This briefing looks at the dynamics of the civil war in Myanmar. It examines the plight of the Rohingya, the role of neighbouring countries, and Chinese involvement. This piece was written by Philipp Peksaglam and edited by Ruyi Liu.
After the military coup in Myanmar in 2021, and the subsequent civil war in the country, the continuous trickle of Rohingya into Bangladesh has again turned into a flood. What is driving many of the remaining 600,000 Rohingya to take the perilous, often deadly, journey across the border is the deteriorating situation in their state of origin. In Rakhine, also known as Arakan, living conditions continually worsen, and Rohingya civilians find themselves between a rock and a hard place. The junta is forcing Rohingya to fight on its behalf against the Arakan Army, the regional ethnic armed organisation (EAO), exploiting and exacerbating inter-ethnic tensions.
Survivors of genocide, the Rohingya, occupy a special place in Myanmar’s ethnic landscape. Ethnic identity has become central to the war across the country as resistance to the Burmese junta is organised along ethnic-regional lines. This resistance has effectively managed to break the military’s grip on large swaths of the country but remains unable to challenge the junta in the Burmese heartland. Myanmar is a significant source of regional instability whilst this stalemate persists.
Rakhine illustrates the dynamics of the civil war
Rakhine’s Arakan Army has emerged as the most powerful actor in the cross-country coalition of ethno-regional militias fighting the Burmese army, which General Min Aung Hlaing controls. The EAOs’ coordinated offensive in fall 2023, known as Operation 1027, forced the junta on the back foot and entrenched the control of the ethnic armed organisations over their respective fiefdoms in the peripheries of Myanmar. Yet these victories are not definitive, as the junta leverages its air superiority to bomb civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, churches and schools across the country.
Despite these aerial bombardments, the junta’s depleted and demoralised fighting force has continuously lost ground to the EAO alliance. The Arakan Army now controls about two thirds of Rakhine state, encroaching on the state capital Sittwe, the military’s Western Command, and an important Belt and Road Initiative port in Kyaukphyu. Nominally committed to the vision of a democratic Myanmar under the leadership of the opposition National Unity Government, the Arakan Army is working towards building its own governance structures. Whether it would relinquish its military and political control to any central government remains uncertain. This pattern is observable across Myanmar, from Chin state, bordering India, to Kachin state near China, to Shan state in the Golden Triangle: where the central state’s authority has been contested for decades.
What happens in Rakhine, both on the battlefield and in governance, has substantial effects on the broader civil war. The Arakan Army’s alliance with other ethnic armed organisations on Myanmar’s Eastern border keeps the junta engaged on multiple fronts and reinforces the EAO’s legitimacy as part of the national opposition to the military dictatorship. For now, the junta clings to key locations in Rakhine. The port development in Kyaukphyu is crucial to China, the army’s ally, and therefore of special significance. Such foreign economic vested interests and the close ethnic ties of the peoples in Myanmar’s peripheries across borders highlight the international dimension of this conflict.
Myanmar’s neighbours fail to make a difference
Case in point: Bangladesh bears the brunt of Rohingya fleeing Rakhine. Yet despite the refugee crisis in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh has been very reluctant to engage with the Arakan Army while the situation on the ground remains undecided. It does not want to lend legitimacy to insurgents challenging its own authority, for example in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, by engaging with a rebel group across the border. Overt contact with the Arakan Army could also jeopardise its relationship with the junta, the de jure rulers of Myanmar. Under the newly appointed caretaker prime minister Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh therefore continues to call for a multilateral solution for the repatriation of the Rohingya to Rakhine state.
Such sentiments are echoed by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Myanmar is a suspended member. Finding a policy stance on Myanmar that all other nine member states can agree to is challenging because of the specific interests and governance structures of the respective ASEAN states. But, as a consensus-governed grouping, such a unity of opinion is necessary for ASEAN to act. The organisation has only been able to pass an ineffective ‘Five-Point consensus’, calling for an immediate ceasefire and “constructive dialogue” between the fighting parties. As ASEAN does not have the mandate to directly intervene in the conflict and has little political leverage, this has not impacted the junta’s conduct in the civil war.
ASEAN’s inability to substantially change the trajectory of the civil war is not for a lack of trying. Short of military intervention, there are limits to what outsiders can achieve. Affecting change in Myanmar is difficult given the diversity of actors and complexity of at times competing interests. And which specific post-war settlement ASEAN should work towards is also up for debate. As ASEAN chairmanship rotates annually, each year a new member state gets to redefine ASEAN’s strategic priorities and its tactical conduct vis-a-vis Myanmar.
