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Laura Zhou

Early in 2021, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw and held talks with both General Min Aung Hlaing, the chief of the armed forces, and Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of the civilian government.
The meeting was a chance for China to voice support for Myanmar’s “national conditions” development path and signal China’s long-term pragmatic approach to ties with its southwestern neighbour, irrespective of who was in power.
That strategy, however, came under strain just weeks later, as the military under Min Aung Hlaing staged a coup on February 1, effectively ending a decade of tentative democratic reform.
The coup plunged the country into turmoil and thrust China – its powerful neighbour and major investor – into an uncomfortable geopolitical spotlight.
Unhappy with Beijing’s ties with the junta, anti-coup protesters set Chinese factories on fire and ran a boycott campaign.
Meanwhile, the military’s fighting with resistance forces and ethnic armed groups pushed violence so close to the Chinese border that the People’s Liberation Army conducted live-fire drills on its side of the frontier as a warning.
Now, with a junta-staged election concluded, attention is shifting to whether Beijing’s dilemma in Myanmar is easing – or becoming more complex.


In the years since the coup, Myanmar has endured armed conflict, severe economic crisis and international sanctions, even as the junta turned its focus to consolidating power in the political arena, culminating in the tightly controlled election that concluded last month.
The pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) claimed victory in 339 out of the total 664 seats in Myanmar’s two-chamber parliament.
That hands the military – which holds 25 per cent or 166 guaranteed seats under the constitution – a commanding majority in the new parliament. The body is scheduled to convene in March, followed by the election of a new president and government formation in April.
Yin Yihang, an analyst with Beijing-based Xinhe Consulting, which focuses on global geopolitical changes and their implications for China, said the election marked a soft landing for the military transfer of power.
“No matter whether the USDP is supported by the military or if Min Aung Hlaing is to seek the presidency, this will be a government established in accordance with the Myanmar constitution.”
The opposition National Unity Government and other resistance forces have denounced the elections, warning that the civil war will persist unabated.
Still, a few observers hope the election can foster a degree of stability in a country where the bloody civil war has displaced more than 3.6 million people and left rebel forces controlling much of the borderlands.
However, they also note that Myanmar’s increasingly fragile political landscape is complicating the way forward.
Challenges include growing solidarity between ethnic rebels and pro-democracy protesters in resisting the junta.
“The central government will face more rivals in the future,” said Yin, who is also a special research fellow with the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, an official think tank.
This is expected to further complicate China’s approach to Myanmar, particularly as mutual public misperceptions have worsened since the 2021 coup.
Within China, reports of Chinese citizens being abducted to work in scam centres in northern Myanmar triggered rare public outrage, questioning Beijing’s investment ties and pressuring it into acting more decisively against cross-border crime.


Meanwhile, distrust of China has deepened among both the junta and ethnic armed groups, especially after Beijing reportedly pressured both sides to agree to a ceasefire following the resistance-led Operation 1027, according to Yin.
Launched in October 2023, the offensive by ethnic armed groups in northern Shan State seized key towns and border areas from the junta, only to relinquish much of it last year, reportedly under Chinese pressure.
In April, when asked about the handover, the Chinese foreign ministry reiterated its policy of “non-interference in other countries’ internal affairs”.
China supported Myanmar “in safeguarding its independence, sovereignty, national unity and territorial integrity”, and stood with the various parties in Myanmar “to realise political reconciliation” and resume the political transition, it said.
But, Yin said, trust had fallen on a range of fronts.
“Mutual trust has been decreasing not only between China and the ethnic armed groups but also between China and the Burman [majority ethnic group]-dominated regime, while civilian trust and friendship have also continued to deteriorate since the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly after Operation 1027,” he said.
“Actually, the intensity and effectiveness of China’s influence will not be as good as before.”
Still, ensuring stability remains a top priority in Beijing’s post-coup strategy, according to Yun Sun, China programme and co-director of the East Asia programme at the Stimson Centre in Washington.
“Beijing’s … goal was to create a conducive environment for the election and peace. I expect stability to continue to be China’s goal, and both engagement and pressure being the instruments, with both the military and the rebels,” Sun said.
Song Qingrun, a professor with the Asian studies school at Beijing Foreign Studies University, said the two sides might also seek to strengthen cooperation in non-traditional security domains.

