"As Burma strategically lies at the crossroads of the Indian subconti- nent, southwestern China, the Indian Ocean and the rest of continental Southeast Asia, both an emerging India and a rising China have found increasing interests in this regional node since the end of the 1980s. The changing of guards in Rangoon through a military coup d’état orchestrated by a younger generation of Tatmadaw (Burmese Army) officers in September 1988 indeed offered the two giants an opportu- nity to refocus their regional strategic ambitions on Burma. A new dimension of the Sino-Indian rivalry was thus highlighted and many academic researchers pointed out the rise of the strategic competition between Beijing and New Delhi through Burma throughout the 1990s. Almost two decades after the beginnings of the Chinese thrust into the Burmese strategic field and India’s gradual reaction to it, this article seeks to assess the state of the rivalry between the two giants in Burma. By focusing the analysis on the perceptions, interests and achievements of India and China’s approach to Burma on the ground in the past 20 years, it seeks to question the severity and intensity of this Sino-Indian “competition” in the Burmese field. It is argued here that despite having realized obvious breakthroughs in the region, India and China still face many difficulties in Burma, and are unable to openly use it as a mere playground for their bilateral “rivalry.” After a brief discussion of the academic literature that has dealt with the rise of the rivalry since the early 1990s, this paper will explore the most visible expressions of this Sino-Indian contest in Burma. The energy and military sectors, tensions in border areas and the quest for a strategic access to the Indian Ocean are the most crucial factors, but it will be postulated hereafter that each has its own limits. Given internal divisions, hesitations, misreadings or misperceptions in New Delhi and Beijing, as well as the nationalist stance of the Burmese military regime, this article will claim that the Sino-Indian competi- tion over Burma must not be overestimated. Indeed, the Burmese field itself offers considerable resistance to the further thrust of India and China in the region, limiting the phenomenon to a mere “quiet rivalry.” The Rise of a “Strategic Rivalry”: Perceptions and Interpretations of Indian and Chinese Policies toward Burma since the 1990s When a new Burmese junta (SLORC2 ) succeeded the autarchic military regime of General Ne Win in September 1988, Beijing and New Delhi adopted two different approaches to the developments in Burma. After a decade of tense relations in the 1960s, China had clearly redefined its Burma strategy according to its national and security interests, through a more friendly policy initiated by Deng Xiaoping’s visit to Rangoon in January 1978. A few years later, with a landmark academic article published in 1985 by the official Beijing Review, 3 China unveiled its economic and military ambitions in Burma and had only a few more years to wait before taking the opportunity to fully implement them. When the SLORC, ostracized by the international community after its harsh repression of the pro-democracy movement during the summer of 1988, indicated its willingness to establish a new partnership with Beijing, China swiftly filled the vacuum left by international donors and regional powers. Confirmed after the Tiananmen Square repression by the official visit to China by General Than Shwe (then the SLORC’s Vice-Chairman) in October 1989, the new Sino-Burmese partnership enabled China to gain a sound strategic foothold in Burma within just a few years..."