Both Cambodia and Thailand have sought to engage the junta during their ASEAN chairmanships, hoping to mediate a ceasefire satisfactory to both the junta and the EAOs and thereby restoring stability to Myanmar, to no avail. Even Thailand’s military elites, who traditionally enjoy a good rapport with the junta and have substantial investments in Myanmar, have failed to make significant inroads. Because of their vested interest in the junta’s survival, coordinating with the opposition can be difficult, yet Thailand is also aware that the National Unity Government and the EAOs have to be included for a conflict settlement to succeed. Internal tensions between the Thai military establishment and civilian politicians complicate how Thailand deals with Myanmar, and by extension how the bloc as a whole — with its consensus-based policymaking process — handles the conflict. The stalemate on the battlefield, and the increasingly radicalised strategies both the junta (bombing civilians indiscriminately) and anti-junta forces pursue (gaining independence or autonomy), compound the difficulties ASEAN, Bangladesh and the wider international community face in their attempts to resolve the conflict.
China puts its thumb on the scales
Another neighbour of Myanmar has steadily increased its presence in the country’s civil war: China. Allied with the junta, China has sought to defend the military government from ‘outside interference’, while being heavily involved in the country itself. China is concerned with the political stability of Myanmar due to its significant investments in resource extraction and infrastructure, as well as the shared border where multiple ethnic organisations self-govern. The junta’s inability to protect these investments, and its loss of control along the border, forces Beijing to commit more resources to the conflict.
As reported in The Irrawaddy on November 21, China is currently negotiating a “joint venture security company” with the junta that would allow armed Chinese private security contractors into Myanmar. This is a significant step for China, given the nominal importance Beijing ascribes to the principle of non-intervention in intrastate conflicts: a narrative that personnel on the ground in Myanmar would actively contradict. It is also China’s strongest indictment of the ineptitude of the junta, raising questions about what long-term security order China envisions for Myanmar.
Yet despite its operational inefficacy, China is unwilling to withdraw its political support for Min Aung Hlaing’s government. Previously, China had turned to the EAOs to protect its mining investments and to uproot scam centres swindling Chinese consumers out of billions of dollars, when the junta was incapable of doing so. China seems to be revising that EAO engagement strategy, arresting the leader of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army — a key partner of the Arakan Army on the Chinese border — during a meeting in Yunnan. Just weeks earlier, junta leader Min Aung Hlaing had made a trip to Kunming, the state capital of Yunnan, his first visit to China since the beginning of the civil war.
Sharing a long border with Shan state, and economically tied to Myanmar via the Greater Mekong Subregion, Yunnan is highly vulnerable to the civil war. This includes Rakhine: pipelines and roads connect Kunming to Kyaukphyu, the port on its coast that is central to Chinese ambitions in Myanmar. Hence, there is speculation that Chinese security personnel will primarily be deployed to Rakhine, defending Kyaukphyu and other Chinese investments there. Kunming’s — not just Beijing’s — interests affect the political stance China takes in Myanmar. Going forward, China appears to want to preserve the junta as a figurehead, whilst potentially intervening more directly on the ground.
Chinese interference won’t help Myanmar’s people(s)
These new developments show that Rakhine remains a focal point of Myanmar’s civil war. A potential Chinese security presence at Kyaukphyu would put China at loggerheads with the Arakan Army. Yet antagonising the EAO alliance would also seem to — at least in the short term — undermine the security of Chinese assets in EAO-controlled areas, such as the cross-country pipelines susceptible to sabotage both in the west and the rebel-held east of Myanmar. Nevertheless, given its overwhelming resources, it seems plausible that China can shore up the junta’s positions in Rakhine and elsewhere, securing its investments.
One thing is clear: putting boots on the ground would be a significant escalation of China’s commitment to the junta. As China overtly increases its stake in the country, Myanmar’s other neighbours will continue to exercise caution and focus on managing their immediate border regions.
China is also actively encouraging Min Aung Hlaing to hold elections in 2025, hoping to increase the popular legitimacy of the junta, at least in the Burmese heartland. Given the forced conscription implemented earlier this year — and the overall situation of the country — these elections are unlikely to serve as the desired off-ramp to de-escalate the conflict.
Absent from this discussion of Myanmar’s civil war is the West. Europe and the UK only play a marginal role in the conflict, primarily limiting themselves to sanctions and insufficient humanitarian aid and managing the conflict via international institutional mechanisms. The UK, Canada, Denmark, Germany, France and the Netherlands have jointly filed an intervention in the ongoing The Gambia v. Myanmar genocide trial at the ICJ. Similarly, the US relies on financial sanctions, trade embargoes and humanitarian aid.
However, the refugee camps run by UNHCR in Cox’s Bazar, where the majority of Rohingya live, remain severely underfunded, with people living off 11$ per month. Western economic sanctions suffer from enforcement and circumvention issues that undermine their efficacy. As China steps up its game, calls for stronger American involvement in Myanmar are growing louder. Regardless, expecting a significant increase in engagement seems unrealistic, given the resource-binding crises in Ukraine, Israel/Palestine and Sudan.
For Burmese civilians facing forced conscription, the various ethnic minorities in Myanmar’s periphery enduring the destruction of their schools, hospitals and livelihoods, and specifically for the Rohingya, the future remains bleak. Alleviating these conditions should be the priority for international actors like the US, Europe and the UN: humanitarian action must take precedence over symbolic appeals to democracy or half-baked attempts at containing China.
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