China, Myanmar’s number one trading partner, has viewed with deepening alarm the volatile situation along their 2,000km (1,240-mile) shared border, where instability is being fuelled by continued armed conflict, the disruption of vital trade arteries and a surge in cross-border cybercrime.
In a rare move towards decisive legal action, China has executed 15 key members of mafia-style crime syndicates since late January. Many of the defendants were Myanmar nationals from the border region of Kokang and convicted of crimes ranging from murder to fraud and human trafficking.
This came amid an intensified crackdown on cross-border telecoms fraud and organised crime originating from Kokang.
Song said China and Myanmar would continue to work closely on non-traditional security, “jointly combating transnational crimes such as telecoms fraud and drug trafficking”, and coordinating with other neighbours to combat transnational crime.
However, he noted, while restoring foreign investor confidence to drive economic recovery was likely to be a top priority for the next government, the question was how quickly order could be restored and how fast the West would lift sanctions imposed after the coup.
To signal its commitment to safeguarding foreign investment, the military government enacted a law last February allowing foreign firms to provide armed security services. The move was seen to be aimed especially at China’s extensive economic interests, particularly in infrastructure.
Foreign direct investment in Myanmar has fallen to barely a quarter of pre-coup levels, with China accounting for nearly half of post-coup inflows, according to a January report by the Institute for Strategy and Policy Myanmar, an independent think tank which relocated to Thailand as the conflicts escalated.
Sitting at the crossroads of South Asia, Southeast Asia and China, Myanmar hosts a sprawling network of Chinese-funded infrastructure, including gas and oil pipelines running from China’s border province of Yunnan to the Indian Ocean.


At the heart of China’s infrastructure push is the US$1.3 billion Kyaukphyu deep-water port. The project under China’s Belt and Road Initiative is expected to give it direct access to the Indian Ocean, bypassing the narrow Strait of Malacca that now transports some 80 per cent of Chinese oil imports from the Middle East.
Beijing appears to be laying the groundwork for deeper economic engagement in the post-election transition, with Chinese ambassador Ma Jia recently meeting with senior junta officials overseeing commerce, foreign policy and energy.
Last month, a ceremony was held in Yangon for the launch of the Myanmar-China Investment and Trade Promotion Association. Ma said the body could become a “catalyst” and “stabiliser” of economic cooperation between the two countries, according to a Chinese embassy statement.
Song said a quick lifting of sanctions was unlikely as the West was grappling with a number of issues, including the war in Ukraine and US President Donald Trump’s threats to acquire Greenland.
“The West will assess the new government’s governance performance before deciding whether and to what extent to ease sanctions and this will take time and will also depend on how the new government, as well as the military, engages with Western countries and organisations.”
A massive influx of Western investment also remained unlikely any time soon, he added.
“Over the past two to three decades, Western businesses have never made large-scale inroads into the country.
“And given the uncertainty surrounding the lifting of sanctions in the near term and the limited clarity on how much relations between the West and Myanmar’s new government can improve, Western companies are likely to remain cautious when considering future investment in Myanmar.”
The World Bank warned in December that the country’s real GDP was expected to contract by 2 per cent in the financial year ending in March.
According to the latest World Bank Myanmar Economic Monitor report, the economy continues to face “formidable obstacles, including constrained reconstruction financing, ongoing conflict and insecurity, and unreliable electricity supply”.


Trump this month extended Washington’s declaration of a “national emergency” in Myanmar by another year. The declaration, in place since February 2021, means US sanctions, including a ban on aviation fuel sales and the blacklisting of banks that do business with the junta, will stay in force.
However, Trump said his administration would be “closely monitoring” developments in Myanmar and would be “engaging with relevant stakeholders and regional partners” to encourage dialogue among different parties.
“I am prepared to calibrate pressure as necessary to protect American interests in and in relation to Burma,” the presidential notice said, using the country’s old English name as part of a long-term diplomatic stance against the military junta that first seized power in 1988.
There is growing discussion over whether the Trump administration might shift policy by engaging the junta – or the resistance forces – to gain access to Myanmar’s vast rare earth deposits, mainly concentrated in Kachin State along the northern border with China and India.
Trump has shown a consistent interest in security and US access to critical minerals, including in war zones such as Ukraine and remote regions such as Greenland.
Myanmar is the third-largest producer of rare earth elements in the world, after China and the US, and a major external source of heavy rare earths for China.
Yin argued that given the complex disputes between Myanmar’s ethnic groups and the junta, and China’s strong influence in the border region, “it would be far harder for Trump to exert the same leverage he has over Greenland”.
At the same time, the new government is expected to diversify its external ties as part of its long-term strategy to maintain a “non-aligned” status as a hedge between major powers.
In that vein, Min Aung Hlaing has increased engagement with Russia. After an agreement last May to develop a small modular nuclear reactor, the two nations solidified their ties with a five-year military cooperation pact when Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu visited this month.
Last March, reports surfaced that India was working with both the junta government and rebels to secure its strategic investments, including the formation of dedicated security firms to protect key infrastructure such as the Sittwe deep-water port and the India-Myanmar-Thailand three-way highway project to connect India’s landlocked northeast to Southeast Asia via Myanmar.
Yin argued that, despite the junta’s heavy reliance on Beijing, it was likely to be weighing all options.
“China holds significant influence on Myanmar, but it will continue its engagement with other powers so as to balance China.”


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Old concerns about stability and security linger as other big players vie for sway over Myanmar’s rare earth bounty and strategic location


Old concerns about stability and security linger as other big players vie for sway over Myanmar’s rare earth bounty and strategic location.


5 years and 1 election later, why China’s Myanmar dilemma still isn’t over

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Old concerns about stability and security linger as other big players vie for sway over Myanmar’s rare earth bounty and strategic location

Old concerns about stability and security linger as other big players vie for sway over Myanmar’s rare earth bounty and strategic location