As of 2024, Myanmar has diplomatic ties with 126 countries and missions in 37 countries. However, the junta’s top brass, including its boss Min Aung Hlaing, can only travel to a handful of countries.
Among them are fellow ASEAN members like Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, as well as its two giant neighbors, China and India. Notably, Iran also threw its door open to junta leaders.
The regime has been shunned by the West since the 2021 military coup, with countries such as the United States and United Kingdom downgrading diplomatic ties and imposing sanctions. As a result, junta chiefs have been barred from visiting western nations.
Instead, they have travelled frequently to China and Russia, recording a dozen trips to each, seeking support from the junta’s key allies and arms suppliers.
The diplomatic highlight in 2024 were visits to China by junta boss Min Aung Hlaing, his deputy Soe Win, defense minister Tin Aung San (who was recently transferred to the Prime Minister’s Office), and home affairs minister Yar Pyae.
Up until this year, Beijing had kept the regime at arm’s length, inviting only its foreign and defense ministers, along with less important cabinet members, to China. However, in a public display of support for the junta this year, it extended invitations to junta boss Min Aung Hlaing, his deputy Soe Win, and the home affairs minister for the first time.
Min Aung Hlaing has been barred from attending ASEAN Summits since his coup. However, November’s Greater Mekong Subregion Summit hosted by China in Kunming offered the regime boss the chance to talk with Thai, Cambodian and Laotian ministers.
Other junta top brass to have shuttled between Naypyitaw and China include home affairs minister Yar Pyae, who was rewarded with 500 million yuan in humanitarian assistance, and then defense minister Tin Aung San, who held talks on military cooperation.
Meanwhile, Russia first welcomed the junta boss to Moscow in June 2021, just months after the military takeover. Junta ministers and senior offcials have frequented Moscow ever since.
Though Min Aung Hlaing recorded no trips to Russia this year, cooperation between the two pariah regimes remained tight in various sectors. Junta officials paying visits to Russia in 2024 included election commission chairman Ko Ko, Quartermaster General Kyaw Swar Lin, national security advisor Moe Aung, as well senior military officials and the ministers of electricity and energy, transport, industry, health, legal affairs, and hotels and tourism.
Kyaw Swar Lin, who was recently promoted to No. 3 in the Myanmar military, attended the second Russia-Myanmar anti-terrorrism committee meeting in April for talks on security, training and cooperation in military technology.
India played host to junta foreign minister Than Shwe twice in 2024, including his trip to the BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) Foreign Ministers’ Retreat. Delhi maintains strong ties with the regime and is assisting with its poll plan.
However, the main foreign destinations for junta ministers and generals were Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. Banned from sending political representatives to ASEAN summits, the junta resorted to deploying permanent secretaries to the meetings this year.
Thailand also welcomed junta Air Force chief Tun Aung, the man responsible for an indiscriminate bombing campaign targeting civilians, schools and hospitals across vast swaths of the country under resistance control. The aerial campaign killed 504 people, including 109 children, in the first 10 months of 2024 alone, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
Also visiting Bangkok in December was foreign minister Than Swe, who joined informal talks to brief high-level representatives from China, India, Bangladesh, Laos and Thailand on the regime’s poll plan.
Than Swe’s efforts to expand the junta’s diplomatic network included trips to not only ASEAN neighbors, Russia, China and India, but also Iran in the Middle East. He attended the 19th Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) Ministerial Meeting in Tehran in June. During his visit, he held talks with his Iranian and Qatar counterparts to justify the regime’s actions and boost bilateral ties.
The junta’s pleas for support from abroad came amid an increasingly bleak backdrop at home. This year, it lost dozens more towns and two of its 14 regional military commands, leaving over 90 towns under the control of resistance forces.
The regime remains shunned by democracies around the world, relying on support from authoritarian countries like China and Russia.
