Pearls and Irritations

Myanmar’s situation is complex: since February 2021, there is a multi-party civil war between the military coup government, the NUG (National Unity Government; successor of the Bamar-majority civil government) and its People’s defense forces, and over 30 different ethnic armed organisations (EAO’s) with shifting alliances/coalitions/loyalties, intersecting with a variety of criminal enterprises that are opportunistic and tactical.

But this situation is a continuation of a 75-year civil war, the longest in modern history, originating in British colonisation. The British created an artificial, chimeric, patchwork state of 135 ethnicities to “divide and rule”. A charismatic anti-imperialist leader, Aung San, united the parties, leading the country towards national liberation. He was assassinated (likely by British Elites) in 1947 just as the country was achieving liberation. After his assassination the country devolved into bloody chaos and civil war, which has continued to the current day. This war also has a religious dimension: some of the colonial ruling ethnic strata were converted to Christianity and Muslims were imported as labourers into Buddhist-Animistic cultures. This resulted in Buddhist-Christian-Islamic conflicts as well as intra-religious/intra-ethnic fights.

Chinese pressure

A new development has been China’s recent pressure on Myanmar: border military exercises, support of certain EAO’s, direct pressure on the military government, and even cross-border raids and arrest warrants.

This is very unusual: China has had a principled non-interventionist foreign policy since 1979. However, immense cross-border criminality has forced China’s hand: Myanmar has 2000 km of border with China, and thousands of Chinese nationals have been kidnapped into slavery in Myanmar; some have been murdered.

As a result, China is trying actively to suppress border crimes. A recent Chinese raid liberated 4500 Chinese nationals and Chinese officials have issued arrest warrants for several crime families. These syndicates kidnap Chinese and other nationals and force them to work in call-centre scams in Myanmar under threat of torture, sexual assault, and murder. 120,000 people are estimated to be enslaved, according to the UN. Some syndicates have family connections to the military government.

China had been trying to get the military government to shut down this slavery and scamming; when it became clear that was ineffectual, it supported/green-lighted an alliance of Northern EAO’s Three brotherhood Army (Arakan Army; Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, Ta’Ang National Liberation Army) to smash the criminal gangs and retake control of the border.

This has had the effect of demonstrating the weakness of the Military government, with some 150 bases overrun by the alliance. Multiple EAOs, as well as NUG militias, have pressed this to their advantage, liberating vast areas of formerly military-controlled territory along the borders and controlling key arteries of trade.

China’s further response has actually been to try to mediate peace between the groups. China wants stability and peace, especially on its border, not to pick sides or chose winners in a crossfire hurricane, but the dynamics are complex, enmeshed, and continually shifting.

A Multi-handed Game

This complex dynamic of political, strategic, ethno-religious, territorial, criminal interests, has led to multiple actors allying or fighting in various configurations:

1) Border guard forces (part of the military government; connected to its leadership) have been facilitating criminal networks.

2) The Myanmar military is fighting multiple EAO’s and the deposed “National Unity Government” militias while opportunistically courting the Chinese.

3) Various alliances of ethnic armed groups are:

a) jockeying for influence and territory with others and amongst themselves
b) fighting the military as well as occasionally each other.

Western media portrays a binary conflict with “Pro-democracy forces (EAO’s and NUG civil militias), all fighting to overthrow a despotic military government”.

This is misleading. The military and civilian Bamar-majority government were cohabitating (with blessings from the West). The military perceived betrayal/election-rigging from the civilian government and deposed it, however, prior to the coup, they were oppressing many ethnic minorities together.

Therefore, not all ethnic minorities were opposed to the coup; they saw the US-allied, neoliberal civilian government as just as oppressive towards ethnic minorities as the Military.

They therefore distrust the US-supported “pro-democracy” NUG. To the extent they are allying with it, it is opportunistic, trying to survive to carve out territory and political space for themselves.

c) Some groups have been working with (and occasionally against) China. Some of these groups are ethnically Chinese or pro-Chinese: Shan state EAOs, MNDAA, the Arakan Army, United Wa State Army (“quartermaster for the Northern EAO’s”).

There is also a bloody economic/resource struggle involved–teak, oil, gas, strategic/precious metals/gems, compounding the existing political, territorial, and ethno-religious conflicts, preyed on from the wings by salivating Capitalist multinationals.

The US Military Noose:

Geopolitics also factors in. Myanmar has a 2000 km long border with China, from which the US has attempted to destabilise China for decades.

The US have also been trying to encircle and contain China from the sea since 2011.

This encirclement (“Pivot to Asia”) involves hundreds of bases and a wall of offensive missiles on islands along the Chinese coast to contain, rollback, and strangle China.

