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This study examines the geopolitical contest in Myanmar’s Chin State, a critical theater of great-power rivalry involving China, India, and Western actors. Employing a qualitative case-study approach, we integrate expert interviews, media analyses, satellite imagery, and secondary literature to analyze how local insurgent groups navigate external influences. Our findings reveal that Chinese infrastructure projects foster economic dependency, India’s security partnerships provide limited counterbalance, and Western engagement remains largely symbolic. We argue that Chin State’s crisis exposes the limitations of realist theory in explaining secondary theaters of great-power competition, advocating for a regionally contextualized framework that accounts for local agency and interconnected security dynamics. The paper proposes comprehensive policy measures to stabilize the region, manage Sino-Indian rivalry, and foster cooperative regionalism, emphasizing multilateral diplomacy and local economic integration.