Chinese authorities have reportedly detained the leader of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), which has inflicted serious losses on Myanmar’s military junta, in an apparent bid to halt the group’s offensives.
Citing sources in both Myanmar and China’s Yunnan Province, Myanmar Now reported yesterday that the MNDAA’s commander Peng Daxun is being held under house arrest in China. Peng (aka Peng Deren) was summoned to Yunnan for a meeting with a senior Chinese envoy late last month and then placed in custody. The report said that Peng has been allowed to remain in phone contact with his commanders inside Myanmar.
The MNDAA is a key member of the Three Brotherhood Alliance of resistance groups, which has captured a large amount of territory in Shan State since the launch of its Operation 1027 offensive in October 2023. In January, the MNDAA took back the ethnic Chinese-dominated Kokang region, from which the Myanmar military expelled it in 2009, and overran a number of border crossings with China. Then, in early August, it seized Lashio, the de facto capital of northern Shan State and the seat of the Myanmar military’s Northeast Regional Command.
In a subsequent report, RFA Burmese quoted one source as saying that the Chinese government is holding Peng in a bid to force him to “negotiate withdrawal of his troops from Lashio.”
While the first phase of the Operation 1027 offensive proceeded with China’s apparent approval, in large part because the MNDAA promised to shut down the online scam operations that had been set up by a junta proxy force in the Kokang region, China opposed the resumption in June of the offensive, which broke a ceasefire that it helped to negotiate in Kunming in January. Since the fall of Lashio, China has put increasing pressure on the MNDAA and the rest of the Three Brotherhood Alliance to end their offensive operations and open talks with the military junta.
To do so, the Chinese government has closed border gates adjoining territories controlled by the MNDAA and its ally, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, in a bid to starve the groups into compliance. Likewise, it has used its influence with the United Wa State Army (UWSA), arguably the most powerful ethnic armed group in Myanmar, to deny these other groups access to electricity, water, internet, and other supplies. It has also asked the UWSA to help pressure the MNDAA to withdraw its forces from Lashio.
These actions have been part of a broader evolution of China’s policy toward the civil war in Myanmar, in the direction of greater support for the military junta. Over the past six months, as the collapse of the military administration becomes a more realistic prospect, China has intensified its diplomatic outreach, expressing strong support for the junta’s proposed “election” as a potential solution to the civil war, pressuring ethnic armed groups in border areas to halt their attacks on the junta, and increasing arms shipments to the Myanmar armed forces.
This policy shift seems to reflect a fear that the military’s collapse could lead to the collapse of the state, complicating the pursuit of China’s strategic and economic interests in the country. There are also strong indications that Beijing believes that the National Unity Government (NUG) has come under the excessive influence of Western countries, particularly the United States.
In addition to urging the MNDAA and its allies to cease their offensives, the Chinese government has also pressured them to distance themselves from the NUG and the People’s Defense Forces with which it is loosely affiliated.
On September 4, the MNDAA posted a statement on social media stating that it would not cooperate militarily or politically with the NUG. “Our political red line is not to form alliances or work together with those who are against China,” read the statement, which was deleted before being reposted on September 19. It also promised not to launch attacks on Taunggyi, the capital of Shan State, or Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city.
However, the Chinese pressure campaign has seemingly fallen short of getting the MNDAA to abandon Lashio and return to the negotiating table. When China summoned Peng to Yunnan last month, some observers speculated that it “may be applying more pressure on the MNDAA to stop fighting and engage in talks with the regime,” as The Irrawaddy reported on October 26. Presumably, the talks didn’t go as Chinese officials had hoped, prompting them to adopt more forceful methods of bringing the MNDAA to heel.
In any event, like the recent news that China is proposing the establishment of a special joint security company to safeguard its assets and personnel in Myanmar, its detention of the MNDAA’s commander in Yunnan marks a watershed in China’s attempts to influence the trajectory of Myanmar’s conflict.
Despite China’s claim that it adheres to a doctrine of “non-interference” in Myanmar’s internal affairs, it has always been hard to tell when routine diplomatic intercourse, whether with the military junta in Naypyidaw or with the ethnic armed groups based along the China-Myanmar border, crosses the line into “intervention.” However, the detention of the chief of the MNDAA, one of the most important armed groups in northeastern Myanmar, even if not carried out on Myanmar territory, appears to mark an unambiguous attempt by China to shape directly the course of Myanmar’s conflict.
In some ways, this is no surprise. China’s “non-interference” principle, like the United States’ claim that its foreign policy is invariably geared toward liberal goals, is designed to provide a legitimizing gloss to great power maneuvers. When direct Chinese interests are at stake, it is no surprise to see such principles can easily be circumscribed or discarded, even if Chinese involvement is likely to remain below the threshold of direct military intervention.