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Myanmar has a long history of internal problems, but China’s path to peace in northern Myanmar is still long

Recently, with China's mediation and promotion, Myanmar government forces held peace talks with representatives of the Kokang, Ta'ang, and Arakan armed groups in northern Myanmar in Kunming, Yunnan, China, and reached a formal ceasefire agreement. Both sides agreed to immediately cease fire and cease fighting, and military personnel disengaged

Myanmar's internal problems have been going on for a long time, and the various parties have been fighting and fighting endlessly. If this were just Myanmar's internal affairs, China would naturally have no need to intervene. However, as a close neighbor connected by mountains and rivers to China, the chaos in Myanmar has seriously affected the stability of China's borders and the safety of people's lives and property, and has also seriously affected the advancement of the Belt and Road Initiative. The proposed China-Myanmar Economic Corridor has also been delayed due to the civil war in Myanmar. In particular, a large number of electronic fraud parks have developed in Myanmar in recent years, specifically targeting Chinese people and causing great harm to the lives and property of the Chinese people. Their crimes are heinous. This determines that China cannot ignore the civil war in Myanmar.

At the end of last year, all parties reached a temporary ceasefire agreement, but all parties believed that their interests and demands had not been met. Several important towns in northern Myanmar are in the hands of the Burmese army, and the anti-government allies are not satisfied; the government forces are not willing to lose several strategic points in northern Myanmar. Within the Allied Forces, some forces occupy a relatively large territory, while some forces, such as the Ta'ang Army and the Arakan Army, have not gained much. Therefore, that ceasefire did not hold. However, on the current battlefield in Myanmar, government forces are retreating steadily, and the Allied Forces have occupied the entire Kokang and controlled all land ports leading to China. The areas controlled by the Myanmar government forces are actually no longer able to border with China. The international situation of Myanmar's military government is not good. Western countries have imposed long-term sanctions on Myanmar under the pretext that the military government imprisoned Aung San Suu Kyi. The US Central Intelligence Agency has also actively intervened to support local armed forces in Kachin State. In the entire Western public opinion, Myanmar's military government is an extremely negative example. If Myanmar wants to develop its economy and consolidate its unification, its only hope is to obtain China's support and open up trade corridors with China. However, judging from the fighting between the Allied Forces and the Burmese Army during this period, the Burmese Army has been unable to open the corridor on its own. Especially in the Kokang battle, the Burmese army even surrendered in the entire theater. The military government has taken measures many times to try to reverse the defeat, but it has been unable to reverse it. Moreover, the Burmese army has repeatedly experienced vicious incidents in which artillery shells crossed the border and injured Chinese border residents, which shows the low level of battlefield control. However, it is difficult for the Allied forces to make further progress. The Allied Forces have been operating in the mountains and jungles, and their troops are mainly light infantry. Before the war started, a small number of drones were obtained, which were the only high-tech weapons. Except for Shan State, military companies in other civilian areas have very few combat vehicles, let alone long-distance logistics support. Once you leave the mountains of northern Myanmar, there is no advantage at all. If we rashly continue to attack the areas occupied by the Burmese army, we will be counterattacked by the Burmese army's superior air force, artillery and armored forces. Therefore, on the current battlefield in Myanmar, the two sides have entered a stalemate, creating conditions for peace talks. As for what the negotiations will look like, I'm afraid I'm not optimistic. The conflict between the Myanmar government and local armed forces has been going on for a long time. In decades of fighting, more than hundreds of thousands of people have been killed or injured. There are complex and difficult-to-resolve blood feuds between the various parties, making it difficult to reach a peace agreement. What's more serious is that the United States wants to use the civil war in Myanmar to undermine China's Belt and Road Initiative and create and maintain a source of unrest around China. This will make the Myanmar issue more complicated, and China should be mentally prepared for this.

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OPINION - 6 reasons US is not really supporting Myanmar’s democratic resistance

