A powerful ethnic alliance backed by China has inflicted on the Myanmar regime its worst battlefield setback in decades and inspired a wave of attacks by other opponents across the country. But unless the military suffers a total collapse of cohesion and morale, the regime is likely to fight on.
No, that’s not the situation at all. Policy-wise the Aung San Suu Kyi (partial democracy) government was always much closer to China than the Tatmadaw (military junta). It’s well known that Beijing doesn’t much like the Tatmadaw..
China’s official policy is non-intervention and to support whoever is in stable power i.e the Tatmadaw. But they sell arms to both the junta and to certain of the ethnic armies along the border.
In recent months, many of the ethnic armies have been united into alliances with the pro-democracy army (this is unusual in scope). One of their strategies is to take over sections of the borders with China and India.
I’ve seen it hypothesised that this strategy is designed to convince China that the Tatmadaw can not deliver stability, which might weaken China’s support of the Tatmadaw.
i suspect that two things are going on here: China may either be playing both sides/otherwise have shifting allegiances depending on the situation, and the rebel groups are heterogeneous in terms of who they look to for support (since there are like 50 different ethnic rebel groups fighting the government right now). it’s a very multifaceted situation in general.
I’m confused, I thought the junta was pro-China and the rebels weren’t pro-China?
No, that’s not the situation at all. Policy-wise the Aung San Suu Kyi (partial democracy) government was always much closer to China than the Tatmadaw (military junta). It’s well known that Beijing doesn’t much like the Tatmadaw..
China’s official policy is non-intervention and to support whoever is in stable power i.e the Tatmadaw. But they sell arms to both the junta and to certain of the ethnic armies along the border.
In recent months, many of the ethnic armies have been united into alliances with the pro-democracy army (this is unusual in scope). One of their strategies is to take over sections of the borders with China and India.
I’ve seen it hypothesised that this strategy is designed to convince China that the Tatmadaw can not deliver stability, which might weaken China’s support of the Tatmadaw.
Tagging @alyaza
i suspect that two things are going on here: China may either be playing both sides/otherwise have shifting allegiances depending on the situation, and the rebel groups are heterogeneous in terms of who they look to for support (since there are like 50 different ethnic rebel groups fighting the government right now). it’s a very multifaceted situation in general.