Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met with Myanmar’s former President Thein Sein in Beijing on Saturday on the sidelines of commemorations of the 70th anniversary of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, the Chinese government’s foreign relations principles.
Myanmar junta-controlled state media said the Chinese foreign minister and former Myanmar president exchanged views on the existing friendly relations and cooperation between Myanmar and China, and recent developments inside Myanmar.
However, observers believe that during the meeting Thein Sein probably conveyed a request from Myanmar junta boss Min Aung Hlaing that China intervene in the recently resumed fighting in northern Shan State.
Shortly before Thein Sein embarked on his trip on June 27, renewed fighting broke out in northern Shan State and neighboring Mandalay Region between junta troops and forces from the Brotherhood Alliance of three ethnic armies, despite a ceasefire agreement between the junta and the alliance brokered by China five months ago. The Brotherhood Alliance comprises the Arakan Army (AA), the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA).
In January, Beijing mediated peace talks between the two sides at the junta’s request after the regime suffered a series of humiliating defeats, losing 24 battalion headquarters and command centers and hundreds of frontline bases, as well as about 20 towns and vital trade routes with China to the alliance’s Operation 1027 in northern Shan State.
Last week, the TNLA and allied People’s Defence Force groups (PDFs) resumed Operation 1027 against junta forces in northern Shan State and Mandalay Region in response to repeated junta attacks on their bases. In what they are referring to as “Operation 1027 Part II”, the TNLA and PDFs have captured at least two towns and over 25 junta strongholds, including battalion headquarters and police stations, in Nawnghkio and Kyaukme townships in northern Shan State and Madaya and Mogoke townships in northern Mandalay Region.
For the junta, the timing couldn’t be worse, as it is currently in serious trouble in Rakhine State in the country’s west, where the AA has launched a series of successful offensives against the junta since late last year.
Already reeling, it would be a nightmare for the junta to have conflict resume on a new front. Making matters worse, Operation 1027 is no longer confined to northern Shan State but has expanded to Mandalay Region, posing a threat to Myanmar’s second-largest city Mandalay as well as the junta’s garrison town of Pyin Oo Lwin, where its Defense Services Academy is located.
Under the circumstances, analysts said, it is safe to assume the junta used Thein Sein as a messenger to exert pressure on the alliance.
“It is highly likely that Min Aung Hlaing’s regime passed a message through Thein Sein requesting Chinese intervention in compelling the Brotherhood Alliance to stop its present military activity in northern Shan,” said Jason Tower, country director for the Burma (Myanmar) Program at the United States Institute of Peace, a US federal think-tank that promotes conflict resolution worldwide.
He said he believed Min Aung Hlaing was desperate to turn things around in the north, and that the regime boss was likely using Thein Sein to indicate the regime’s willingness to engage in some form of carefully managed reform process, including his planned election in 2025. He added that the Chinese side has been pressuring the Myanmar military regime to hold elections as part of what the Chinese government views as an “off-ramp” for addressing the crisis.
Thein Sein, who held office from 2011 to early 2016, has a deep history of engagement with the northern ethnic armed organizations and with the peace process. His reputation in China is mixed, however, mainly for his suspension of the China-backed Myitsone Dam project.
“On the other [hand] he has long been seen as a key influencer in Myanmar, and someone that the Chinese side can work with to advance their interests in country,” Tower explained.
A local observer who follows the conflicts in Myanmar as well as China-Myanmar relations agreed that during his trip, Thein Sein most likely discussed possible Chinese intervention in the ongoing fighting.
“Given the ongoing fighting, I just think Min Aung Hlaing used Thein Sein to convey his message during the meeting to pressure the alliance. That’s why Min Aung Hlaing arranged the trip very well for him,” he said.
He pointed out that Thein Sein flew to Beijing on a Myanmar Air Force plane. When the former president left for Beijing on June 27, junta Defense Minister and governing body member Admiral Tin Aung San was among those who saw him off at Naypyitaw Airport. On Thein Sein’s return from Beijing on June 30, the admiral welcomed him home.
All of which raises an obvious question: Assuming Thein Sein sought China’s intervention as requested by Min Aung Hlaing, would China listen?
The local observer said that is unlikely, as China has already decided that Min Aung Hlaing can’t control the country. Furthermore, he has disappointed China several times, including by rejecting Beijing’s repeated requests to meet with detained democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, whom China thinks could help contain the ongoing crisis sparked by the military coup in 2021.
Since her arrest following the coup, China has been pushing the regime to allow a meeting with her and still recognizes her National League for Democracy (NLD) despite the junta’s dissolution of the party. Beijing’s attempts to meet Daw Aung San Suu Kyi prompted the NLD to express its gratitude to China “for taking seriously her health and wellbeing during her detention as well as [Chinese officials’] relentless efforts to see her” in a press release issued to mark her 79th birthday last month.
“If you ask something of someone, you have to give something in return. It’s the same with relations between Min Aung Hlaing and China. If he wants China’s intervention, he has to do something for them, for example like allowing them to meet Aung San Suu Kyi,” the observer said.
Tower said China is most likely to let the current TNLA offensive move ahead, as its preference is for the Brotherhood Alliance to weaken the military further, and ultimately use this as leverage to push the military to make additional concessions in order to scale up the ceasefire agreement made in January.
“In my view, this strategy is likely to fail, as the Brotherhood Alliance has no trust for and does not view any commitments from the military side as credible. As such, the ceasefire Haigeng agreement is only likely to hold under significant levels of Chinese coercion and pressure,” he said.
“This is not sustainable over the long run, and as such, it is likely that hostilities will continue,” he added.
