By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

China’s Double Game in Myanmar

Four years into Myanmar’s civil war, the conflict remains far from a resolution. The military regime, reeling from devastating losses, is in deep trouble. It has lost effective control of roughly three-quarters of the country’s territory; surrendered key strategic bases, including two regional military commands, to advancing resistance forces; and now faces a hollowing out of its ranks as defections and demoralization spread. But even though opposition forces have made significant gains nationwide, they have yet to penetrate the military’s stronghold in the center of the country. Opposition forces share the amorphous goal of making the country a federal democratic union, an arrangement that might accommodate the interests of the diverse factions arrayed against the junta. But these groups’ ties remain loose and fragile. With the opposition dispersed throughout the country and lacking both the capacity for reliable communication and the ability to meet safely in person, there are divisions within the resistance that will endure even should victory on the battlefield be in sight.

Meanwhile, the country’s roughly 54 million people continue to suffer. The junta depends on indiscriminate air assault on population centers to compensate for its increasing weakness in ground forces and territorial control. The increasing use of airstrikes against opposition forces has led to a surge in civilian deaths, which reached close to 10,000 by the end of 2024. Over 3.5 million people have been internally displaced, and about a third of the country needs humanitarian aid. The economy is nearing collapse. Natural disasters have compounded what is already a dire situation. A severe typhoon ravaged Myanmar last September, killing hundreds and flooding many areas, and a devastating 7.7-magnitude earthquake rocked the country in late March, killing more than 3,500. In the aftermath of the earthquake, the warring parties announced a temporary humanitarian pause in the fighting, but that did not hold. The regime launched fresh airstrikes and ground offensives just hours after the quake—and it has continued its assaults ever since. According to local media, the military carried out 108 air and artillery attacks between March 28 and April 6—including 46 attacks after the cease-fire was announced—killing around 70 civilians. Fierce clashes continue to rage on the ground.

Only one actor stands to gain from this tragedy: China. In the West, Myanmar’s civil war is often described as a “forgotten conflict.” But for China, the country is a key battleground where Beijing’s regional ambitions, economic interests, and security concerns intersect. A weakened Myanmar is central to China’s goal of establishing uncontested regional hegemony. If Beijing can dominate the country, it constitutes both a strategic barrier against India’s “Act East Policy,” which aims to link India with the fast-growing Southeast Asia region, and a vital foothold for China in mainland Southeast Asia and on the shores of the Indian Ocean. In public statements, Chinese officials insist that they want to restore stability to Myanmar and promote fraternal relations between the two countries. In practice, China props up the faltering junta while simultaneously trying to draw ethnic armed organizations into its orbit, in the process sidelining pro-democracy forces that it believes are too closely aligned with the West.

The lack of genuine Western interest in Myanmar has created a vacuum that China is only too happy to fill. Whereas Western powers did very little in the aftermath of the March earthquake, for instance, China rushed assistance to areas hit hard as part of a high-profile charm offensive. In truth, China finds opportunity in chaos: it is consolidating control in Myanmar by propping up the faltering regime and enabling its brutal operations, undermining resistance unity, expanding sway over several resistance forces, sidelining Western influence, and disregarding the political aspirations of the Myanmar people. A divided Myanmar under lasting military rule will be easier for Beijing to control.

 

China’s Double-Dealing

Myanmar is more than just another of China’s neighbors. It provides Beijing with a vital overland gateway to the Indian Ocean, offering a crucial alternative to the chokepoint of the Malacca Strait. Developing this economic conduit is a key objective for the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing’s vast overseas infrastructure investment program. The China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) is a key component of Beijing’s BRI strategy, linking China’s Yunnan Province with Myanmar’s vast energy reserves, natural resources, and access to the Indian Ocean.

Myanmar also possesses important resources that China wants. These include critical minerals, natural gas, hydropower, and agricultural commodities. Myanmar provides well over half of China’s heavy rare earth imports, which are essential inputs to high-technology and defense industries. China has long partnered with armed groups to extract these resources with little regard to environmental or social consequences. In 2024, Myanmar supplied China with 50,000 metric tons of rare earth oxides, surpassing China’s domestic production of these materials. Myanmar is also the source of 79.9 percent of China’s tin ore imports, an essential input in the production of semiconductors and other critical technologies.

