China’s Gains in Myanmar after the Earthquake

Global Asia

The March 28 earthquake in Myanmar was a human tragedy that the war-torn country was ill-prepared to handle. But one result has been an end to the diplomatic isolation of the ruling junta, with aid shipped in and its leader able to visit some countries abroad.

No country has done more to help than China. But Beijing is also using its clout to manipulate the forces engaged in civil wars against the junta into pulling back from border areas and taking other steps China sees as important for its interests, writes Bertil Lintner. 

Published: June 2025 (Vol.20 No.2)

THE DEVASTATING 7.7 magnitude earthquake that struck central Myanmar on March 28 did not, as some foreign observers had predicted, cause the State Administration Council (SAC), the junta that has ruled the country for the past four years, to collapse. Instead, the military-appointed government in Naypyidaw has, for the first time, made significant headway diplomatically in the region.

The earthquake was a breakthrough as a wide range of countries sent teams to Myanmar to look for survivors and treat injured people. Some have even promised to provide more long-term assistance for the reconstruction of affected areas. According to the official count, 3,600 people died in the earthquake and at least 5,000 were injured. Unofficial estimates put the figure at more than 10,000 dead and perhaps twice that number injured. Entire communities were wiped out and historic monuments such as Buddhist temples lie in ruins.

China, Russia and India were the first to arrive in and around the country’s second-largest city Mandalay, where the damage was especially severe. Then came rescue teams from Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong — and even Bangladesh, a country with which Naypyidaw has had strained relations over the plight of Muslim Rohingyas who have been fleeing across the common border in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State since 2016, and are still coming in large numbers to seek refuge from repression.

Millions of dollars’ worth of emergency aid was pledged by other foreign powers, among them the European Union, the United Kingdom and South Korea. Nepal, a poor country that was hit by an even stronger earthquake in 2015, pitched in with 41 tons of relief materials to Myanmar. The United States was slow to react, but did contribute US$2 million and then an additional US$7 million in emergency aid. Various UN agencies became involved in co-ordinating the relief efforts, which, without exception, had to be carried out in collaboration with the authorities in Naypyidaw, leading to a de facto legitimization of military rule.

While efforts by mainly foreign relief workers were in full swing, junta boss, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, went to Bangkok to attend a summit of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), a regional forum that brings together seven South and Southeast Asian countries. It was his first visit to Bangkok since the February 2021 coup, and he got photo ops with the leaders of all the six other member states: the Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Nepal’s Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli, the Prime Minister of Bhutan, Tshering Tobgay, Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister Harini Amarasuriya, and the chief adviser to Bangladesh’s interim government, Muhammed Yunus.

This de facto acceptance of military rule in Myanmar would probably not have happened without the earthquake and the sympathy it evoked from governments and people in the region. The fact that the Myanmar Air Force continued to bomb resistance-controlled areas, which had also been affected by the earthquake, did not hamper Min Aung Hlaing’s quest for recognition of his government. China, wary of a possible backlash that open support for the military takeover would have caused among the Myanmar public, kept a discreet distance from the SAC for several years. But on May 9, Chinese President Xi Jinping met Min Aung Hlaing on the sidelines of Russia’s Victory Day celebrations on May 8 in Moscow, and, according to a report in the official newspaper, The Global New Light of Myanmar, he thanked China for its humanitarian assistance following the earthquake.

WILL CHINA TURN THE TIDE OF BATTLE?

The SAC’s remarkable diplomatic accomplishments have not been matched by success on the battlefield, where its forces continue to perform poorly against an abundance of ethnic and political resistance armies. But help has now come from China and that may, in the end, decide the outcome of the current wave of civil wars. Myanmar has seen internal conflicts tear the country apart virtually since independence from Britain in 1948, but the scale of the fighting that erupted after the 2021 coup is unprecedented.

