China's Ambiguous Meddling in Myanmar's Complex Conflicts

China’s role in Myanmar, given the regime’s bloody and brutal campaign to quell a rebellion against its February 2021 coup against a democratically elected government, is the region’s most pivotal, as a significant arms supplier and the great power neighbor with major economic and strategic interests. Yet Beijing’s Myanmar policy is in no way clear cut, rational or measurable, let alone predictable.

It is not accurate to claim China has ‘changed sides’ from the rebel Three Brotherhood Alliance (3BA to the junta’s State Administration Council. These complex relations are too deeply opaque for a simplistic formula. There is what China officially states and then what it does on the ground, often in contradiction, and these are almost always confounding to outsiders, confusing for Myanmar actors, and in constant collision between long-term strategic interests and short-term dynamics.

Nearly a year ago, China appeared to give significant support for Operation 1027, a stunning military operation spearheaded by the 3BA, which is made up of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), the Ta-ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), and the Arakan Army (AA). That the operation also targeted scam centers along the border, which China had called for, made this ‘support’ transactional, not ideological. Following more than two months of intensive fighting and significant territorial losses for the Myanmar military, Chinese officials called Myanmar officials and representatives of the 3BA to Yunnan and brokered a peace deal called the ‘Hiageng Agreement’ in January. Fighting may have reduced, but it didn’t fully subside, and the military’s State Administration Council forces breached the agreement on an almost daily basis.

Yet when Operation 1027 resumed in Phase 2 in late June this year, China appeared far more lukewarm on the resistance forces’ military success than was perceived at the end of 2023 to 3BA operations against key towns in Shan State bordering Mandalay Region. After sustained fighting the MNDAA took over the major city of Lashio and the Northeast Regional Military Command (RMC), an unprecedented battlefield success in the conflict. Days after the MNDAA entered Lashio, the Chinese embassy urged all its citizens to leave the city.

That ambivalence was evident in the recent high-level visit of Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi on August 14, who appeared to signal acceptance for the regime’s purported transition plan of holding elections and transferring power in the near future to a ‘civilian’ government, while appearing to partly admonish SAC head Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.

“China firmly supports Myanmar…committing itself to domestic peace and stability and economic development, and advancing the new Five-Point Road Map within the constitutional framework to realize political reconciliation and resume the process of democratic transition at an early date,” the official Chinese communique claimed. “China opposes chaos and conflicts in Myanmar, interference in Myanmar's internal affairs by outside forces, and any words and deeds that attempt to drive a wedge between China and Myanmar and smear China.”

Outrage was sparked by a statement issued by the Riuli City National Security Committee on August 29 (Riuli is the Chinese city on the border with Myanmar’s Muse town). On the final day of military exercises in Yunnan, the city authorities warned the TNLA to “(e)nd all military activities harmful to Chinese border stability and to the lives and properties of Chinese citizens. Otherwise, China will take more deterrent and disciplinary measures. And you will be entirely responsible for the consequences.” Anti-Chinese sentiment soared, compounded by the Chinese embassy in Yangon posting a statement that claimed it was not involved in Myanmar’s internal affairs.

Sinophobia in Myanmar is multilayered. Resentment towards Chinese support for the Myanmar military is long-standing and deep, especially since the coup, and its continued supply of military equipment. Defense Minister Admiral Tin Aung San’s recent trip to Beijing was clearly welcomed at the Beijing Xiangshan Forum, roughly the equivalent of the Munich Security Conference, and

included viewing Chinese defense contractors to view “modern aviation technology, pilotless crafts, electronic military operations, and air defense technologies.” China has reportedly sold drones to the SAC and to the 3BA.

China has cut off electricity, water, and communications to the MNDAA-held city of Laukkai, and has restricted trade in items such as medicine to all of Northern Shan State, which undermines claims of full Chinese support for Phase 2 of 1027, and is generating anti-Chinese sentiment in these conflict zones. Adding to the confusion, the MNDAA issued a statement on September 4 in Chinese announcing a ceasefire and calling on “China to play a constructive role in mediating…in order to end the chaos” and claiming to have no alliance with the opposition National Unity Government (NUG).

There is also alarm over the ethnic-Chinese MNDAA taking control of Lashio and imposing draconian measures to maintain order. Pro-Myanmar military groups using Telegram channels but also in a series of demonstrations in Yangon and Naypyidaw in mid-August have mobilized against the 3BA over what they argue are Chinese-backed armed groups taking Myanmar territory.

China is facing resentment from all sides in Myanmar, and it has significant economic interests it needs to balance against political maneuvering of the warring parties. According to the latest report of the authoritative Myanmar think tank the Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP), the 3BA and Kachin insurgents control six of ten border trade gates with China, plus 10 Chinese projects in Northern Myanmar including the TagaungTaung nickel mine, suspended in 2022 but still worth US$800 million. Further south, the AA, which has seized most of Rakhine State, has partial control of the territory in which nine major Chinese development projects are based. It is too early to tell if the insurgents can wrest full control of Kyaukphyu port and Special Economic Zone (SEZ), but they do have control over significant stretches of the strategic oil and natural gas pipelines.

But dealings between China and anti-SAC armed groups are not alliances nor spheres of influence for China, more a network of ‘frenemies’ who have mutual mistrust infused with enmity, but are forced to balance multi-level relationships that are under constant renegotiation. Or as one Myanmar scholar suggested, it's a form of “one country two systems” that China is juggling: the SAC central state and the constellation of EAO territorial spaces. Think of these embryonic insurgent zones as ‘protectorates’ and ‘confederations’ with partial fealty to China, stretching from Shan and Kachin States down to Rakhine State. Beijing can crack the whip, but it can’t do it too aggressively. China’s mediation is about mitigation, not resolution.

David Scott Mathieson is an independent analyst working on conflict and human rights issues in Myanmar

This article was originally published on Asia Sentinel.
Views in this article are author’s own and do not necessarily reflect CGS policy.