In March a 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit Myanmar, in which 3,740 people died. And yet the earthquake is not the main humanitarian crisis in that troubled country. Since Myanmar’s military junta brutally took control in a coup in 2021, nearly 10,000 civilians have been killed. The UN estimates 3m have been displaced and over 2m are on the brink of famine. The economy has shrunk by a fifth, and is estimated to be around half the size of its pre-coup trajectory. All this has made Myanmar a hub of lawlessness in Asia. Illicit drug production, human-trafficking and a huge scam industry are booming.
Much of the world has paid scant attention to Myanmar since the coup. Western countries, which did the most to encourage democracy there in the decade up to 2021, have been consumed with crises in Ukraine and Gaza. But China has not lost focus. It has taken advantage of the chaos next door to steal a march on its geopolitical rivals. Engaging both the junta and its opponents, China works to protect its varied interests in the country: ensuring stability along its border and along the lengthy trade routes leading to the Indian Ocean; protecting Chinese investments in the country; shutting down scam centres targeting Chinese citizens; and, above all, limiting Western influence.
China’s strategy has been a stunning success. Both the junta and resistance groups started out hostile to Chinese influence. But neither dares cross their larger neighbour now. Its control of trade in arms and other illicit goods puts it in a decisive position. One Chinese investment in particular illustrates the point. A 2,500km (1,500-mile) oil-and-gas pipeline begins on Myanmar’s south-western coast and runs through a cross-section of the conflict to Kunming, the capital of China’s south-western province of Yunnan (see map). Yet it remains entirely unmolested, with groups on both sides careful to avoid damaging it.
Those fighting the junta are a ragtag group. Young people who survived attacks on counter-coup protests fled to the country’s mountainous borderlands. They were trained and armed there by ethnic-minority armies, which have fought the government on-and-off for decades. Those new resistance fighters, who are mostly made up of the Bamar, the majority ethnic group, returned to the arid centre of the country known as the “dry zone”. They now challenge the junta in its own backyard by attacking its convoys and operating their own schools and clinics. The junta responds through air strikes and search-and-destroy missions that often lead to the torture and execution of civilians.
The insurgents have been joined by many of the ethnic armies based along the country’s periphery. These can be divided into two camps. Some, like those along the Thai and Indian borders, have long looked to the West and tend to be more supportive of the Spring Revolution, as the hotchpotch of those resisting the military rule call their movement. Their own offensives have taken significant territory off the military. Other ethnic militias, including most groups along the Chinese border, have closer ties to China. Several have historical links with China’s Communist Party, having emerged in 1989 from the Burmese Communist Party. They share an impatience with democracy and the West.
Brothers in arms
The first camp was quick to support the revolution, but their progress was slow. Those groups closer to China remained aloof from the fight at first, observing ceasefires with the junta. Then, in October 2023, a coalition of these China-linked groups known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance launched a surprise attack on junta positions in Shan State in the east, and a few weeks later, in Rakhine State in the west. Within two months they had handed the army a string of defeats greater than any since the years immediately following independence from Britain in 1948. It is probable that the Brotherhood’s offensive was approved by China, which wanted to clear out scam centres trafficking Chinese citizens and targeting Chinese victims. After the Brotherhood accomplished these goals, China quickly pushed the two sides to sign a truce.
But in June 2024 the Brotherhood groups broke the truce. One successfully assaulted the city of Lashio in Shan state and the junta’s Eastern Operations Command. Never before had such a large city or military base been seized by rebels. Another of the Brotherhood groups started down the road to Mandalay, stopping just outside the picturesque hill station above the city, where the military’s service academies sit. Fearing that these lightning offensives might cause a demoralised military government to collapse, China cut off trade with the Brotherhood. It cut electricity and water, too, and kidnapped one of the group’s leaders. With great reluctance, the Brotherhood relented. The offensives came to a halt, and in April Lashio was handed back to the military. The regime was spared a battle for Mandalay.
China’s greatest fear is that pro-democracy groups will come to power in Myanmar and turn it into a base of Western influence. To prevent such an outcome, it has empowered groups that align more closely with its vision of the world. And it has threatened to cut off those ethnic militias that train or equip pro-democracy groups without authorisation. By throttling their supply lines, China can keep pro-democracy revolutionaries from growing too powerful, while at the same time preserving some leverage over them.
Myanmar’s revolutionaries might be able to shrug off Chinese pressure if others were to provide more humanitarian assistance. But for much of the past four years Western countries’ aid to pro-democracy groups has not met their needs. There has been no serious discussion of arming pro-Western groups. Humanitarian assistance is easier in legal terms, and would boost the groups by supporting their social role. But it has not been forthcoming: only 39% of the $1bn that the UN requested in humanitarian aid in 2024 was granted. With great difficulty, the United States’ Congress appropriated $121m in additional cash for democratic groups. Instead of increasing this to compete with China for influence in Myanmar, the Trump administration’s closure of USAID has curtailed it.
What does China want to do with Myanmar? Over the past year China has pushed General Min Aung Hlaing, the junta chief, to hold an election at the end of 2025. Chinese diplomats hope that, following the vote, he will be elected president, shed his uniform and then hand over command of the army to a more reasonable figure who will push for peace. But an election held under the junta and without a ceasefire would be a sham. As great as China’s influence is, it cannot compel General Min Aung Hlaing to give up power. It seems more likely that what China wants is a frozen conflict, giving it maximum leverage over all groups.
Other approaches have been pondered. Thailand and India have backed the junta, and encouraged other countries to normalise relations with it. Thaksin Shinawatra, a tycoon and former Thai prime minister, has also led a drive to legitimise General Min Aung Hlaing, inviting him to summits at his grand hotel in Bangkok. These boosters ignore, however, the junta’s parlous battlefield condition and the much greater levels of anger at the army than existed in earlier periods of army rule.
Perhaps most promising is an effort tried out by Indonesia in 2023. That year its foreign minister at the time, Retno Marsudi, brought all four warring factions—the junta, the democratic resistance and both pro-democracy and China-friendly ethnic militias—to its capital for what are known as proximity talks. Each stayed at a different hotel, and Indonesian diplomats relayed messages between them. None of the groups was prepared to discuss the main matters then—and may not be willing to now, either. But if this war is to end at the negotiating table, it is a format that offers some chance of a resolution.