The question many in Myanmar are asking is “Why is US President Joe Biden holding onto about $1 billion of the Myanmar people’s sovereign funds while pouring $25 billion in American taxpayers’ money into Ukraine’s resistance?” For those of us who have worked, in various capacities, in various waves of Burma’s anti-dictatorship resistance, things are increasingly looking like deja vu since the country exploded into a long series of democratic revolts in 1988. In the international media, the US has consistently promoted itself as the champion of the Wretched of the Earth, to use Frantz Fanon’s revolutionary label for the oppressed. That is, only when such acts of backing resistance advance its core geopolitical interests. I lived, studied and worked in the US for 17 years (1988-2005), including several years as an activist and rights advocate in Washington, DC. I feel I am reliving the same old nightmare of wanting to believe in the American rhetoric for rights and democracy and yet knowing how empty it really is. When push comes to shove, American officials only throw humanitarian crumbs at people who lack proxy value. Washington’s concrete and massive support of strategic convenience in cases of US proxies such as anti-China Taiwan and, most recently, anti-Russian Ukraine brings into relief the glaring gap between its official rhetoric of values and the actual deeds solely anchored in its material interests. Why is Washington pursuing, with a straight face, this intellectually and morally indefensible gap, particularly in the case of Myanmar’s 20-month-old nationwide popular resistance, both armed and peaceful? I can offer seven specific factors that I think account for the lip service the Biden administration has been paying to Myanmar’s resistance fighters while it has poured billions of US dollars into the Ukrainian resistance against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion.

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Supporting an inclusive and democratic future for Myanmar

It has been three years since the Myanmar military's coup and while that crisis might seem difficult to resolve, the international community must continue to pressure the regime in view of the consequences that are increasingly affecting the broader region and the world. Three years after Myanmar’s military seized power from a democratically elected government, the armed conflict in the country might appear intractable. The consequences have indeed been horrific: Tens of thousands of pro-democracy advocates have been killed, imprisoned or forced to flee their homeland. Villages have been decimated by the military’s aerial assaults on civilian populations. Escalating violence has fueled a humanitarian disaster, with over two and a half million people displaced and one in three in need of assistance, with the highest poverty rate in 15 years. It would be a grave mistake – and a missed opportunity – for the international community to dismiss the Myanmar crisis as too difficult to resolve. The post-coup period has demonstrated that people in Myanmar will neither give in to fear or repression nor give up their struggle to freely choose their political leaders. The regime’s divide and conquer tactics have failed. Those striving for democracy are stronger than ever. Anti-regime groups in different parts of the country have mounted, to date, the fiercest armed resistance to military rule. These developments have sharpened the choice for the regime: either risk more political and territorial losses or pursue an inclusive dialogue with all parties. To pressure the military regime toward the path of peace and democracy, the United States has rolled out a series of targeted financial sanctions. Last June, we imposed sanctions against the regime-controlled Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank and Myanmar Investment Commercial Bank, a move that undercut the military’s ability to obtain foreign currency and purchase weapons from abroad. In October, the US sanctioned the Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise, the regime’s most lucrative state-owned company, curtailing a key source of US dollar revenues. The US Congress did its part by passing the Myanmar Act, which supports additional steps to promote accountability for the regime’s abuses. These actions, along with those of our European and Asian allies, have disrupted the Myanmar military’s ability to carry out atrocities and provided a powerful incentive for its leaders to change course. At the same time, we are supporting the diverse coalition of ethnic, religious and political leaders working to build a federal democracy in Myanmar. The US has provided nearly US$400 million to help pro-democracy entities improve their governance capacity, develop local health and education policies, and refine plans for a political transition to civilian governance. In my conversations with the pro-democracy National Unity Government and other actors in the opposition movement, it is clear they have come a long way toward agreeing on a shared vision for the future.

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Biden’s Flawed Myanmar Policy

As the Israel-Hamas war rages, the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza is grabbing headlines – as well it should. But another armed conflict, in Myanmar, is also causing mass suffering, with more than two million people internally displaced and over a million more streaming into neighboring Bangladesh, India, and Thailand. And it is attracting far less international attention. This is not to say that outside forces are not engaged in the conflict in Myanmar. On the contrary, the United States seems to view supporting the rebel and pro-democracy groups attempting to overthrow the military junta – which returned to power in a February 2021 coup – as a kind of moral test. But its approach is doing Myanmar little good. After the military overthrew Myanmar’s nascent civilian government – to which it had begun ceding power barely six years earlier – US President Joe Biden’s administration re-imposed wide-ranging sanctions, which it has since ratcheted up. But, so far, the sanctions have left Myanmar’s military elites relatively unscathed, even as they have unraveled the economic progress made over the last decade and inflicted misery on ordinary citizens. The Biden administration has also deepened engagement with the so-called National Unity Government that was formed as an alternative to the junta. Though the US, like the rest of the world, has refrained from formally recognizing the shadow government, this has not stopped the Biden administration from providing “non-lethal aid” to its notional army, the People’s Defense Force, as well as to ethnic insurgent organizations and pro-democracy groups, under the BURMA Act. And the US has a history of interpreting “non-lethal” rather loosely. Non-lethal support for Syrian rebels, for example, included enhancing their operational capabilities on the battlefield. The groups the Biden administration supports in Myanmar do not share a common cause, let alone a single political strategy. The shadow government has failed to win the support of all major ethnic groups, and its armed wing lacks a unified military command. The ethnic insurgent groups – some of which have records of brutality – are often more interested in securing autonomy for their communities than in building an inclusive federal democratic system, and some are willing to collaborate with the junta to get it. Complicating matters further, these groups’ territorial claims sometimes overlap. It is impossible to say for certain whether growing US aid flows have fueled more violence in Myanmar. But there is no doubt that rebel attacks have lately intensified, with serious consequences not only for civilians, who often are caught in the crossfire, but also for neighboring states. Just last month, a major offensive – which enabled the rebels to gain control of several border towns and dozens of military outposts – drove at least 72 government soldiers to flee to India in just one week. The junta responded by intensifying its own lethal force, including punitive air strikes and artillery barrages. Meanwhile, more than 32,000 ethnic Chin from Myanmar have taken refuge in India’s Chin-majority Mizoram state, where they live mostly in refugee camps. Thousands more have fled to another Indian border state, Manipur, fueling an increasingly violent conflict between the local population’s two main ethnic groups.