Myanmar is of interest to Chinese officials for security reasons as well. China does not want external powers, particularly in the West, to gain a foothold in Myanmar and thereby challenge Beijing’s regional dominance. Beijing harbors deep anxiety that if a government or political force aligned with the West were to come to power, it could open the door to a sustained Western presence near China’s border—posing a long-term security threat. This security-driven mindset has shaped China’s approach to Myanmar’s civil war, with Beijing fearing that the fighting could encourage Western interference in Myanmar’s internal affairs. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently insisted that barring other outside powers from meddling in the conflict is one of his main goals; he sees Myanmar as part of China’s exclusive sphere of influence. The economic and social stability in Kyaukphyu [China’s deep-sea port currently under construction in Rakhine State in Myanmar] and its surrounding region is no less important than the sovereignty disputes between China and the Philippines over Huangyan Island.

China has devoted a great deal of attention to events in Myanmar, at least since the 2021 military coup that toppled an elected government. Given that much of the CMEC runs directly through active conflict zones, the post-coup conflagration has disrupted many of Beijing’s investments in the country. It also presented an opportunity, however, for Beijing to strengthen its control over Myanmar. Chinese officials initially downplayed the coup as a “cabinet reshuffle,” and they have maintained active diplomatic ties with the junta when most other countries have marginalized the regime.

But China has pursued a double game by simultaneously strengthening ties with Myanmar’s ethnic armed organizations, an array of groups that have significantly expanded their de facto territorial control since the coup. Not only is China the primary supplier of weapons to these groups, but it also acts as their principal trading partner. These relationships allow Beijing to maintain leverage over nearly all major actors in a divided Myanmar and serve as a strategic hedge in the event of the military’s collapse.

China has always been suspicious of Myanmar’s pro-democratic forces, including especially the National Unity Government, which is primarily composed of individuals deposed in the 2021 coup. Beijing views this group as too close to the West, even though Western powers have provided minimal support. Chinese paranoia deepened after the NUG opened an office in Washington in 2022 and the United States passed the BURMA Act in late 2023, which promised much assistance—aid that it ultimately failed to deliver. Beijing also sought to dissuade other ethnic armed organizations from working with the NUG and instructed them to negotiate with the junta. To be sure, Beijing allowed backchannel communications with the NUG, primarily to protect Chinese commercial assets, but it kept these dealings discreet and noncommittal. As the junta lost more territory, some Chinese companies paid taxes or partnered with ethnic armed organizations and armed groups affiliated with the NUG to maintain business operations.

 

Seizing the Moment

For a few years, this double-dealing allowed China to protect critical investment projects while also deepening its influence even as Myanmar became engulfed in violence. Then, in late 2023, an anti-junta coalition of ethnic armed organizations with ties to China, but also including armed forces associated with the NUG, launched Operation 1027, a large-scale coordinated offensive. In the year since the offensive began, rebels have captured two of the junta’s regional commands, six operational commands, over 160 battalion bases, and 93 towns. Once seen as unbeatable, the military today teeters on the brink of collapse.

The fall of the junta’s Northeastern Regional Command in Lashio in August 2024 set off alarm bells in Beijing, which felt the resistance forces had gone too far. China subsequently abandoned its hedging strategy in favor of aggressive intervention on behalf of the regime. This pivot became evident when Foreign Minister Wang visited junta officials in August 2024, signaling Beijing’s clear support. Soon after, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing traveled to Kunming for his first visit to China since the 2021 coup.

 At the same time, Beijing attempted to pressure ethnic armed organizations along the China-Myanmar border to cease their hostilities. It tried to coerce factions that did not comply, including by closing border posts and shutting off access to cross-border flows of electricity, water, internet, and essential supplies. In its most drastic move, in late 2024, local news reports claimed that China detained the leader of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) in an attempt to force the group into a cease-fire and withdrawal from Lashio.

Touting itself as a peace broker and guarantor of stability, in the wake of Operation 1027, Beijing mediated multiple rounds of talks between the junta and several ethnic armed organizations. These negotiations have failed to foster peace because the military insists on regaining control of lost territory and the ethnic factions refuse to give up their hard-won gains. At the same time, though, China has deepened its influence in the country by pressuring all sides to acknowledge and accommodate its role in shaping Myanmar’s future. It has propped up the junta by providing diplomatic cover in the international community and supplying it with heavy weapons, fighter jets, surveillance technology, and financial lifelines. China has also worked to exacerbate divisions within Myanmar’s resistance forces, by pressuring ethnic armed groups under its sway—particularly those along the northern border—not to cooperate with the NUG or allied pro-democracy forces it sees as Western-backed. These interventions have fueled instability and prolonged the war. In response, some resistance groups have felt compelled to issue public assurances of their commitment to protecting Chinese interests in Myanmar—or even to temporarily halt planned offensives to avoid provoking Beijing’s ire.

