Midway through 2024, Myanmar’s military regime appeared to be teetering, as rebels had seized large tracts of the uplands as well as key military bases. Since then, China, fearing a disorderly collapse, has thrown military leader Min Aung Hlaing a lifeline. But the junta still faces determined resistance. A vote in 2025, if it proceeds as planned, will bring further bloodshed.
The civil war that has torn Myanmar apart since the military seized power in 2021 has set the country back decades: More than 3 million people are displaced internally, health and education systems have crumbled, poverty has skyrocketed and Myanmar’s currency, the kyat, has crashed.
In late 2023, the army started losing ground, particularly to ethnic armed groups that had fought it for decades and, in some cases, found common cause with new resistance groups. In the north, one rebel coalition, the Three Brotherhood Alliance, captured much of northern Shan state, including the army’s regional command in Lashio. China appears to have greenlit the offensive, frustrated at the regime’s inability to curb scam centres in the borderlands. Elsewhere, other ethnic rebels and resistance forces, sensing the regime’s weakness, launched their own attacks.
In August, Beijing changed tack, throwing its weight behind the junta. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Min Aung Hlaing in Myanmar for the first time since the coup, and Beijing sent the army fighter jets and pressed Brotherhood groups to withdraw from key areas, notably Lashio. Chinese President Xi Jinping blames the regime’s 2021 power grab for damaging Chinese investment in Myanmar and sees Min Aung Hlaing himself as anti-China. But Xi has preferred to stave off the regime’s downfall than risk the chance that a Western-leaning administration would take power. Beijing views the opposition National Unity Government (NUG) and most resistance forces as Western stooges.
Still, the military remains on the back foot. The Arakan Army, ethnic insurgents from Rakhine state, in Myanmar’s west, is close to expelling the army from that region. In 2017, the military forced some 750,000 Rohingya out of Rakhine into neighbouring Bangladesh. Now, Rohingya insurgents have begun battling the Arakan Army, hoping to carve out their own enclave. The further deterioration of intercommunal relations will likely make prospects of the Rohingya’s return even dimmer.
Elsewhere, another rebel group, the Kachin Independence Army, has seized rare-earth mines, giving it control of Myanmar’s $1.4 billion rare-earth oxide trade with China. The mines are the world’s largest source of critical heavy rare-earth elements, giving the group leverage with Beijing as it seeks to reap the considerable revenue it needs to fund its military operations and administer its expanded territory.
In return for support, China insists that the junta hold elections. Beijing has wanted a vote since the coup, hoping to dilute Min Aung Hlaing’s power and bring greater stability. But polls will be a violent mess. In current conditions, a vote would result in a military-backed administration governing according to the unpopular military-drafted 2008 constitution. It would be as loathed as today’s regime and likely offer no vision for a better future. China probably will not change course; it is hard to imagine Beijing pushing for negotiations with the NUG, for example, which, in any case, the junta would reject. But Beijing will gain little from a vote that triggers more upheaval, entrenches military rule, and deepens anti-China popular sentiment.