Beijing acknowledges Myanmar junta chief, with eye on own interests

China hopes for polls as it tries to broker truce between junta and ethnic groups

- Tan Hui Yee

On Nov 5, Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing set foot in China for the first time since staging a coup in 2021. He was visiting Kunming as a representative of Myanmar in the Greater Mekong Subregion Summit of Leaders, a meeting held every three years involving China, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam.

While this was a multilateral, not bilateral, meeting, it symbolised China's tacit acknowledgement of Senior General Min Aung Hlaing's authority. It came after some three years of Beijing trying to work with the military administration while keeping the junta chief at arm's length. This is in stark contrast to Russia's embrace of the senior general, who has visited Moscow several times since the coup and even met Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2022.

Analysts say this China trip is a sign of things to come as Beijing tries to protect its own interests by propping up the military government and supporting a future Myanmar election—however flawed the polls might turn out to be.

China has tried to broker a ceasefire between the military and ethnic armed groups. It has also tried to pressure these armed groups into ending hostilities with the junta by withholding essential supplies from across the Myanmar-China border whenever the groups seized border territories from the junta.

These Chinese maneuvers are taking place as the Myanmar military loses ground to insurgents, three years after throwing out the civilian National League for Democracy (NLD) government and detaining its leader Aung San Suu Kyi under convictions widely acknowledged as spurious.