Burma (also known as Myanmar) is a failed state, which suits China just fine.
For years, Naypyidaw, the capital city, has had no control over large parts of its territory near the Chinese border that are under the control of China-linked ethnic militias.
Beijing’s long-term interests are to expand territorially, made easier in Burma by the country’s China-linked ethnic militias that soften the country militarily and politically, and the junta, which has denied the country its democratic rights and imposed draconian controls and human rights abuses.
The territorially-acquisitive nature of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is largely ignored by Burma’s warring factions, terrorists, and drug smugglers, most of whom look to China for arms and trade despite the totalitarian country’s growing illiberal influence in their disputes. Even the pro-democracy faction has aligned itself with ethnic militias aligned with Beijing. They all now reportedly seek the coordinated overthrow of the Burmese junta, which took power in a coup in 2021.
The junta is responsible for genocidal policies against the Muslim minority Rohingya population of Rakhine state, the long-term imprisonment of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, and brutal crackdowns against peaceful pro-democracy protesters.
Beijing appears to be looking the other way or even assisting the ethnic militias in fighting its old friends in the Burmese military, reportedly to combat drug dealing, gambling, and human trafficking at the border. Family members of the junta reportedly have links to these criminal networks that prey on citizens from China, Thailand, and others.
However, the CCP has never prioritized combatting the criminality at its borderlands. Such criminality could be a partial reason or just a ruse to justify the recent attacks. A possible alternative cause is that the Burmese junta has recently turned away from Beijing and toward Moscow for arms and diplomacy. This could have led the CCP to “teach Burma a lesson” by encouraging the militia attacks on junta forces. China attacked Vietnam in 1979 for a similar reason when Hanoi grew too close to Moscow.
The awkward alliance between CCP-linked and pro-democracy militants in Burma sets the latter up for a double-cross in the future, in which their alliance partners will doubtless be better supplied by the CCP. These partners, which tend to be ethnic militias flying communist colors, could themselves be double-crossed or fully absorbed by the CCP, which prefers its own communist hierarchy to real ethnic autonomy. A case in point is the CCP genocide against the Uyghurs. Another is the takeover of Tibet and Hong Kong and the planned invasion of Taiwan. The CCP cannot accept real cultural, linguistic, religious, or political diversity, and has always worked to undermine such groups in the territories it controls. Thus, Burma’s ethnic militias and pro-democracy groups have no good reason to trust that Beijing has their best interests at heart.
The infighting between China-linked groups does provide the United States and its G7 and NATO partners with an opportunity to facilitate peace and democracy in Burma. They could do so by increasing their influence with the various factions in Burma and pulling the country away from the CCP’s tightening grip.
Washington could approach the junta with an agreement by which it demonstrably commits to democratization, reorient its foreign policy away from Russia and China, and allow the Rohingya, now sheltering in Bangladesh, to return to their villages with U.S. and allied development assistance.
Pro-democracy and non-China-linked militant groups could be incorporated into the Burmese military, and ethnic groups could be given some level of cultural and religious autonomy in exchange for relinquishing their arms. As part of the agreement, the United States would relax economic sanctions on Burma and assist the junta with a general amnesty that applies to all the warring factions.
No group in Burma will like all of these measures. But some agreement must be found to stop the fighting, safeguard Burma’s sovereignty, and reorient Naypyidaw and the ethnic militias away from their self-defeating alliances with malign dictators in Moscow and Beijing.
