Myanmar's junta on shaky ground
Armed resistance groups in Myanmar are gaining territory and dislodging the military’s grip on power, as the conflict threatens to spill across borders into China and India
In late October, a rebel alliance launched a series of coordinated attacks against junta-held positions in Myanmar's northern Shan state, triggering the most intense and widespread fighting since the 2021 coup. Nearly 200 civilians have been killed and more than 286,000 displaced.
The fighting, sparked by a coalition of ethnic armed organizations known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance, has now spread to at least five Burmese states, including the Kayah region on the Chinese border, after a second armed coalition launched an anti-junta offensive on Nov. 11 in solidarity with the original group.?
The surge in fighting, and associated battlefield gains, mark the first occasion that armed ethnic groups have collaborated with anti-junta guerilla groups known as People Defense Forces (PDFs) that sprung up in the wake of the 2021 coup, according to Factal editor and East Asia expert Vivian Wang.?
“This is the first united front with palpable, tangible outcomes for the resistance,” Wang said. “The military must be stretched thin because the resistance is happening all over the country and they just don’t have the resources to address all fronts of this anymore.”
At their inception, the PDFs were viewed as groups of enthusiastic yet inexperienced pro-democracy activists. Over the past two years, many have launched sporadic attacks against junta forces using improvised weapons, but this has failed to translate into significant territorial gains. Meanwhile, ethnic armed groups, many of which have been fighting Myanmar’s army for decades, wrestled internally over junta negotiations and a series of stop-start ceasefires .
All that changed on Oct. 27. Armed groups have since overrun hundreds of junta positions, liberated small towns from military control and seized control of at least two border crossings with China.?
Since the coup, China has broadly taken a lackadaisical approach to the situation in Myanmar, except when fighting approached its border, and it swiftly called for a ceasefire. However, reports suggest Chinese authorities had grown increasingly frustrated with the Myanmar junta’s failure to crack down on scam gangs operating on their shared border.?
On Oct. 20, more than 60 Chinese nationals were fatally shot while trying to flee Crouching Tiger Villa , a cybercrime complex in the Kokang area. A week later, when the Three Brotherhood Alliance launched their attack in the Shan state which borders China, they faced no impediment from the typically security-conscious Chinese authorities.
“[China is] probably trying to keep their options open in terms of who might come to take power next,” Wang said. “I don’t think the junta is actually all that stable.”
While the battle is by no means won, speculation is beginning to emerge as to what a post-coup Myanmar would look like if the junta were to fall from power. Myanmar does have an opposition government in exile — the National Unity Government (NUG), which is formed of lawmakers who were deposed in the 2021 coup —?but reinstating them is not without challenges.?
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“The ethnic militias have a shared goal of hating the military and the junta but they are originally fighting for their own sovereignty from Myanmar,” Wang said.?
Any agreement for the NUG to return would necessarily have to be based upon recognition of the armed groups’ decades-long fight for self-determination. It would also likely face opposition from China, which is reportedly growing concerned about the NUG’s links to the West. Countries such as the United States have provided respite for NUG members while they seek to raise awareness of their country’s plight.
All the while fighting continues, particularly in border areas, the risk of regional spillover rises. Aside from China, there is also concern for India, as it is grappling with its own ethnic conflict in Manipur, which lies adjacent to Myanmar’s restive Sagaing region. The Meitei people, who are Manipur’s ethnic majority, are present in Myanmar and a mass exodus of Meitei refugees from Myanmar could further inflame ethnic tensions with the Kuki population in Manipur.
For now, the refugee impact on neighboring India and China has not led to either global power explicitly stepping into the conflict. If the political calculus changes, however, it could prompt both of Myanmar’s influential neighbors to deviate from their post-coup nonchalance to protect their own security. What form such intervention would take, or the outcome it would achieve, is unclear, but it would shed new light on Myanmar’s largely forgotten civil war and its associated humanitarian crisis.
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