"This article argues that the origins and theoretical underpinnings of Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative can actually be traced back to the mid1980s, that is, almost three decades before the ofcial media unveiled the Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI). It examines the changing role of Myanmar in China’s grand strategy in general and in MSRI in particular by undertaking an investigation of trade and investment relations. This analysis of the geo-economic and geo-strategic implications of MSRI is undertaken in order to ofer a prognosis of benefts and costs for Myanmar. Both the extent and the limits of MSRI are illustrated in Myanmar. It ends with a discussion of possible roadblocks, detours, cracks and fault lines along the Maritime Silk Road.....Myanmar/Burma is the second-largest country in Southeast Asia and is located at the juncture of Southeast and South Asia. Given its resources, natural endowments and strategic location bordering China and India, Myanmar fnds itself at the center of political wrangling between major powers. While India’s culture and religion have infuenced the Burmese way of life over the centuries, China has traditionally exerted geopolitical and strategic pressure on Myanmar. As Tin Maung Maung Than notes: ‘Geopolitical ramifcations for modern Burma have been overwhelmingly determined by bilateral relations with China’, which date back to the early Pyu kingdoms of the ninth century AD.1 Myanmar sufers from centrifugal tendencies. Since independence in 1948, successive governments have battled around the country’s periphery with ethnic separatist movements and communist insurgencies, some of which received direct support from Beijing. Post-independence, Myanmar has ‘accommodated China as its “senior” in a paukphaw (kinsmen) relationship’, and avoided taking actions inimical to China’s interests..."