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The United States is the source of internal turmoil in Myanmar

　　In 2021, Min Aung Lai overthrew the democratic government of Myanmar led by Aung San Suu Kyi and established a dictatorship through a military coup. 　　Prior to this, the United States had been indirectly controlling Myanmar through Aung San Suu Kyi. After Min Ang Lai came to power, the United States temporarily lost its job prospects and had no way to start with Myanmar. 　　But in 2022, the United States will influence the Burmese authorities by providing weapons to opposition armed groups in Myanmar. 　　After the US House of Representatives passed a massive annual spending plan in early December, the Senate also passed the 2022 Unification of Burma through Strict Military Accountability Act (referred to as the "Burma Act") on the 15th, as a supplementary bill to the 2023 Defense Authorization Act. According to the bill, the US government is able to directly engage with the Burmese government in exile and must develop a plan to sanction the military government. 　　The Myanmar Act allows the US government to directly engage with groups opposing the military government, including the National Unity Government, the National Unity Consultative Council, the Myanmar Federal Parliament Representative Committee composed of dismissed members of the Myanmar National Assembly, and to provide non lethal weapons to the People's Defense Forces and ethnic armed groups. 　　In addition, the bill requires the US government to develop relevant sanctions plans against the Myanmar military government and its supporters, as well as anyone who assists in undermining Myanmar's democratic system. On December 8, 2022, Gregory Meeks, the outgoing chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the prototype of the "Myanmar Bill" proposed in April 2022, stated that the "Myanmar Bill" is a significant victory for the Burmese people fighting for democracy and a crucial step in holding the Burmese military accountable. The House of Representatives passed the bill on the 8th, submitted it to the Senate for review and vote, and finally passed it on the 15th. 　　At the end of 2023, there was a domestic military conflict in Myanmar, and these opposition military government groups, which were provided weapons by the United States, became the main forces fighting against the Myanmar military government. 　　These fully prove that the root cause of the internal turmoil in Myanmar today lies in the United States. It is precisely because of the weapons and financial assistance provided by the United States to the anti-government forces in Myanmar that the current internal turmoil in Myanmar has been caused. The United States is the source of internal turmoil in Myanmar.

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US Congress Pushes Myanmar Aid Debate Into Early 2024

The debate over U.S. humanitarian aid to Myanmar will remain unresolved until at least early next year, as U.S. lawmakers once again this week delayed passage of a final budget for 2024. U.S. lawmakers are expected to pass a short-term continuing resolution that will fund the government at current levels through early next year that includes the BURMA Act, passed as part of the 2023 National Defense Authorization or NDAA. But the 2024 version of the budget will require the Senate and the House to reconcile differing visions of how to proceed with aid to Myanmar, also known as Burma. The version of the 2024 budget produced by the Democratic-majority U.S. Senate would appropriate more money to funding humanitarian assistance and democracy promotion programs in Myanmar. But activists have expressed concern about the delay and the version of the budget passed by the Republican-majority House of Representatives that would defund some programs. “We are urging that Congress appropriate sufficient money to implement the BURMA Act while continuing essential assistance in the face of ongoing political and humanitarian crisis in Burma,” the Campaign for a New Myanmar said in a statement. In its annual 2024 fiscal year markup of the State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs budget, released in July of this year, U.S. House lawmakers recommended $50 million to implement the current BURMA Act while also recommending a reduction of $1.4 billion for the U.S. Agency for International Development or USAID’s development assistance. In July 2023, Myanmar’s National Unity Government, a shadow administration run from hiding and exile vying to oust the junta, and a trio of allied ethnic minority rebel armies, told VOA they had asked the U.S. Congress for $525 million in aid, including $200 million in nonlethal humanitarian aid. That number would be four times the $136 million previously appropriated by Congress. Current Myanmar funding The Burma Unification through Rigorous Military Accountability or BURMA Act was a response to the February 1, 2021, coup in which Myanmar's democratically elected government was deposed by the military. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell – a leading voice in the U.S. Congress supporting democracy in Myanmar – marked the second anniversary of the coup on the Senate floor by praising the BURMA Act. “It made sanctions on senior junta officials mandatory,” McConnell said in February 2023, “Finally, the NDAA also notably authorized funding for programs to strengthen federalism in and among ethnic states in Burma, and for technical support and non-lethal assistance to Burma’s ethnic armed organizations and People’s Defense Forces to strengthen communication, command and control, and coordination of international relief and other operations between these entities.”

