United States Institute of Peace

Still, all parties recognize that China will likely exert significant sway over the battlefield. They also understand that Beijing views Myanmar through its own economic and geostrategic interests, with little concern for a broader peace. Thus, Beijing is likely to use this new phase of fighting to strengthen its position vis-a-vis the combatants. Other frontline states, the United States and anyone seeking democracy in Myanmar should be deeply concerned about these unfolding dynamics.   

From October until December of 2023, the Three Brotherhood Alliance (3BHA), gained control of more than 20,000 square kilometers (7,722 square miles) of territory, including key border crossings and trade routes between China and Myanmar. China leveraged the 3BHA’s offensive — known as Operation 1027 to mark the month and day it began —  to crush scam syndicates on its border, especially those run by the Myanmar military’s Border Guard Force (BGF) in Kokang. Following the Kokang BGF’s defeat, China used coercive diplomacy and newfound leverage over the warring parties to achieve a tentative cease-fire deal dubbed the Haigeng Agreement. It essentially froze the conflict in northern Shan State and pushed the parties to work with one another to protect and advance Chinese economic interests, including overland trade.

After the agreement took effect on January 12, China began pushing the military and the alliance toward further agreements to restart border trade. Talks held in China’s Yunnan Province focused on sharing trade revenue and the status of 3BHA-held territory. The 3BHA consists of the Arakan Army (AA); the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA); and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA).

By April, however, it was clear that the talks had lost all touch with the evolving reality on the ground.

Proposals developed in China aimed to make the military a junior partner in facilitating border trade, offering the army a nominal presence in 3BHA territory in exchange for recognizing the alliance’s territorial control. Meanwhile, in northern Shan, junta forces were implementing plans to recover lost ground. Through forced conscription, the junta replenished its troops in the area and, in an overseas buying spree, upgraded its arms and its drone force across the Mandalay region and around Lashio.

This did not go unnoticed by the 3BHA. Its forces worked to consolidate control of recently acquired territory while strengthening its capacities in preparation for a new phase of Operation 1027.

The 3BHA was emboldened by the launch of a separate offensive in March by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) — Operation 0307 (for March 7) — which quickly seized junta positions across Kachin State, including along the China border. By forcing the military to redeploy its already thinly spread forces, the KIA attacks set ideal conditions for the 3BHA to advance to a new phase of its own offensive.

Ahead of the Chinese-facilitated talks in May, the junta began significant assaults against the TNLA, blatantly violating the Haigeng Agreement as it sought to enhance its leverage at the negotiating table. But the TNLA responded forcefully: No junta representatives would any longer be permitted in TNLA-controlled territory. That basically guaranteed the talks would fail since a key issue to be settled in China was regime presence in 3BHA territory to help manage the border trade.  

The Chinese perception that the junta was largely to blame for the negotiations’ failure became clear when China, in a major concession to the MNDAA two weeks after the talks collapsed, restored electricity, internet and water to the Kokang territory on June 1.

The move came eight months after China cut off these services, and was a key source of Chinese leverage over the MNDAA, which needed the utilities to spur economic development in its newly retaken territory. While China’s intention might have been to entice the MNDAA to end hostilities with the army, the restoration of services also upset the junta, which had hoped for greater Chinese pressure on the 3BHA to cease its revolutionary activities altogether.

Just three weeks later, following a major airstrike on a TNLA base at Mongmit, the TNLA announced the opening of “phase two” of Operation 1027. The Haigeng Agreement had failed.

The Junta’s Misreading of Myanmar’s Northern EAOs 

Beefing up battlefield capability was only part of the military’s strategy for recovering the territory it lost in northern Shan. The generals also sought to manipulate the complex relations among the seven powerful northern ethnic armed organizations that are members of a loose coordinating alliance known as the Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee (FPNCC).

From January to June, the army watched as tensions flared between the MNDAA and the United Wa State Army (UWSA) over border crossings, and among the MNDAA, TNLA, KIA and the Shan State Army – North (SSA) over competing territorial claims and demarcation of their respective control areas.

In April and May, the military targeted the TNLA with low intensity attacks, seemingly as part of a strategy to disrupt the alliance between the MNDAA and TNLA. The generals likely calculated that the MNDAA had already satisfied its territorial demands, and that the threat of airstrikes on its territory might discourage further advance south into Shan State.   

This calculation turned out to be dead wrong.

Rather than weakening the alliance, the MNDAA read the junta attacks on the TNLA as a signal that the generals would never accept EAO control of territory captured in Operation 1027, and that the military would immediately turn on the MNDAA after a TNLA defeat. This seems to have emboldened the MNDAA to join phase two of Operation 1027 initiated by the TNLA in late June, while expanding its own territorial ambitions to Lashio, home to the Myanmar army’s Northeastern Command. As a MNDAA strategist noted in an online essay: If the MNDAA “does not capture Lashio, Laukkai [Kokang] will never be safe.”

The junta’s moves also generated concerns for China and the most powerful of the EAOs, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), which has long purported to remain neutral in conflicts in lower Burma. While the UWSA has cemented a strong security alliance with other northern EAOs, it also has significant economic ties with the military. Neither the Chinese nor the UWSA want to see major conflict erupt among the members of the FPNCC because of the possible effect on broader stability in the border region.

In a move likely welcomed by China, the UWSA began mediating between the SSA-North and TNLA after violence flared between the two organizations in July. Demonstrating its growing power and influence, the UWSA managed to cool the conflict by — among other things — helping the SSA-North peacefully take control of junta territory in Shan State. The move was accompanied by the UWSA entering a second key town in its sphere of influence — Tangyan — where the junta seems to have accepted as a fait accompli that the UWSA would take over administration to protect its vast economic interests as war spreads between the 3BHA and military.  

