Spoilers Aplenty for Suu Kyi’s Peace Process

When State Counsellor and de facto national leader Aung San Suu Kyi opens Myanmar’s so-called 21st Century Panglong Conference on August 31, the talks will represent the best chance for peace in the country’s war-torn ethnic areas since her independence hero father, Aung San, brokered an unrealized autonomy agreement with ethnic leaders in 1947. While Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner recognized for her non-violent politics, will bring genuine goodwill to the negotiation table, there will be several potential spoilers lurking in the wings.

Over 700 delegates from the government, military, political parties, and armed ethnic groups are expected to attend the conference’s opening in the capital Naypyidaw, the first inclusive meeting to be led by Suu Kyi’s elected National League for Democracy-led government installed earlier this year. On last year’s campaign trail, Suu Kyi said an NLD-led government would offer better terms than then President Thein Sein’s “national ceasefire agreement” (NCA), a pact that was signed by only eight of 15 ethnic armed groups weeks before the November polls.

Analysts believe Suu Kyi’s counteroffer upended Thein Sein’s bid to cinch a more comprehensive agreement, which when finally signed after months of protracted talks failed to include major rebel armies, including the Kachin Independence Organization, United Wa State Army, and Shan State Army-North. Three active armed militias, the Ta’ang Nationalities Liberation Army, the Arakan Army, and the Kokang-based Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, were also excluded from the negotiations, a move that caused certain larger armed ethnic groups to withdraw from the negotiations.

Myanmar expert Bertil Lintner estimated at the time that the agreement left as many as 40,000 rebels still under arms. Thein Sein’s partial peace initiative suffered from ethnic group perceptions that his quasi-civilian government lacked the power to command the military to honor any brokered agreements. Days before the signing of the pact, the military launched a new offensive employing aerial strikes in civilian areas against the non-signatory Shan State Army-North. Since last year’s polls, the military, known as the Tatmadaw, has also escalated fighting in Kachin State.

There are already signs the military may likewise move to sabotage Suu Kyi’s peace drive, in a calculated bid to undermine her government’s credibility and popularity. While her party nominally leads the government, the Tatmadaw still holds sway over security affairs through its control over the border affairs, defense, and home ministries. The military also maintains a 25 percent bloc of appointees in parliament with the power to block the constitutional amendments that will be necessary for Suu Kyi to meet ethnic group demands for regional autonomy in a federal union.

The military has notably sustained last year’s offensives against rebel groups in the Kachin and Shan States, replete with allegations of systematic rights abuses against civilian populations, in the lead up to the conference. While Suu Kyi pointedly invited representatives from the three main militias excluded from Thein Sein’s pact, the groups have since balked at the military’s insistence that they must commit to disarm before being allowed to participate, according to news reports.

Asia Foundation research released in July weighs the little understood role of state and non-state militia groups in Myanmar’s ethnic conflicts and how their varied allegiances will need to be taken into account to achieve durable peace in the areas they are most active, particularly in Shan State. The report notes that engagement with militias has so far been limited in formal peace processes and that the Tatmadaw’s recent incorporation of ceasefire groups into its militia system has politicized their multifaceted roles. The research estimates there are now “hundreds if not thousands of militia groups operating in Myanmar.”

Neighboring China, however, is the biggest potential spoiler. Suu Kyi, who also serves as foreign minister, made a five-day official visit to China from August 18-21 where she met with both President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang. News reports said both Xi and Li indicated their support for Suu Kyi’s peace initiative amid wider political and economic discussions. Analysts noted that the state visit was the first Suu Kyi made outside of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, despite Beijing’s previous strong support for the military regime that brutally suppressed NLD members and held her as a political prisoner for 15 out of 21 years.

On the day Suu Kyi arrived in China, the Kokang rebel group, Arakan Army, and Ta’ang National Liberation Army--all of which receive strong backing from Beijing--reversed course by announcing they would participate at the Panglong Conference. The China-backed United Wa State Army militia also announced it would join the peace gathering. “I do believe that as a good neighbor China will do everything possible to promote our peace process,” Suu Kyi said at a press conference in Beijing during her visit. “If you ask me what my most important aim is for my country, that is to achieve peace and unity among the different peoples of our union. Without peace there can be no sustained development.”

China has long played a double game in Myanmar’s ethnic conflicts. Last year, a negotiator in Thein Sein’s peace team accused China of derailing their ceasefire agreement because it would have allowed for Japanese and Western observers to monitor an end to conflicts in areas bordering China. The negotiator, Min Zaw Oo, claimed in a Reuters interview that a special Chinese envoy had pressed rebel groups over which Beijing has influence to reject the accord. China denied the allegation, but the kerfuffle underscored rising mistrust between the two sides since Thein Sein’s administration moved to restore relations with the West.

While China may crave peace and stability along the Sino-Myanmar border, it will also likely aim to maintain its influence over certain ethnic armies as leverage against the Tatmadaw’s push to deepen strategic relations with the U.S. In 2013, Jane’s Intelligence Review reported that China had supplied the rebel United Wa State Army with fighter helicopters armed with TY-90 air-to-air missiles. In 2015, Jane’s reported that Wa fighters had been photographed training with Chinese-made howitzers. Beijing has consistently denied it supplies arms to the narcotics trafficking militia’s estimated 20,000-25,000 fighters.

Unless China is willing to sever ties and stop supplies to ethnic armies, Suu Kyi’s peace drive will have limited scope for success. Although the Tatmadaw has committed to the Panglong process, its wider autonomous aim of supplanting Chinese influence with Western strategic alliances could stoke rather than pacify conflicts where China-linked ethnic armies are most active. While Suu Kyi pushes for peace, it seems just as likely Myanmar’s ethnic conflicts become armed theaters of U.S.-China competition than showcases of negotiated peace and reconciliation.