WMyanmar hen While the military junta overthrew the country’s elected government and took power in February 2021, China called it a “major cabinet reshuffle.” After this bloody coup sparked a civil war, in which thousands were killed, nearly two million displaced, and the generals’ crimes against humanity multiplied, China stood alongside the generals. He condemned Western sanctions against the Burmese army, calling them an “exacerbation of tensions”. As Myanmar’s largest trading partner, China has sold weapons worth more than $250 million to the junta. However, in late October, China appeared to reconsider its interests in its war-ravaged neighbor.
This was illustrated by a major offensive against the military in northern Myanmar led by a coalition of ethnic militias, known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which has links to Chinese security services. Operating near the border with China, in an area of unruly jungle unofficially considered part of China’s sphere of influence in Myanmar, the alliance has quickly become the biggest security challenge for the junta to date . Without any discouragement from China – and even with modest aid, Myanmar analysts say – its forces say they have seized more than 200 military bases and four border crossings vital to trade with China.
Inspired by this success, the junta’s many other armed opponents – ethnic and political actors in an increasingly complicated conflagration – redoubled their attacks, extending the conflict to two-thirds of the country, according to the UN. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced since the offensive, known as Operation 1027, began after it began on October 27. It is telling that the Brotherhood Alliance announced that one of its goals was to eliminate a network of online fraudulent operations that has grown over the past three years along the Myanmar-China border . These operations, which pose a major security problem for China, are estimated to be responsible for the trafficking of 120,000 unsuspecting workers to Myanmar, many of them Chinese, and generate billions of dollars in revenue annually, a large part of which is stolen from Chinese victims.
By November, speculation was circulating that China had switched sides in the conflict and that the junta’s days were numbered. Expressing their discontent, the generals authorized their supporters in November to stage rare anti-China protests in several cities. China has since taken steps to reassure the junta. She conducted joint naval exercises with Burmese ships. In early December, China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, met with Myanmar Deputy Prime Minister Than Swe in Beijing. Then, on December 14, China announced that it had negotiated a temporary ceasefire between the army and ethnic militias.
The episode encapsulates China’s self-serving, if seemingly confrontational, approach to Myanmar, to the detriment of its 54 million people. The dissonance arises from tensions between China’s long-term and more immediate interests. In the long term, it has a major economic stake in Burma and wants to prevent it from turning towards its pro-Western democrats. In the short term, China is worried about its security.
Although India and Russia also do business with the junta, China has by far the deepest economic ties with Myanmar. Despite the war, China continued with plans to build a network of roads, railways, pipelines and ports across the country, which could give it direct access to the Indian Ocean. China sees this as an alternative to the chokepoint of the Strait of Malacca, through which most maritime trade flows to and from China. China has committed to investing more than $35 billion in this ambitious project. On the other hand, India plans to invest $500 million in road and maritime links between its northeast and Myanmar.
China’s long-term investments and relative dislike of Myanmar’s democrats have made it an ally of the country’s military, which has been in power for most of Myanmar’s independent history. Yet China’s security interests in the country may be more tactical. Since Myanmar gained independence in 1948, its government has failed to control its jungle border area. As a result, China is concerned about insecurity spreading across the 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) border between the two countries. That jeopardizes its infrastructure investments, many of which run along the border, and sometimes drives refugees, drugs and other contraband into China. The online scam industry is the latest to worry.
The enormous scale of the crime and the involvement of the Chinese as victims and perpetrators have made it a priority of China’s foreign policy. In May, its then foreign minister, Qin Gang, visited Myanmar to demand that the junta end the scam industry. Tens of thousands of Chinese nationals were then trafficked to Myanmar, imprisoned in vast sweatshop-like compounds and forced to scam people online through fake romance and investment schemes. Those who refuse to comply risk being tortured or killed. However, the Burmese army, both incompetent and suspected of having been paid by the crooks, did nothing to disturb them. Thus, China seems to have turned instead to ethnic militias. Members of one, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, are mostly of Chinese origin; many of these fighters speak Mandarin.
Ethnic armies are not mere Chinese proxies. They advance their own interests, including gaining territory, while aligning with other groups less friendly toward China, such as Myanmar’s increasingly well-organized pro-democracy faction. Yet China has periodically pulled the strings, with the recent offensive apparently being a good example. On December 10, he sought to capitalize on the militia advance by issuing arrest warrants for ten fraudulent bosses operating in northern Myanmar. Four days later, apparently satisfied that its objective had been achieved, China negotiated the ceasefire.
Today, it is once again closing in on the junta, which still controls most of Myanmar’s airports, banks and major cities, including the capital, Naypyidaw. Despite Western sanctions, the junta is buying combat planes from China and Russia that allow it to indiscriminately bomb civilians in areas controlled by its enemies. China will broadly support generals in Myanmar; sometimes he will support their enemies. This policy of divide and rule is not responsible for the disaster in Myanmar. But that probably made the situation worse. ■