The March earthquake has given Beijing another opportunity to expand its influence in Myanmar and chip away at its biggest challenge: widespread anti-China sentiment. Where Western powers have offered only limited support amid Myanmar’s humanitarian catastrophe, China has stepped in. As it cultivates its soft power, China has expanded its security presence in Myanmar. Citing concern that the junta is not equipped to protect Chinese assets, Beijing has pressured the junta to form joint-venture security firms that are now deployed at the Kyaukphyu deep-sea port in the west and in Muse in the east along the Chinese-Myanmar border. These operations are led by Chinese state security companies and constitute China’s first official armed presence in Myanmar. The long-term implications of expanded military presence in Myanmar are unclear, but it could significantly reshape the country’s internal conflict and the broader regional security landscape.

Simply put, Beijing’s involvement is prolonging Myanmar’s destructive war. Emboldened by China’s support, the regime has escalated airstrikes on resistance-held areas, indiscriminately targeting civilians. But the junta is not strong enough to launch ground offensives to reclaim lost territory, so it now focuses on preventing the resistance from consolidating control in newly seized areas. Even amid the widespread devastation caused by the March earthquake, the regime prioritized airstrikes over rescue and relief operations. China has delivered additional warplanes and drones to the junta to abet this effort.

The opposition continues to advance on the battlefield regardless of whether it has the political cohesion needed to replace the junta. For now, the regime’s opponents are trying to expand urban operations across the country, aiming ultimately at the major cities in the center. As long as the military regime still controls Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city, and Naypyidaw, its capital, the advances by opposition forces will weaken the junta but likely fall short of delivering a decisive blow. Without a strong united front within the opposition, the regime will probably continue to stagger on.

As Western interest in Myanmar has waned, China has seized the opportunity to expand its strategic footprint by exploiting the country’s chaos and political fragmentation. It now holds considerable sway over key actors on all sides of the conflict and has systematically sidelined Western influence by alienating groups aligned with the West. And Beijing has already secured several tangible gains, including retaining its access to strategic resources such as rare earth elements and establishing a military presence on Myanmar’s soil. These moves give China not only privileged access to economic assets but also political leverage over a pliant neighbor within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), tightening its grip on a region central to its ambitions. China’s growing influence in Myanmar is not an isolated case; it is a critical front in Beijing’s larger campaign for regional hegemony. For Western and regional powers, this should sound an alarm. A reactive approach will not suffice. Containing Beijing’s advance must begin where China is expanding at a rapid pace—at its base perimeter in Myanmar.

 

What Beijing Doesn’t Want

A political solution to the crisis remains a distant prospect. The junta has pledged to stage elections within a year, even though its capacity to hold a vote—even a sham one—seems hugely circumscribed, both by war and by the March earthquake. With most of the country racked by conflict, the regime has been forced to repeatedly postpone elections that it had originally planned for 2022. The opposition groups and public would not recognize a vote organized by the junta as legitimate, in any case. At this point, attempting to stage elections will only further inflame conflict and exacerbate the country’s humanitarian crisis.

Many outside powers, including ASEAN, China, and India, have called for a negotiated settlement, though they have not prescribed specific terms. But this remains unrealistic for two main reasons. First, given the junta’s weakness, members of the resistance and the public see this as a historic opportunity to finally expel Myanmar’s military, the primary perpetrator of their suffering, from a position of power. Second, Myanmar’s generals have never engaged in meaningful political dialogue. Even minor concessions that might threaten their grip on power are intolerable to them. Instead, they dictate terms, expecting their counterparts to capitulate, and operate within a framework that guarantees military dominance. Even in the aftermath of the earthquake in March, the regime prioritized airstrikes against opposition forces and leveraged increased international engagement—particularly through humanitarian aid—as a tool to bolster its legitimacy while countless victims remained trapped beneath rubble without meaningful assistance. And with the unwavering support of China and Russia, the regime feels emboldened and sees little reason to pursue genuine negotiations.

The only way the junta would accept some negotiated end to the war would be if it had absolutely no other choice. That would require greater cooperation and political cohesion among the rebel forces, and then for those united forces to turn the tide on the battlefield decisively against the regime, threatening its hold on the center of the country. Beijing does not want this to happen. It will continue under any future circumstance to undermine the very cooperation among the rebels that is necessary to one day form a peaceful, stable, and federal democratic Myanmar. China has no genuine interest in peace or stability in Myanmar; it wants strategic dominance. And if Beijing can best grow its influence by playing Myanmar’s factions off one another, keeping them weak, fragmented, and dependent on China, then that is what it will do.

 

 

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