It began on Oct. 27, 2023, when three ethnic resistance armies under the common banner of the Three Brotherhood Alliance attacked Myanmar Army positions in northern Shan State. Named Operation 1027 after the date fighting began in earnest, the three forces — the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), based in Kokang, an area dominated by ethnic Chinese, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), an ethnic Palaung group, and the Arakan Army (AA), whose main area of operations is in Rakhine State — overran a string of key Myanmar Army camps and outposts. They seemed unstoppable after the MNDAA, allied with some smaller Burman forces, in July 2024 captured the garrison city of Lashio, including the headquarters of the northeastern command of the Myanmar Army. At about the same time, the TNLA overran Hsipaw and Kyaukme, two major towns on the main road from Lashio to Mandalay.

Some observers, mainly foreign, predicted that the Brotherhood Alliance and its Burman allies — new groups set up after the 2021 coup — would march on and capture Pyin Oo Lwin, where the Defense Services Academy and the Defense Services Technological Academy are located, and perhaps even Mandalay on the Irrawaddy plains. But that did not happen and probably never will. The turmoil in northern Shan State has disrupted the lucrative border trade between China and Myanmar, and, more importantly, made it difficult for the Chinese to implement schemes for their Belt and Road Initiative, which in Myanmar means connecting China with ports on the Bay of Bengal and vital trade routes across the Indian Ocean. From the Chinese perspective, something had to be done about the deteriorating security situation in northern Shan State and secure what has been termed the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC).

In the beginning, the Chinese may have approved of Operation 1027 because it meant that the resistance forces captured and closed down scam centers that had operated in northern Shan State and drained China of billions of dollars. The move came after the Chinese, in vain, had tried to persuade the Myanmar military to take action against those centers, many of which operated in areas controlled by SAC-allied, local militia forces. The fact that most of the weaponry used by the Brotherhood Alliance was of Chinese origin and had been supplied by the United Wa State Army (UWSA) lends credence to that suggestion. The UWSA, which enjoys a close working relationship with China’s security services and has a ceasefire agreement with the Myanmar Army, is ostensibly neutral in the conflict. But that has not prevented the UWSA from arming its ethnic allies, and that would not have been possible without tacit Chinese acquiescence.

In the end, the Brotherhood Alliance turned out to be more successful than anyone could have expected, and, under heavy Chinese pressure, the MNDAA agreed in January to give up its control of Lashio. By April, the withdrawal was complete and SAC-appointed officials began arriving in the city to run all aspects of the local administration. Then, in May, the Chinese urged the TNLA to make peace with the SAC. This was the second time the Chinese made their position clear vis-à-vis the war between the TNLA and the SAC. In August last year, the City Security Committee in Ruili, a major town and trading hub in Yunnan across the border in China, sent a strongly worded letter to the TNLA saying that it should “immediately stop fighting” the SAC and instead “co-operate with China in maintaining peace and stability in northern Shan State and along the China-Myanmar border.” If the TNLA ignored this demand, it would face “deterrent and disciplinary actions,” the letter said. Such measures could include curtailing the supply of arms and ammunition from the UWSA, and preventing the TNLA from obtaining other, non-lethal supplies from vendors in China.

That leaves the AA, whose presence in northern Shan State may sound out of place. But its first recruits came from ethnic Arakanese (Rakhine) workers in the jade mines of Kachin State who were trained by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in the early 2010s. That was at a time when the KIA was under heavy attack by the Myanmar Army and the Kachin leaders wanted to open a second front in the south hoping that it would pull government forces away from the north. The AA later allied itself with the MNDAA and saw combat in northern Shan State. The AA soon managed to enlist support from thousands of mainly young people in its home state of Rakhine, and fierce fighting broke out in 2016.

The AA has since then taken over most of Rakhine State with the only exceptions being the state capital of Sittwe and Kyaukphyu, the site for deep-sea ports and a Special Economic Zone at the southern end of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor and, as such, China’s most important foothold on the Bay of Bengal. Although it has never been announced officially by the AA, it is likely that it has refrained from attacking those places because that would go against China’s interests and have dire consequences.

