CHINA Burmese generals travel to Beijing and obtain more weapons for war

In recent weeks, fighting has resumed in Shan State and Rakhine. The junta’s deputy leader, Soe Win, and former president Thein Sein travelled to Beijing and Qingdao to discuss border stability, trade and investment. But according to some sources, new contracts have also been signed for the purchase of military equipment.

Yangon () – The escalation of fighting in Shan State and the advance of ethnic militias in Rakhine have prompted several representatives of the Burmese military junta to travel to China in recent weeks. And according to some sources, Beijing may have provided new weapons to the Burmese army responsible for the coup that plunged Myanmar into civil war in February 2021.

The junta’s deputy commander-in-chief, General Soe Win, landed in Qingdao, Shandong province, on Saturday, where he was to take part in a forum on sustainable development sponsored by the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, junta-controlled media reported.

Soe Win is the highest-ranking political representative Beijing has received since the coup; army chief General Min Aung Hlaing, who is the self-proclaimed head of a government body called the State Administrative Council, has yet to visit China.

But in late June, former President Thein Sein (who had favoured a period of democratic opening before the election of Aung San Suu Kyi) also travelled to Beijing to meet Foreign Minister Wang Yi. And on 19 June, China’s special envoy to Myanmar, Deng Xijun, also met the junta’s foreign minister, Than Swe, in Naypyidaw, just days before the resumption of fighting in Shan State that had been abated in January by a Chinese-brokered ceasefire.

This diplomatic effort, unsurprisingly, coincided with the resumption of offensives by ethnic militias fighting the regime. In recent days, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) – the two members that together with the Arakan Army (AA) form the so-called Three Brotherhood Alliance – headed towards Lashio, one of the main towns in Shan, where the Army’s Northeastern Regions Command is also based. Thousands of civilians fled in an attempt to reach the town of Taunggyi.

Meanwhile, the TNLA has taken control of the Gokteik Viaduct, a colonial-era railway bridge, thus blocking all reinforcement and supply routes to the military command.

The fighting also spread to the nearby Mandalay region. and the Arakan Army has launched a new offensive to conquer the last two towns still under military control, Thandwe and Maungdaw, in Rakhine State, on the border with Bangladesh. For its part, the Burmese air force has intensified its bombings. According to Nyan Lynn Thit AnalyticaBetween January and April this year alone, 819 airstrikes were carried out, killing 359 civilians and injuring 756 others.

This appears to be a new phase of Operation 1027, the offensive launched by the Three Brotherhood Alliance in October last year. Before the ceasefire was signed in January, the Alliance had seized a large part of the territory on the border with China, including some key border crossings for bilateral trade.

Beijing, frustrated by the junta’s failure to root out internet scam hubs involving thousands of Chinese citizens, had passively accepted the MNDAA’s takeover of an important border area, Kokang.

This no longer seems to be the case: earlier this month, Chinese authorities cut off electricity in Laukkai, the capital of Kokang, perhaps to signal to the MNDAA that they do not approve of the new offensive.

A more obvious sign, however, is the new arms shipments from Beijing to the Burmese regime, which the online newspaper The Irrawaddy “The regime’s shopping list is long and huge shipments of weapons are arriving in Myanmar,” some sources said, adding: “They will arrive in Myanmar within two weeks to a month.” The shipment of weapons from China (and even more so from Russia) to the Burmese junta is nothing new.

But these expeditions are likely to be related to recent visits by coup representatives. Soe Win, as head of the army, has the power to sign off on arms purchases. According to the regime’s media, during his visit, which ended yesterday, the topics discussed were border stability, the security of Chinese investments in Myanmar, the eradication of online scam centers, the promotion of bilateral trade and even elections, a project that the junta has been considering for months. The Burmese regime even announced on Monday that the Chinese New Year (better known in the region as the Lunar New Year) will be an official holiday in Myanmar starting next year.