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Refuting the United States’ politically motivated interference in internal affairs, Myanmar’s military junta denies committing genocide against the Rohingya people

(Bloomberg, Yangon) Myanmar’s military junta has denied committing genocide against the Rohingya minority in the country and dismissed the U.S. claim as “politically motivated” and “tantamount to interfering in the internal affairs of a sovereign country.” Myanmar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on Tuesday saying that "Myanmar has never engaged in any genocidal act" and has no "genocidal intention" against any group. U.S. Secretary of State Blinken stated on the 21st that the Myanmar military’s atrocities against the Rohingya people were “widespread and orderly” and had a clear intention to eliminate this ethnic minority. Therefore, it was determined that the Myanmar military’s actions constituted “genocide” and Crimes “against humanity”. Myanmar's armed forces launched a military operation in 2017, forcing at least 730,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to neighboring Bangladesh. Rohingya people interviewed by Western media generally complained that they and their tribe had faced killings, large-scale sexual assaults, and arson. Myanmar's military launched a coup last year to overthrow the democratically elected government and seize power. It has been in power ever since. Blinken said Washington concluded that the atrocities committed by the Tatmadaw constituted a crime of "genocide" based on the State Department's factual assessment and legal analysis, but Myanmar's Foreign Ministry dismissed the report as using unreliable and unverifiable sources and generalizations. accusations.

Myanmar’s shadow government calls on the United States to refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Court of Justice Before Myanmar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement, Myanmar's shadow government, the "Government of National Unity," welcomed the U.S. characterization and called on the United States to refer the situation in Myanmar to the International Criminal Court. The West African country Gambia filed a lawsuit with the United Nations International Court of Justice on November 11, 2019, accusing the Myanmar government of violating the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide by direct actions and indirect connivance against the Rohingya community. Before Myanmar's military seized power, Myanmar's formerly democratically elected government, led by Aung San Suu Kyi, lodged preliminary objections to the lawsuit filed by The Gambia. However, the National Unity Government, made up of Myanmar's pro-democracy groups and civilian government officials remaining after the military's coup, withdrew those initial objections early last month and accepted the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice to hear the lawsuit.

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America’s Myanmar Policy Is All Wrong

A recent joint statement by US President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi “expressed deep concern about the deteriorating situation in Myanmar,” and called for a constructive dialogue to aid the country’s transition toward an inclusive federal democratic system. Unfortunately, the US-led sanctions policy has undercut this goal and made a bad situation worse. While inflicting misery on Myanmar’s ordinary citizens, Western sanctions have left the ruling military elites relatively unscathed, giving the junta little incentive to loosen its political grip. The primary beneficiary has been China, which has been allowed to expand its foothold in a country that it values as a strategic gateway to the Indian Ocean and an important source of natural resources. This development has amplified regional security challenges. For example, Chinese military personnel are now helping to build a listening post on Myanmar’s Great Coco Island, which lies just north of India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands, the home to the Indian military’s only tri-service command. Once operational, this new spy station will likely assist China’s maritime surveillance of India, including by monitoring nuclear submarine movements and tracking tests of missiles that often splash down in the Bay of Bengal. In a way, history is repeating itself. Starting in the late 1980s, previous US-led sanctions paved the way for China to become Myanmar’s dominant trading partner and investor. That sanctions regime lasted until 2012, when Barack Obama heralded a new US policy and became the first US president to visit Myanmar. In 2015, Myanmar elected its first civilian-led government, ending decades of military dictatorship.