China sends troops, navy in support of Myanmar’s junta

Unprecedented rebel ground operations have captured strategic border towns, highways and hundreds of military outposts in the north, northwest, east, centre and south of the country.

Senior officers from Myanmar's navy, right, welcome Chinese naval officers upon their arrival at Thilawa port in Yangon on Monday. Picture: AFP

China has moved PLA troops to its border with northern Myanmar and sent three warships for drills with junta forces following weeks of co-ordinated attacks by resistance soldiers and ethnic armed groups that have dealt blow after blow to the regime.

Unprecedented rebel ground operations – some jointly staged between guerrilla-style People’s Defence Forces and ethnic armed groups – since late October have captured strategic border trading towns, highways and hundreds of military outposts in the north, northwest, east, centre and south of the country.

Analysts have cautioned against reading the gains as a sign of the junta’s imminent collapse, warning the military is more likely to go into “punishment mode” to protect the junta than wave the white flag.

On Monday, Beijing – an arms supplier to the junta – dispatched a destroyer, frigate and supply vessel carrying 700 sailors to Yangon’s Thilawa port for joint “naval security exercises” amid concerns fighting could spill over the border from Shan state into Yunnan province.

Some 224 outposts and seven towns including trading centres have been seized in northern Shan alone since the Three Brotherhood Alliance – comprising the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, Ta’ang National Liberation Army and Arakan Army – launched its Operation 1027. The state is home to oil and gas pipelines supplying China and a planned billion-­dollar railway link.

The Festival of Lights in Myanmar's Shan state was muted this year amid a heavy presence of security personnel. Picture: AFP

The 1027 offensive, named for its launch date, has reinvigorated the broader armed resistance to a junta that has brutalised the civilian population and brought Myanmar’s economy to its knees since ousting the democratic government of Aung San Suu Kyi in a February 2021 coup.

At least 300,000 more people have been displaced by the fighting, which has choked trade routes for a cash-strapped junta and blocked supply lines for a stretched military increasingly reliant on air power.

People displaced by the fighting at a village in Rakhine state. Picture: AFP

In central Myanmar, a joint force comprising troops from the PDF, Kachin Independence Army, AA, and Chin National Front have seized towns in the Sagaing region, while the CNF has captured strategic towns in Chin state on the Indian border.

Last week, Karenni resistance forces seized parts of Loikaw, capital of Kayah state, near the Thai border.

International Crisis Group Myanmar researcher Richard Horsey said the situation had “definitely snowballed”, with 1027 triggering a chain reaction of attacks amid perceptions the military was at a historical weak point.

The AA’s decision to break a ceasefire in western Rakhine state was particularly significant, given its track record against the military, though it too has encountered far stronger push back there than in Shan.

A Chinese navy ship arrived at Thilawa port in Yangon on Monday. Picture: AFP

Mr Horsey warned against reading the military’s underwhelming reaction against the Brotherhood Alliance in Shan’s Kokang self-administered zone – an area of historic contestation between rival crime families – as an indication of weakness elsewhere. “The military may have been caught flat-footed and have forces divided over lots of areas, but they retain a lot of raw capacity for violence, both through atrocities on the ground and through overwhelming airpower,” he said.

“This is an existential battle for the junta, not a situation where waving the white flag will give them a comfortable exile.

“They have been brutal and committed the worst kind of atrocities. They’re all chained together in this.

“They’re not going to be treated in a respectful way when this all comes unravelling.”

China’s weekend announcement of “combat training activities” on its border with Myanmar was as much a message to its own people that it was ready to counter any spill-over fighting as it was a warning to the junta not to let that happen, a day after a convoy carrying Chinese goods was attacked in Shan state, he added.

A junta spokesman said the ­regime had been informed of the drills and that the two armies remained “friendly”.