To cool the situation, Beijing crafted careful policy statements emphasizing China’s friendly relations with the National League for Democracy Party (NLD), and stressing that China-Myanmar friendship is “ open to all people of Myanmar.” In the following months, the Chinese Embassy opened discreet channels of communication with the NUG, and the Chinese Communist Party re-activated its relationship with the NLD, inviting its leaders to attend a virtual gathering of South and Southeast Asian political parties. Chinese officials feared that a strong show of support for the junta might further inflame anti-China sentiment. The End of China’s Friendship with the Myanmar People?Ĭhina’s initial public response to the Februmilitary coup was to pretend nothing had happened - it described the putsch as a “ cabinet reshuffle” - but by last March attacks on Chinese factories and businesses across Yangon had created a crisis. But for China, it seems that open cooperation with the regime now appeared necessary to rapidly reboot plans for tens of billions of dollars of strategic investments in Myanmar. For the United States, China’s enhanced support for a genocidal military regime at the heart of the Indo-Pacific region represents a direct threat to long-term regional commitments identified in the February 2022 Indo-Pacific Strategy. The country’s National Unity Government (NUG), established by lawmakers deposed in last year’s coup, condemned China’s moves as “deeply disrespectful and offensive” to Myanmar’s people. (Alexei Druzhinin/RIA Novosti/Pool via The New York Times)Ĭhina’s sudden shift in policy will almost certainly lead to escalating violence and instability in Myanmar. Beijing has signaled it will step in to fill a void of support for Myanmar’s junta, as Moscow is consumed with its invasion of Ukraine. Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in Shanghai, May 2014. With China bringing increasing pressure on Southeast Asian states to follow its lead in legitimizing Myanmar’s dictatorship, all parties in the region, and those with interests in it, will have to rethink their Myanmar strategies. Beijing framed its decisive economic and political move in part as a response to the “Ukraine crisis,” hinting that Russian backing for the junta may wane on the heels of Moscow’s stumbles in Ukraine, forcing China to fill the gap. After a year of tentative ties with Myanmar’s democratic opposition, China this month dropped all pretension of hedging its bets and ramped up support for the military regime.
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