Four years after its military coup and consequent civil war, Myanmar’s spotlight in global headlines continues to dim as geostrategic reorientations and realignments among the major powers take center stage. Dramatic and drastic foreign policy changes are afoot in the United States under the second administration of President Donald Trump, while the European Union faces an existential threat from Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, and Japan is mired in political sclerosis at home. Myanmar’s fate and future will thus likely be determined by the course and outcome of its civil war, China’s expanding influence in the country and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states’ maneuvers to a lesser extent.
As a harbinger of US foreign policy directions, President Trump’s sudden suspension of US$45 million for Myanmar’s scholarship program—a tiny fraction of its overall foreign aid—signals that Myanmar’s resistance coalition against the junta, called the State Administration Council, can no longer rely on Washington’s crucial assistance. The European theater of military conflict centering on the Russia-Ukraine war is also waking up to new realities where Trump is demanding that European members of NATO more than double their defense spending to 5% of GDP. This lack of global leadership to shore up the international system leaves room for Japan to assert itself in Asia, but Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba appears detached and inward-looking, unlike the late Shinzo Abe, who dealt with Trump’s first administration and Japan’s international role much more astutely.
As a result, what will happen to and in Myanmar depends on civil war dynamics. After four years, it is clear that the junta is losing ground to the resistance coalition comprising the civilian-led National Unity Government (NUG), the People’s Defense Force (PDF) units, and a motley array of ethnic armed organizations (EAOs), led by the anti-SAC Brotherhood Alliance comprising the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA, also known as the Kokang), the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, and the Arakan Army. The EAOs now largely dominate Myanmar’s borderland states from Chin, Kachin, and Shan to Karenni, Karen, and Mon states. It is widely estimated that the SAC now controls less than half of the country’s territory.
Yet the Myanmar situation remains fluid both behind the scenes and on the ground. On the ground, the Arakan Army has emerged as the most effective fighting force among the EAOs. As civil war dynamics turn more and more against the SAC, the EAOs have become increasingly assertive. The more the EAOs surge, the harder it is for NUG and PDF units to keep up the pace. Although better trained and armed, the youth-led PDF squads are geared for attrition and grassroots warfare in townships and are less adept for bigger battles that the EAOs can mount.
This means that the NUG has fallen behind the curve over time. One way the NUG can pick up pace is to upgrade the PDFs into a cohesive and organized fighting force with a unified command like the EAOs. But NUG leaders have proved disappointing and not up to the task. Its leadership appears obscure and tentative, dominated by an older generation from the heyday of the National League for Democracy when it was led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who has languished in jail since the coup. The NUG needs an urgent shakeup to come up with a new and more convincing leadership that has the energy, charisma and appeal to stand up for this quasi civilian-led government in exile.
As the EAOs, especially the Brotherhood Alliance, gain the upper hand while the SAC is on the back foot, China naturally feels compelled to secure its interests in Myanmar, including a port in the south and a gas pipeline crisscrossing the country up to Yunnan province, not to mention businesses and workers. China’s dominance in the border states of Kachin and Shan is well established, especially over the MNDAA and the Kachin Independence Army, although Beijing has less latitude over states bordering Thailand and India.
For China, Myanmar’s breakup into statelets outside its influence represents a heightened security risk as the SAC loses more territory. To gain a semblance of stability and political order, China appears intent on seeing some kind of election in Myanmar, regardless of its international legitimacy. The SAC is similarly desperate to hold an election as a fait accompli. At issue is how and whether Senior General Min Aung Hlaing stays in power during and after an election. China seems to want to see the back of Min Aung Hlaing, who singularly brought on the coup and ensuing calamity, but he still appears in control of the junta.
In Myanmar’s neighborhood, Malaysia, as the ASEAN chair this year, also wants to change the status quo as Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim eyes re-election at home and a statesman legacy abroad. The recent ministerial meeting in Bangkok last December that included SAC Foreign Minister Than Swe and Anwar’s appointment of Thaksin Shinawatra as advisor is indicative of ASEAN’s apparent expediency to pave the way towards an election as a way out in view of its inept and ineffectual role since brokering the Five-Point Consensus to address the Myanmar crisis in April 2021.
But the ASEAN chair has to be careful. Such a poll would be detested and opposed by the NUG and the vast majority of Myanmar people who support it despite its shortcomings. Appointing Thaksin, who spent the Water Festival with Min Aung Hlaing in April 2013, suggests that an expedient outcome is being sought, potentially excluding the junta leader and including his safe passage in the end. If there is no change to the status quo that is acceptable to the key players in the resistance coalition, Myanmar will continue to weigh down ASEAN’s central role in promoting peace and stability in the region.
Under the foregoing circumstances, the Myanmar situation could see some kind of actionable endgame this year. If Washington continues to pull back its support, the NUG and PDFs and some of the EAOs outside China’s influence are unlikely to be able to sustain their ongoing momentum. As the specter of breakup and Balkanization takes hold, Myanmar’s future is at risk of being forfeited to Beijing.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak, PhD, on leave from Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Political Science, is a visiting professor at the London School of Economics.
This article first appeared in The Bangkok Post.
