With Myanmar railroad corridor at risk, China makes desperate bid to save junta

Worried over the failure to operationalise the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, Beijing has now directly stepped in to pressure ethnic armed rebel groups to sacrifice major military gains in a desperate effort to save the Burmese military junta.

The railroad corridor, which boasts an oil and gas pipeline connecting China’s southwestern Yunnan province with Myanmar’s Rakhine state in the Bay of Bengal, now faces major trouble after rebel groups took control of large areas through which it passes.

In August, the Burmese army lost control of the crucial northeastern town of Lashio, the capital of the Northern Shan State and the headquarters of the northeastern command of the Burmese army, Tatmadaw.

The Federal predicted the fall of Lashio in late July, just before the Burmese army lost the crucial town.

With the rebels of the Arakan Army taking over control of most of the townships in the Rakhine state, and Lashio lost to the combined forces of the Kokang rebel group Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), China’s ambitious plans for a land-to-sea access to Bay of Bengal lay in tatters.

Junta suffers huge territorial losses

The MNDAA, the TNLA, and the Arakan Army are part of the three-group Brotherhood Alliance, which started Operation 1027 in October last year. Other ethnic rebel groups, such as the powerful Kachin Independence Army, have been joined by the majority Bamar armed groups, such as the People’s Defense Forces, owing allegiance to the National Unity Government (NUG). The Burmese army has suffered huge losses of territory to the rebels.

The Special Advisory Council for Myanmar (SAC-M) has observed that the military junta does not have effective control of much of Myanmar anymore, having lost complete authority over townships covering 86 per cent of the country’s territory that are home to 67 per cent of the population. The SAC-M’s founding member Chris Sidoti told the Time magazine: “The end of the war is clear-cut. The only thing that is not clear is the means by which it’s achieved and the timing. One way or another, at some point the military will collapse.”

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China wants Lashio back for Junta

A worried China has now swung into action, pressuring the MNDAA to restore control of Lashio. In a desperate attempt to get this done, Chinese intelligence has now placed a top MNDAA commander under house arrest in Yunnan’s capital Kunming to pressure his troops to withdraw from Lashio.

The Burmese media has reported that MNDAA commander Peng Daxun (aka Peng Daren) has been in China since his meeting with Chinese special envoy to Myanmar, Deng Xijun, in Yunnan Province’s Kunming in late October.

A member of the Federal Political Negotiation and Consultative Committee (FPNCC) told The Irrawaddy Journal that the meeting was marked by huge Chinese pressure on MNDAA to force its fighters to withdraw from Lashio — a demand Peng Daxun reportedly refused to accept. The FPNCC is an alliance of seven ethnic armed groups, including the MNDAA.

MNDAA leader under house arrest

The FPNCC leader was quoted by The Irrawaddy Journal as saying that the MNDAA leader has not been allowed to return to Myanmar and has been under house arrest in a hotel in Kunming, the site of many failed peace meetings involving Chinese officials, Burmese military, and ethnic rebel representatives in the past six months.

Some sources suggested the hotel where Peng Daxun is reportedly interned is owned by his extended family. The Kokangs are ethnically close to the Chinese and the MNDAA have traditionally enjoyed close relationship with Beijing. But not anymore because it resents China’s determination to save the tottering Burmese military junta.

“I can confirm that he has been detained, but I can’t provide details. We’re facing challenges and pressures,” the FPNCC member said, insisting on anonymity considering the sensitiveness of the issue.

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A dent to Junta’s image

The seizure of Lashio marked the loss of a capital city and a regional command headquarters by the Burmese military to anti-regime forces, which dented the junta’s image and raised serious questions over its ability to defeat the rebel offensive 1027.

But China, which has influence over ethnic armed groups active near the Chinese border, including the MNDAA, didn’t accept the loss of Lashio by its close ally, the Burmese military junta.

Since the fall of Lashio, Beijing has not only pressured the MNDAA and the TNLA to withdraw from Lashio but also forced the United Wa State Army (UWSA) to cut off the supply of food, fuel, medicines and other resources to the two ethnic armies, driving a wedge between it and the other two groups.

The UWSA is Myanmar’s most powerful ethnic rebel army with nearly 30,000 fighters heavily armed by the Chinese and its coffers bolstered by the synthetic drug trade. The Wa tribe formed the bulk of the combat elements of the once-powerful but now-defunct Burmese Communist Party before their leaders broke away to form the UWSA, which has been in effective control of the Wa Autonomous Region in the northern Shan State. The junta has practised live-and-let-live with UWSA.

China’s firm position

Following the fall of Lashio, Deng met with UWSA leaders in China in late August in the presence of China’s special envoy who reportedly made it clear that the MNDAA’s seizure of Lashio “has caused great damage to the situation in northern Myanmar, the political situation in Myanmar and China-Myanmar relations”.

Referring to the MNDAA, he said, “We will never recognize Kokang’s illegal occupation of Lashio. We firmly oppose the Kokang Allied Army’s barbaric military behaviour of attacking Lashio, which is controlled by the Myanmar Army. We demand that the Kokang Allied Army must withdraw as soon as possible. This is China’s firm position, and Kokang must abide by it,” said the special envoy, according to a leaked meeting document quoted by The Irrawaddy Journal.

Another FPNCC member has been quoted as saying that the detention of the MNDAA leader was a sign that China has adopted a misguided approach to the region and its long-term future.

“The crisis in Myanmar is not just about the UWSA and MNDAA. China’s actions won’t succeed,” the member said, pointing out that the country’s ongoing war against the regime is not being waged solely by the two ethnic armed groups.

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Desperate China

Currently, apart from Lashio, the MNDAA and the TNLA control all of the main routes of China’s Belt and Road Initiative projects on the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) as well as border trade gates in northern Shan State.

“The problem won’t be solved just by the MNDAA leaving Lashio,” he said, clarifying that if China or the military junta want to enable border trade and unrestricted access to CMEC areas, they would have to get all the ethnic rebel groups along the corridor to vacate.

When asked to confirm the reports of Peng Daxun’s arrest at a regular press conference on November 19, Beijing’s foreign ministry said Peng had “previously applied to come to China for medical care, and is currently undergoing treatment and recuperation”.

Ministry spokesman Lin Jian gave no further details of Peng’s condition or whereabouts. But FPNCC officials debunk the “medical care” angle and say Peng is under house arrest.

China’s desperation in Myanmar comes at a time when its projects in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) are threatened by rising rebel activity in both Balochistan and Northwest Frontier Province. The CPEC is designed to provide China land-to-sea access to the Arabian Sea, like the CMEC is to provide Beijing similar access to the Bay of Bengal. Mounting rebel attacks on Chinese nationals, including engineers and Pakistani forces guarding them, has led to Beijing demanding deployment of its own special forces in Pakistan, which Islamabad is yet to allow.