Some gates on the China-Myanmar border have reopened after a major rebel army in northeastern Myanmar agreed to a ceasefire with the Myanmar armed forces in China-mediated talks over the weekend.
The ceasefire agreement was signed by the junta and Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) during their seventh round of peace talks in Kunming, Chinese state media reported on Monday.
A “formal ceasefire agreement took effect at 00:00 on Jan. 18, Beijing time, leading to an immediate cessation of hostilities,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a briefing in Beijing.
“Both the sides expressed gratitude to China for its efforts in facilitating the successful outcome of the talks,” Mao added. “China stands ready to actively promote talks for peace and provide support and help for the peace process in northern Myanmar.”
The MNDAA, based in the Kokang region in northern Shan State, is a member of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which launched a major offensive against junta positions in October 2023. During its initial phase from October to January, Operation 1027, as it was known, saw the groups capture large swathes of territory in northern Shan State, including numerous towns and several important border crossings with China.
A day after the agreement, Chinese authorities reportedly reopened the Chinshwehaw border crossing connecting Yunnan with MNDAA-controlled territory in northern Shan State. Another border crossing in an adjacent territory controlled by the United Wa State Army has also been reopened.
Although the Chinese Foreign Ministry did not provide much detail about the ceasefire agreement, Myanmar Now cited “sources in Myanmar and China” as saying that the MNDAA had agreed to pull its forces out of Lashio, the de facto capital of northern Shan State and the location of the military’s Northeastern Regional Command, which the MNDAA captured in early August.
The agreement comes after months of Chinese pressure on the MNDAA to cease attacks on the military junta and return to the negotiating table. Fearful that the complete collapse of the military junta could imperil its strategic and economic interests in the country – in sum, the opening of a transport corridor from Yunnan to Myanmar’s Indian Ocean coast – Beijing has strengthened its support for the military council in Naypyidaw while bringing considerable pressure to bear on the Three Brotherhood Alliance to halt its offensives and return to the negotiating table.
To pressure the MNDAA into compliance, the Chinese authorities have shut border crossings between Yunnan and MNDAA-held territories and cut off supplies of internet, fuel, and electricity. China reportedly went so far as to detain MDNAA commander Peng Daxun after he traveled to Yunnan for talks with a senior Chinese envoy in October. Myanmar Now reports that his current whereabouts are unknown.
Last month, the MNDAA announced that it was willing to engage in China-brokered talks with the military junta, “to engage in dialogue and consult with the Myanmar military and resolve conflicts and differences through political means.” This came shortly after the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, another member of the Three Brotherhood Alliance that operates in Shan State, also declared that it was ready to engage in talks with the military junta. The third member of the Alliance, the Arakan Army, which has managed to extend its control over the majority of Rakhine State in Myanmar’s west, announced in late December that it, too, is ready to engage in “political dialogue” with the military.
The fact that China has managed to end the fighting in northern Shan State and bring these various groups to the negotiating table suggests that its more active policy in Myanmar is beginning to alter the dynamics of the conflict in important, though ultimately unclear, ways.
It remains unclear how long the ceasefire will last; a previous ceasefire brokered in January of last year only lasted five months. However, the fact that the Chinese intervention has “locked in” many of the territorial gains that the MNDAA has made since the beginning of Operation 1027, including its reconquest of the Kokang region, suggests that it is not inherently opposed to the MNDAA’s core political goals. In any event, it is unlikely that Beijing will slacken its efforts to maintain the stability that its economic and strategic interests require.
As the longtime Burma watcher Bertil Lintner wrote in The Irrawaddy yesterday, “China has once again shown that it is the only outside power with the means, capacity, and motivation to intervene in Myanmar’s internal conflicts.”