China’s Vexed Myanmar Policy

Resistance groups have been making unprecedented gains in northern Myanmar since beginning a joint offensive in October 2023. The Three Brotherhood Alliance – which groups together the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), and Arakan Army – has captured major swaths of territory in Rakhine, Chin, and Shan states.

For China, the implications are immense. First, there’s the obvious concern with border stability as fighting intensifies in northern Myanmar. In the past, refugees have fled into China during periods of violence in Myanmar, and there have even been sporadic instances of gunfire and shells injuring Chinese nationals.

Radio Free Asia estimated in November 2023 – in the early stage of the new offensive – that over 5,000 refugees had crossed the border, seeking safety in China. That number has likely grown. And in January 2024, stray artillery shells landed in a Chinese town, injuring five.

China also has broader concerns about illicit activity in the border region, including the long-standing drug trade as well as newer cyber-scam operations. Finally, there’s little prospect of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, a subset of the Belt and Road Initiative, making progress while violence and instability roils Myanmar. Ethnic armed organizations are advancing on key points within the CMEC blueprint, including Mandalay and the port city of Kyaukphyu.

In these situations, China’s impulse is often to support the authoritarian regime du jour against domestic challengers, trusting in force to restore its prized stability. But in Myanmar the situation is far more complex.

China – both the central government in Beijing and the local authorities in Yunnan province in particular – has long maintained close relations with certain EAOs in northern China, especially the MNDAA and United Wa State Army (UWSA). Even before the 2021 coup, China was frequently accused of providing assistance and arms to these groups – something Myanmar’s military leaders are aware of and deeply resent.

In August, after a month of battlefield setbacks for the junta, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi paid an official visit to Myanmar – the first since his predecessor Qin Gang meet with junta officials in May 2023. In Naypyidaw, Wang met with top leader Min Aung Hlaing and Foreign Minister Than Swe.

On the surface, it was a display of support for Myanmar’s battered military regime at a crucial time. Indeed, China and Myanmar pledged during the visit “to hold a number of celebration events to mark the 75th anniversary of diplomatic ties next year” – which is notable not only for the promise to celebrate ties between Beijing and the Myanmar junta, but for the implicit assumption that the junta will still be in control by 2025.

But beyond that, Wang didn’t offer anything to his counterparts in Myanmar. There were no new agreements to speak of, only joint commitments to safeguard China’s top interests that read more like a list of demands than a mutually beneficial to-do list. For example, Wang and his counterparts promised to:

… ensure that the China-Myanmar oil and gas pipeline runs smoothly. They also agreed to step up joint effort to combat cross-border crimes such as online gambling and telecom fraud, do everything possible to protect the safety and security of Chinese personnel and projects in Myanmar, and keep the China-Myanmar border areas peaceful and stable.

And, in return, Beijing will throw the Myanmar military the smallest of bones by hosting some “celebrations” in 2025.

The military regime seems willing to bend over backward to curry favor with China. Indeed, there was more than a hint of desperation in Min Aung Hlaing’s comment that Myanmar “is willing to forever be a friend and neighbor that China can trust.” The general also made a point of thanking China for its role in “promoting peace talks in northern Myanmar” – a reference to a China-brokered ceasefire between the military and various EAOs that lasted from January to June of this year – while hinting that he hoped for more Chinese intervention.

“We look forward to China’s continued support for Myanmar to maintain domestic stability and achieve political reconciliation,” China’s Foreign Ministery quoted Min Aung Hlaing as saying.

Meanwhile, Wang made a point of telling Min Aung Hlaing that China’s “friendship” toward Myanmar involves “the entire Myanmar people” – in other words, not just the government of the day. His remark that “China firmly opposes turmoil or conflict in Myanmar” and “opposes any thing said or done … [to] smear and vilify China” could be just as easily read as a critique of the military regime as the EAOs.

After all, Min Aung Hlaing set off all the current “turmoil” by enacting his coup in the first place. The leader also recently made reference to an unnamed foreign country that has been supplying EAOs with arms – a comment widely read, including by Chinese analysts, as a criticism of China.

On that note, China’s current Myanmar policy has managed to alienate both the military and the resistance forces. The junta and its supporters believe Beijing is assisting the rebels, while resistance fighters accuse China of backing the military and enabling its attacks on civilians. China continues to serve as a major arms supplier to Myanmar’s military, meaning the broader resistance movement – to the extent one exists – has little love for Beijing. Myanmar-focused media outlets have reported a rise in anti-China protests since 2023.

China is facing the very real possibility that an immediate neighbor may disintegrate into smaller ethnic enclaves. If China can’t see its interests defended by the junta, it’s willing to entertain other offers. In that case, perhaps China’s best bet is to cement its influence over select EAOs, including the MNDAA and UWSA, with which it already has close, if clandestine, ties.

Journalist Patrick Winn, the author of “Narcotpica,” a book on Wa State, told The Diplomat’s Sebastian Strangio in a recent interview that the USWA was a “client state of China.” He stressed it’s “not a puppet state… but the leaders, before making key decisions, will ask themselves: is this going to upset Beijing?”

Given Beijing’s influence, China has been able to prevent the narcotics produced in Wa State from coming across the border, Winn said. Beijing will have a vested interest in keeping that status quo intact. Similarly, it’s widely believed that China tacitly permitted, if not outright assisted, the MNDAA in retaking Kokang’s capital of Laukkai because of the junta’s unwillingness (or inability) to clean out the cyber scam centers in the city.

Wang’s visit to Myanmar last month didn’t suggest a major change in policy. Beijing will continue to play both sides by making high-profile, if largely empty, gestures to the junta even while supporting EAOs that it sees as willing to preserve its interests. While Beijing’s approach thus far has made it unpopular with Myanmar’s society at large, at the end of the day it mostly needs goodwill from the groups located right next door.

As the junta looks less and less able to maintain control over the sensitive border region, China needs to make sure the new powers-that-be have reason to play ball.