China views Myanmar as hot spot in Cold War with Washington

A violent civil war between the China-backed military junta ruling Myanmar and a patchwork of pro-democracy rebels in the Southeast Asian nation is not getting much attention in the West, but China’s leadership increasingly views the clash as a strategic front line of a “cold war” in its global competition with the United States.

The Biden administration is slow-pedaling in response, say regional analysts, who add that the White House lacks a clear strategy for halting Beijing’s growing influence in Myanmar, a vital land bridge between China and the Indian Ocean.

The lack of attention could lead to a clear strategic loss for the U.S. and its allies in an area of growing interest to China’s communist leadership.

“China has been steadily expanding its influence in Myanmar for a considerable period,” said Ye Myo Hein, a pro-democracy scholar and visiting fellow with the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.

He told The Washington Times that China views Myanmar “as a strategic hot spot at the intersection of its borders, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean.”

Beijing’s increased focus contrasts with the Biden administration’s “traditional view of Myanmar as strategically unimportant,” said Ye Myo Hein, who is pressing U.S. officials to “develop a clear strategy to enhance [Washington’s] strategic influence in the country.”

In a geopolitical competition, successive U.S. administrations have scrambled to shore up alliances with countries across the Indo-Pacific to counter China’s economic and diplomatic rise in the region. Beijing’s development model is sharply at odds with U.S. support for free markets and democracy.

Meanwhile, Myanmar’s junta is pulling no punches to crush a pro-democracy insurgency. Ye Myo Hein said the junta has carried out “more than 700 airstrikes, primarily in civilian areas,” since 2021.

“These airstrikes have been largely indiscriminate, resulting in significant casualties to innocent civilians,” he said. He pointed to one strike in April that killed nearly 170 people in central Myanmar.

A recent Peace Research Institute Oslo report said at least 6,000 civilians have been killed and more than 1 million have been internally displaced since 2021.

Evolving civil war

The conflict has spiraled since a military coup overthrew Myanmar’s elected civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and head of the country’s largest political party. Despite complaints about the government, U.S. policymakers highly regarded Myanmar under Ms. Suu Kyi. Some refer to the country by its old name, Burma.

Beijing tacitly supported the 2021 junta takeover. Widespread protests sparked a harsh military crackdown, the arrests of Ms. Suu Kyi and top government officials, and a continuing armed resistance to the new military leadership.

Anti-coup militias, known as the People’s Defense Forces, have banded with smaller separatist groups long active in the country to wage a guerrilla war against the junta-controlled army and air force across Myanmar’s seven ethnic states.

The military government has imported more than $1 billion worth of arms and raw materials to manufacture its weapons since 2021, according to the United Nations. The U.N. says China, Russia, Singapore, India and Thailand are the most prominent suppliers.

How the anti-junta rebels acquire arms is less clear.

In a complex twist, Ye Myo Hein said, a key avenue is through the pro-democracy movement’s ties to ethnic armed groups along China’s border, many of which also fall under China’s sway, suggesting that Beijing has been wielding influence on both sides.

The insurgency’s dynamics are murky, particularly with rebel efforts to lure some military sectors to shift their allegiance to the pro-democracy movement.

Units of one ethnic militia in eastern Myanmar that are nominally part of the military switched sides in June. The Associated Press reported that units from the Border Guard Forces were thought to be the first military-affiliated militia units to change sides since the junta took power.

Several U.S. lawmakers are pressing the Biden administration to develop a more robust strategy to support the rebels. In April 2022, the Democratic-controlled House passed the Burma Act, calling on the White House to engage with Myanmar’s rebels.

The Senate has yet to take up that bill, but the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act that President Biden signed in November incorporated language from the Burma Act, including a requirement that the administration clarify its policy and an authorization for expanding U.S. sanctions against the junta.

The language notably authorized funding for “non-lethal assistance” for armed People’s Defense Forces rebels in Myanmar and “technical” support for the militias and the broader pro-democracy movement.

It remains to be seen how the support will be conveyed and how much impact it will have. The administration has expanded sanctions that began after the 2021 military coup.

The Treasury Department sanctioned a group of Myanmar arms dealers in March 2022. A press release did not mention China or other foreign providers of weaponry.

More recently, the Treasury Department sanctioned Myanmar individuals and entities involved in importing jet fuel for the junta and two junta-connected banks. The measures freeze their assets in the United States.

“The United States will not waver in its support for the people of Burma as they seek peace, justice and a genuine democratic future for their country,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said upon targeting the banks on June 21.

Critics are skeptical.

The group Justice for Myanmar praised the financial sanctions but said “far more needs to be done to systematically target the junta’s financial and arms procurement networks.”

The group specifically urged sanctions against Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise, “which continues to bankroll the junta’s ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

The U.S. administration’s focus on countering Russia in Ukraine has overshadowed its gradual sanctions, and China’s backing for the junta in Myanmar has been quietly expanding.

“With the world distracted by the war in Ukraine, and having little bandwidth to focus on the brutality and bloodshed in Myanmar, China has … dramatically ramped up support for Myanmar, further entrenching a growing split between the world’s autocracies and democracies,” Joshua Kurlantzick, a Southeast Asia fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote for the think tank’s website last year.

China’s growing influence

Identifying the parameters of Chinese support for the junta can be difficult, but Beijing appears to be profiting strategically and economically from business with Myanmar’s hard-line military rulers.

An analysis by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace noted that the Chinese state mining company Wanbao continues to invest in Myanmar. Many multinational corporations withdrew after the 2021 military coup.

An August 2022 report by the London-based Business & Human Rights Resource Center said Wanbao Mining, a subsidiary of Chinese arms manufacturer Norinco, has been operating a controversial copper mine in Myanmar’s Sagaing Region in partnership with the military-owned Myanma Economic Holdings since 2010.

Jason Tower, director of the Burma program at the U.S. Institute of Peace, is among those suggesting that China’s support is conditioned on a junta pledge to support Beijing’s sovereignty claims over disputed islands in the South China Sea. The United States and China’s smaller neighbors throughout the region reject China’s claims.

Mr. Tower tweeted last year that the Chinese government is “propping up” the junta by vowing to work toward implementing the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor and expand cross-border electrification, connectivity and industrial zones. Beijing gave the junta roughly $90 million for the work last year.

Ye Myo Hein told The Times that the recent inclusion of Burma Act language in the NDAA was “perceived by Beijing as an increased U.S. involvement in Myanmar and a threat to China’s interests.”

“China responded by actively supporting the junta as a countermeasure to the U.S.’s actions,” he said, and “recent actions by China in Myanmar clearly serve as clear indication that Beijing perceived the crisis in Myanmar through a cold war lens.”

“It appears that U.S. policymakers may not be fully aware of such development, as Washington has not yet recognized Myanmar as a strategically significant hot spot and has yet to formulate a comprehensive policy and strategy in line with the Burma Act,” Ye Myo Hein said.

“The administration has exhibited a clear reluctance to fully and effectively implement the Burma Act, appearing more focused on mitigating the associated risks,” he said. The White House, he said, should “emphasize the shared interest between the United States and China in promoting regional stability” in a way that “implies that the military junta in Myanmar must be removed as it undermines this shared objective.”

The administration should also convey to Beijing that U.S. assistance to the People’s Defense Forces is “not a threat to China, but rather in line with Beijing’s own goals,” as the junta “will only consider a peaceful negotiated settlement if it sees no path to military victory, making U.S. assistance an avenue to support this objective.”