This “first island chain” stretches from Japan-Korea (Jeju)-Okinawa/Ryukyu-Taiwan-Philippines-Malaysia-Singapore-Indonesia to create an almost perfect noose.

Taiwan, 80 miles from China, is the centre, guarding the two exit and entry gates of this encirclement, the Bashi Channel and Miyako straits, making it a Chinese “core [strategic] interest”.

Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia have base-leasing/port-use agreements that are strategically critical. Japan, Okinawa, Korea, are bristling with war-ready US bases and firepower. The Philippines has 9 bases, with Subic Bay likely soon to rejoin. Japan (and soon Korea) have Space Force bases. All of these countries rehearse intensive combined arms warfare with the US military and NATO is expected to establish a joint operations liaison centre in Japan next year.

AirSea Armageddon:

The doctrine of war against China (“AirSea Battle”), prepared in 2009 under Obama, derived originally from AirLand Battle, the war doctrine against the USSR. AirSea Battle involves deep strategic strikes within China while also blockading and choking off the South China Sea, in particular the Malacca Straits.

$5 Trillion dollars’ worth of Chinese trade and 70% of China’s oil moves through the South China Sea. Wargaming has shown that a shooting war in this sea would result in a 25%-35% reduction of China’s economy, intended to create catastrophic, fatal pressure on China’s leadership. RAND says that this must be done before 2025, before China becomes too powerful.

Often overlooked, the BRI (The Belt and Road Initiative) is not simply Pan-Asian infrastructural development. It was also conceived as a series of overland routes to bypass this maritime encirclement in the South China Sea. China had $35B BRI construction in Myanmar, including the Kyaukpyu port and key logistical-pipeline infrastructure. This China-Myanmar Economic Corridor is one of the most critical nodes of the BRI: it is the first node to bypass the Malacca straits/SCS chokepoint and release traffic into the Indian Ocean.

On the other hand, the US has wanted to disrupt this leg of the BRI that undermines its encirclement. Before the coup, the US was funding multiple groups to the tune of millions to oppose the BRI within Myanmar. Chaos in Myanmar and/or a government hostile to China, capable of disrupting the BRI or creating harassment and instability for China along its border, is what the US wants, regardless of the cost to people.

In fact, China’s principled neutrality is informed by the understanding that the US would like nothing better than to draw China into a border war to slowly bleed it out, as it did previously for decades from Myanmar.

This is also true for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the other BRI exit route. This has seen terror attacks on infrastructure in the Baluchistan region, as well as assassinations of dozens of Chinese engineers. It has also suffered a recent coup blamed on the US. Anti-Chinese/anti-BRI messaging out of Baluchistan strongly suggests US involvement.

Terror from Taiwan: The “Chinese” Connection

A key fact to remember is that the US waged low-intensity border wars against China continuously for decades (1949-1981), directed by the US-installed anti-Communist KMT government on Taiwan Island.

When the KMT government lost the civil war against the Chinese Communist Party, its military bifurcated: a large contingent fled to Taiwan province. A smaller contingent escaped to Myanmar. With orders from Taiwan to “liberate Yunnan province”, it waged war along the Myanmar border against China for decades. In fact, the Korean war was a two-front war against China from both Korea and Myanmar. Full-on kinetic war continued until 1953, shifting later to a protracted, dirty war fuelled by drug trafficking in the “Golden Triangle”.

The ROC/Taiwan authorities, through the  WACL (World Anti-Communist League) were subcontractors for US dirty wars of subversion around the world. These wars, too illegal and dirty to be put directly on the CIA payroll, involved training death squad leaders of El Salvador and coordinating dirty wars in Latin America. Iran-Contra was also run through Taiwan’s WACL by Major General John K. Singlaub, with help from Oliver North.

Empire is a sordid business, stirring multiple pots of blood at once. The Burmese military were feted by the UK; the civilian government were US favourites/proxies until they got close to China. Prior to that, the US and UK envisaged a neo-liberalised Myanmar as an NGO-steered, neo-colonial windfall ripe for hyper-exploitation. Taiwan also wanted Myanmar to be the key partner in its “South bound” decoupling from China. US geostrategic interests and influence are still ongoing in its support for the NUG, while attempting, through its proxies and information warfare to thwart any resolution that might favour China, such as a peaceful settlement not favourable to itself and neoliberal-extractive capitalism. It is also trying to twist any violence (including the coup itself) as China’s doing. This has largely been unsuccessful because of China’s principled non-interventionism.

Myanmar’s ongoing chaos and violent bloodbath is the legacy of Imperial Western interference that has no easy resolution. It is also a contested terrain of narratives. It’s important for critical readers to understand the full picture, to avoid being misled in a complex information war.