Although the AA’s main force and area of operations now are located far from the Chinese border, it remains a close partner of the MNDAA and the TNLA and many of its leaders are still based at the KIA’s Laiza headquarters. The fact that AA leaders frequently travel from there down to the UWSA’s headquarters at Pangkham (or Panghsang) means that their relationship with China’s security services is also close. Such journeys would have to go through China, and be arranged by Chinese authorities.

OPPOSITION POLITICAL FORCES SIDELINED

Exactly what may happen next in Rakhine State is anybody’s guess, but it is certain that China will continue its “peace efforts” and also pressure the AA to agree to a truce with the SAC. The Chinese may have less luck with the KIA in the far north, which has a relationship with Chinese authorities across the border but has its own gun factories and, therefore, is not dependent on supplies from the UWSA’s arsenal of Chinese-made weapons. Karen rebels on the border with Thailand operate even more independently of China, and, although they have overrun a large number of Myanmar Army positions, they do not pose a major threat to the SAC’s grip on power in Naypyidaw. And it should be remembered that ties between the Brotherhood Alliance of ethnic armies, as well as Kachin and the Karen rebels, and the Burman resistance forces are tactical in nature, forged mainly to keep the Myanmar Army at a safe distance. The ethnic armies are protecting their own respective areas, and have no interest in marching into Mandalay, Naypyidaw or Yangon, which is the ultimate goal of the Burman forces.

The earthquake has thus effectively sidelined the National Unity Government, which was set up by elected — and ousted — lawmakers after the 2021 coup and makes the dubious claim of co-ordinating fighting across Myanmar. While it has attracted some attention and sympathy, mainly in the West, Min Aung Hlaing and also the Chinese clearly see it as an irrelevant player on the Myanmar chessboard. They may be right. Apart from issuing some statements, the National Unity Government has done little to gain international support after the earthquake. At the same time, China has pledged to provide the government in Naypyidaw with 1 billion yuan, about US$137 million, in emergency humanitarian assistance for earthquake victims and the reconstruction of towns, giving it considerable leverage over not only the rebels but also the generals in Naypyidaw.

Ma Jia, the Chinese ambassador to Myanmar, wrote in an op-ed for The Global New Light of Myanmar on May 5 that the earthquake “deeply moved the hearts of my colleagues at the Chinese Embassy, but also of the 1.4 billion Chinese people. We… mobilized all available resources and means to provide assistance and support to the disaster-stricken areas.” She then claimed that “China respects Myanmar in safeguarding its national sovereignty and territorial integrity and pursuing a development path that suits its own conditions.” She also wrote that “China has actively assisted Myanmar in advancing the peace process in northern Myanmar based on the wishes and demands of relevant parties in Myanmar. Regardless of how the situation changes, China’s commitment to Myanmar’s peace and stability, sustained economic development, and the better welfare of its people remains unchanged.”

BEIJING’S BIG WIN

It may be somewhat imaginative of a Chinese official to claim that China respects Myanmar’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. While officially adhering to a policy of “non-interference,” no country has over the decades interfered in Myanmar’s internal affairs as much as China. It began in the 1960s, when the Chinese provided all-out political and military support to the insurgent Communist Party of Burma and continued to maintain close contacts with a wide range of ethnic resistance armies, in particular the UWSA, which took over most of the communists’ former base along the Chinese border.

As for the SAC, its next move may, as reports in The Global New Light of Myanmar have indicated, be to go with elections in December 2025 or January 2026. Those assertions have been ridiculed by critics as the SAC has lost control over large parts of the country. Western and perhaps also some Asian democracies are certain to dismiss elections under present circumstances as a farce. But China and some other countries in the region are likely to view even rigged elections as “better than nothing”, and “a step in the right direction.” And that will give the Myanmar military the legitimacy it is striving for.

The earthquake tragedy has given the Chinese a new impetus to strengthen its interference in Myanmar’s internal crises. The Chinese are there as winners, manipulating the situation on the ground to secure their long-term geostrategic interests and it is evident that no other country has the means to wield the same degree of influence over all sides in Myanmar’s civil wars. The net result: military rule in Myanmar is there to stay, at least for the foreseeable future.