By mid-July, it became clear that the military’s moves to gain advantage in the north had failed miserably. Not only has the FPNCC outpaced the military strategically, the 3BHA’s deepening ties in the northern part of the country with People’s Defense Forces, which are aligned with the National Unity Government, signal the possibility of a deeper battlefield alliance between the northern EAOs and the parallel government.

The Myanmar Military Looks to Beijing for Help

With the 3BHA rapidly closing in on Lashio, the second largest city in Shan State, the increasingly desperate Myanmar army looked to China for assistance.

As early as April, the leader of the coup regime, Min Aung Hlaing, set out on a charm offensive targeting the Chinese. First, he offered to restart a major dam project — the Myitsone Dam — where a key Chinese state-owned enterprise has sought to resume work for over a decade. Then, he declared Chinese New Year a public holiday in Myanmar, winning positive news coverage in Chinese state media. Finally, he supported China’s regional propaganda efforts by sending former President Thein Sein to join the PRC’s 70th Anniversary celebration of its commitment to the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence, held in Beijing in early July.

Min Aung Hlaing leveraged the Thein Sein visit to seek Chinese help in pressuring the 3BHA to end phase two of Operation 1027. While China did lean on the MNDAA, especially, demanding a unilateral cease-fire, Beijing also made clear its limited will for any bold action to stop hostilities. Consequently, although the MNDAA declared and later extended the PRC-mandated cease-fire until July 31, it also rolled out a “peaceful strategy” for capturing Lashio, announcing cash prizes and rewards for deserters and defectors from the regime army. The junta, in turn, launched a series of airstrikes on MNDAA positions in Laukkai, close to the China border, which under the terms of the MNDAA cease-fire justifies the continued advance on junta positions just a few kilometers from Lashio.

While China has patiently watched these airstrikes destroy civilian targets just kilometers from its border, the Myanmar army’s efforts to fight a war of attrition with the MNDAA by destroying Laukkai are likely to backfire, especially if Chinese interests get hit in the crossfire.

The Thein Sein visit was also significant because of what it showed the junta about China’s wishes.

The trip followed a flurry of Chinese diplomacy related to Myanmar’s elections, including invitations to political parties to visit China. In China’s view, elections represent one means of stabilizing the situation and moving toward a return to normalcy. While this is a dubious prospect on many levels, by inviting Thein Sein — the reformist president who signed deals with the UWSA and brought the National League for Democracy party back into the parliament — Beijing sent a strong message that it hopes Myanmar will return to a pathway of reform like the military started on in 2008.

With the 3BHA closing in on Lashio, China made one of its boldest moves to date with the military regime, inviting the armed forces’ second in command to China in early July to join the first Shanghai Cooperation Organization Forum on Green Development.

This invitation was significant for two reasons: First, it wrapped the regime with legitimacy in a significant multilateral body that China hopes will play a growing role in regional security issues. The deputy commander, Soe Win, stood alongside Iran’s vice president as one of the highest ranking officials at the meeting. Secondly, Soe Win also had the opportunity to meet with the chair of the Good-Neighborliness, Friendship and Cooperation Commission of the cooperation organization — a sign that China might involve the SCO more deeply in Myanmar affairs, supplanting the role of ASEAN, which has refused to include the military in meetings at the ministerial level and above. Notably, however, unlike Thein Sein, Soe Win was not afforded any meeting with senior Chinese leaders.

Land for Grabs

The conflict on the ground, meanwhile, continues unabated. The MNDAA made a significant breakthrough on July 23, when 317 troops from the powerful Northern Command defected. Days later, the MNDAA announced the full liberation of Lashio. While the announcement was premature, the defeat of the Northeastern Command appears imminent. Tellingly, the UWSA announced its troops had entered Lashio on July 29, seemingly to stake its own claims to the territory and to prevent the junta from launching airstrikes that might damage the UWSA’s extensive interests in the city.

China’s Longer-Term Approach

China has little interest in democracy in Myanmar, as evidenced by Beijing doing business only with the army and the ethnic armed organizations in the FPNCC and China’s continuing failure to publicly engage with the National Unity Government. Beijing is also unconcerned about furthering a broader peace: Its so-called mediation efforts center only on manipulating a sub-set of actors in the conflict to protect Chinese investments and weakening the military’s influence in the strategic borderlands to expand China’s.

Even so, China clearly views the status quo as unsustainable. It holds the military primarily responsible for Myanmar’s instability because the generals refuse to make significant concessions to the 3BHA. Chinese intervention in Myanmar is likely to expand in the near-term as the junta suffers further loss of territory in Northern Shan State and it increases pressure on the 3BHA and the army to end hostilities.

This situation is likely to prove most beneficial to the UWSA. It will continue to expand its territorial control and authoritarian influence at a very low price while the military seems headed for collapse. The UWSA’s closest allies — the 3BHA — are also likely to emerge as net winners, but at great cost to communities across Northern Myanmar that will be targeted by junta airstrikes.

With respect to international actors, China is likely to use the Myanmar crisis to deepen its multilateral security influence through the SCO platform — a significant setback for ASEAN and India. For the United States and like-minded countries concerned with regional stability and maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific, these developments should be seen as a cause for alarm. While Myanmar’s military continues to lose on the battlefield, the rise of China’s favored EAOs — the UWSA and MNDAA — tips the political trajectory increasingly in favor of an authoritarian consolidation.