Opinion | China can return stability to Myanmar and fix its image problem if it takes sides in the crisis

Despite the rumours, Beijing has not yet lent decisive support to Myanmar’s junta, and has called for domestic political reconciliation to end the post-coup crisis

But Myanmar will not be peaceful until it is a federal democracy, a political system that can be best achieved by working with the country’s democratic interim government

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Demonstrators in Yangon on Monday hold pictures showing some of the hundreds killed during Myanmar’s ongoing anti-coup protests. Photo: EPA

Published: 5:45pm, 6 Apr 2021Updated: 9:21am, 7 Apr 2021

China has an image problem in Myanmar. Rumours have swirled about whether Beijing’s top diplomat had any inkling, when he visited Yangon in January and met military chief Min Aung Hlaing, of the impending coup that would topple the elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government just weeks later.

Then came talk of nightly flights supposedly ferrying tech experts and equipment from Kunming to help the junta build a “Great Firewall”, like China’s, to shut down internet traffic and disrupt the budding civil disobedience movement that sprang up to oppose the military regime. Further rumours followed of Chinese troops supporting Myanmar security forces in putting down peaceful demonstrations. Chinese factories in Yangon soon went up in flames – though it remains unclear who set the fires. China’s muted reaction to the coup, and its continued shielding of the junta from sanctions at the United Nations Security Council has surely fired this hostility.

It seems, however, that Beijing has not yet made up its mind on Myanmar’s coup. It has not lent decisive support to the junta, and has called for domestic political reconciliation. But now is the time for China to take sides, because a democratic Myanmar is a more reliable partner than the generals.

TURBULENT RELATIONSHIP

A deep-seated fear of being lorded over by China is part of Myanmar’s national identity. Through the early 1970s, Mao’s China backed the Communist Party of Burma with funding, arms, and even volunteers as it sought to overthrow the military dictatorship of General Ne Win. Out of the ruins of that conflict, ethnic militias such as the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) formed in the early 1990s in northern Shan State, both of which maintain close ties with China to this day.

Relations between Myanmar’s generals and Beijing then improved under the reformist regime of Deng Xiaoping and his successors, who sought constructive engagement. The generals, however, grew wary of China’s economic rise and the threat its increasing dominance might pose to them.