft-forgotten geopolitical factor crucial to resolving the present crisis as China’s clout increasingly overshadows the future of a free and open Indo-Pacific. The Myanmar so territorially defined on today’s map is an impossible geopolitical proposition perennially constrained by its inhospitable terrain and internal contradictions. The horseshoe-shaped Irrawaddy river basin is home to the thriving agricultural base led by the Bamar ethnic majority and a gateway to the burgeoning Indo-Pacific. Meanwhile, while the highlands surrounding the basin insulate the Burmese core from continental powers, such as China and India, they harbor 10 armed insurgent groups fighting Myanmar’s federal government accommodating 135 ethnicities. The upshot is Myanmar’s inescapable geopolitical fate, swinging the pendulum of the country’s history to constantly oscillate between centralization and decentralization of power.