China’s special envoy to Myanmar has reportedly urged two major ethnic armed groups to halt their military offensives in Kachin and Rakhine states, where Beijing has initiated important infrastructure projects.
In a report published yesterday, The Irrawaddy reported that during meetings in late May, envoy Deng Xijun requested that the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and Arakan Army (AA) put down their weapons, “offering improved ties with China in return.” The report, which cited sources close to the KIA and AA, added that China’s purpose was to stabilize the military junta and secure the conditions necessary for large-scale Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure projects to proceed.
In particular, the report mentioned the China-backed deep-sea port at Kyaukphyu in Rakhine State, the starting point of the 973-kilometer overland pipelines supplying gas and crude oil to China’s Yunnan province, and the city of Bhamo, a “key cargo hub for the BRI” on the Irrawaddy River around 65 kilometers from the Chinese border.
Both of these locations have been threatened by the steady advance of the AA and KIA. The AA is a member of the Three Brotherhood Alliance of ethnic armed groups, which launched a coordinated offensive in October 2023 (“Operation 1027”) that inflicted a series of serious defeats on the military junta in late 2023 and 2024. The AA now has primary control of 14 of Rakhine State’s 17 townships, as well as Paletwa township in neighboring Chin State, and has hemmed the Myanmar military into a few pockets in Sittwe, Kyaukphyu, and Manaung townships.
The KIA has made its parallel territorial gains across Kachin State, gaining control of the state’s border trade routes with China and rare earth deposits near the frontier. Since the start of the year, the group has also made concerted attempts to seize Bhamo from the junta, although it has been stymied by junta air attacks and the aftermath of the earthquake that hit central Myanmar on March 28.
The Irrawaddy report has yet to be confirmed by the Chinese government. However, pushing the AA and KIA to cease their attacks and enter into ceasefire talks with the military administration is consistent with Beijing’s increasingly forceful attempts to direct the course of the conflict in Myanmar.
Over the past year, Chinese officials have successfully pressured the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), the two other members of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, to reach ceasefires with the junta. During the first year of Operation 1027, these groups effectively expelled the Myanmar military from northern Shan State, the primary gateway of the overland trade with China. Last August, the MNDAA even succeeded in capturing the city of Lashio, the de facto capital of northern Shan and the home of the Myanmar military’s Northeast Regional Command.
However, after the fall of Lashio put resistance groups in a position to begin launching assaults into Myanmar’s central heartland, China began intensifying its pressure on the MNDAA and TNLA to cease their offensives and enter ceasefire talks. It shut border crossings between Yunnan and MNDAA- and TNLA-held territories and cut off supplies of internet, fuel, and electricity to their regions. Beijing reportedly went so far as to detain MDNAA commander Peng Daxun after he traveled to Yunnan for talks with a senior Chinese envoy last October.
China has since succeeded in forcing both groups to cease their attacks and return to the negotiating table, although violations are reportedly frequent. Most significantly, the MNDAA agreed to withdraw from Lashio, which it handed back to the junta authorities, under the supervision of a Chinese peacekeeping team, in mid-April.
The Irrawaddy report suggests that China is now seeking to apply similar tactics to two other significant armed groups in order to shore up the junta’s control. This is not because it has any particular love for the Myanmar military, but because a baseline level of stability is necessary if it is to advance one of its primary strategic aims in Myanmar: the construction of an economic and transport corridor linking Yunnan province to the Indian Ocean. It also likely reflects Beijing’s concern about the supposedly pro-Western orientation of the National Unity Government and other resistance groups, and its skepticism that they offer a workable alternative to the military.
Faced with a perceived choice between the old status quo and continued conflict and chaos, China is increasingly coming down in favor of the former.