Representatives of four political parties including the military’s proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) are on a goodwill visit to China, at the invitation of the Communist Party of China. Among the USDP representatives are a number with reputations as staunch pro-junta hardliners.
The USDP delegation is led by party vice-chair former Major General Hla Tun, who served as President’s Office minister in Thein Sein’s quasi-civilian government. The delegation also includes “Bullet” Hla Swe and Maung Myint.
Hla Swe was a lieutenant colonel in the Myanmar military, and a USDP lawmaker in the Upper House under the Thein Sein government. He earned the nickname “Bullet” in 2013 after suggesting that civil conflict in northern Myanmar’s Kachin State might best be resolved by bullets if diplomacy failed.
Maung Myint is a former USDP lawmaker in the country’s Lower House for Mingin Township in Sagaing Region. The former military officer is a member of the USDP’s Central Executive Committee.
The other parties invited to China are the People’s Party led by 88-Generation student leader Ko Ko Gyi, the Arakan Front Party (AFP) led by Dr. Aye Maung, and the Shan and Ethnic Democratic Party (SEDP) led by Sai Aik Pao.
They are on a one-week visit to China that started on Saturday.
Hla Swe and Maung Myint are notorious for their involvement in forming and equipping Pyu Saw Htee militias in central Myanmar.
As Hla Swe, the chairman of the USDP’s Naypyitaw chapter, was waiting for a flight at Mandalay Airport before leaving for China on Saturday, he posted a video on TikTok in which he makes a personal attack against jailed civilian leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.
In the video, he says Galon U Saw should have assassinated her father General Aung San earlier, so that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi could not have been born and “destroy Myanmar”.
During the previous military regimes, the ruling generals often described Daw Aung San Suu Kyi as pyi-pyat-ma (a woman who destroys the country), kalar mayar (the wife of a foreigner) and kalarma. (Though the term kalar has increasingly become an anti-Muslim slur, and is also used to refer to someone of South Asian origin, it was used to refer to foreigners in general during the colonial period. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi grew up in India.)
Hla Swe became the chief of the USDP chapter in Naypyitaw after the coup. He has since taken the lead role in forming and equipping Pyu Saw Htee militias in his former constituency— Gangaw Township in Magwe Region.
Hla Swe organized a rally outside Yangon City Hall in support of the junta’s execution in July 2022 of pro-democracy activists Ko Jimmy, Ko Phyo Zeya Thaw, Ko Hla Myo Aung and Ko Aung Thura Zaw. The regime provided security for the protest.
Recently, he said on social media that no more junta personnel would be killed if one anti-regime activist on death row was executed every time someone from the junta’s forces was killed.
Mingin, the native township of Maung Myint, is also a Pyu Saw Htee stronghold. Anti-regime forces have suffered casualties in clashes in Mingin thanks to Maung Myint, who helped secure reinforcements and extra firepower for Pyu Saw Htee militias in battles there. Some National League for Democracy (NLD) members were arrested in Mingin and given long-term jail sentences.
The representatives of the four parties will visit Yunnan and Qinghai provinces and exchange views with Chinese experts on China’s rural development scheme and Belt and Road Initiative.
Ko Ko Gyi, Dr. Aye Maung and Sai Aik Pao have registered their parties with the junta-appointed election body for the junta-proposed election. The NLD and the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy were disbanded by the regime after refusing to register.
The four parties have also joined sham peace talks organized by the regime.
One-party state China invited the four parties to pay a goodwill visit weeks after junta boss Min Aung Hlaing said elections would be held next year. In the 2020 general election, the USDP and the AFP only won a few seats each, while the SEDP (then known as the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party) won a seat in the Shan State parliament, and the People’s Party failed to win any seats at all.
