Since Malaysia assumed the ASEAN chairmanship earlier this year, the regional bloc has stepped up efforts to mediate a ceasefire and dialogue in Myanmar.
While expressing its support for ASEAN’s peace plans, Myanmar’s powerful neighbor China has been working in its own way to broker a ceasefire between the regime and ethnic resistance groups along its border over the past two and half years.
China is primarily focused on resumption of trade worth US$ 6 billion a year through the border between northern Shan State and Yunnan, which has been halted since the Brotherhood Alliance of three ethnic armed groups launched anti-regime Operation 1027 in October 2023. While there is also border trade with China through Kachin State, this is much lower than through northern Shan.
These efforts have been given urgency by the U.S.-China trade war, which has led to declining trade volume and shifting supply chains.
For China, Myanmar’s political structure—whether democratic or authoritarian—is irrelevant. Regardless of who governs Myanmar, China’s priority is a stable environment where it can promote its economic interests. The ongoing armed conflict simply frustrates Beijing as it hampers trade, disrupts investments, and threatens long-term economic plans.
Of the seven ethnic armed organizations based near the Chinese border, three—the United Wa State Army (UWSA), Shan State Progress Party (SSPP), and National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA)—have opted out of fighting the regime altogether.
China also has a degree of leverage over three other groups that are fighting the regime—the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), and Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA)—because they rely on Beijing for vital supplies of food, fuel, and pharmaceuticals. With varying success, China has used both carrot and stick in brokering talks between the regime and ethnic armed groups since 2022.
Only the Arakan Army (AA) from Rakhine State in western Myanmar, which assists its allies in their operations in northern Shan State, is largely independent of China.
While China acknowledges the possibility of the junta collapsing, it also sees no viable alternative. It is apparently afraid that Myanmar could descend into chaos once the junta was removed, jeopardizing Chinese investments.
So rather than facilitating talks between the regime and EAOs to find a long-term solution, China only cares to divvy up territory between them. In doing so it sets the terms, and the EAOs are pressured to accept Beijing’s conditions or face punitive action.
That is why China’s approach to Myanmar’s EAOs has shifted from collective engagement to separate negotiations, aiming to fragment alliances and limit cooperation with the civilian National Unity Government (NUG)—in other words, divide and rule.
Reports indicate that China is pressuring ethnic groups to avoid aligning with NUG, and has met separately with the UWSA, SSPP, and NDAA, and pressured them to restrict supplies of weapons, food, and medicine to armed groups fighting the regime.
That intervention has to some extent stalled military cooperation and political alliances among the EAOs of northern Shan State.
The AA appears to face less direct pressure from China as its operations are limited to Rakhine bordering Bangladesh and India. Given India’s strategic presence, China is handling the AA with caution, and the AA has in turn skirted China’s strategic investments in the envisioned deep-sea port of Kyaukpyu on the Bay of Bengal.
In Kachin State, talks with the KIA were tense in late 2024, but China has toned down its approach since its rare earth mines in the state came under KIA control.
It continues regular meetings with KIA, urging it to engage in talks with the junta, but so far it has not forced direct negotiations.
The KIA in turn has reportedly suspended its formal involvement in K3C, a coalition of four groups fighting the regime that also includes the Karen National Union, Karenni National Progressive Party, and Chin National Front. This is testimony to the fact that China has some leverage over the KIA.
But China’s focus at the moment is pressuring the MNDAA and TNLA, which hold territory along the trade route. Until last month, the MNDAA held the northern Shan capital of Lashio on National Highway 3 that leads from Mandalay to the Chinese border, but was forced under heavy Chinese pressure to withdraw.
This approach allows the junta to reclaim lost territory without firing a shot: it only has to sit and let China pressure the EAOs.
China also brokered talks between the TNLA and the regime in late April, where the junta predictably claimed back other towns along Highway 3—Hsipaw, Kyaukme and Nawngkio—that the armed group has seized, though for now the TNLA stands its ground. The two sides agreed to meet again in August, and it remains to be seen what China will do in the meantime to coerce it.
While many analysts have denounced China’s involvement as interference in Myanmar’s internal affairs, China will continue to insist that it was invited by both sides to mediate. But any China-brokered talks are short-term fixes. The people of Myanmar are aware that Chinese goods are anything but durable.
Wut Yee Khaing Mar is an international relations analyst
