After the Burmese military staged a military coup on Monday (Feb. 1) and detained the democratically elected government leader, democratic countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union all expressed strong condemnation and demanded that the Burmese military immediately release those detained.
However, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a different attitude: it has a painless tone and is waiting to see how things develop. Analysts point out that the Chinese Communist Party has huge interests in Burma, and it wants to maintain good relations with any government in any Burma.
International condemnation, only CCP on the sidelines
The Burmese military on Monday detained people including Burmese President Win Myint and State Senior Minister Aung San Suu Kyi and announced a takeover of power, handing over state authority to Myanmar Defense Force Commander-in-Chief Min Aung Hlaing. The United States, Britain, the European Union, Japan, Australia, India and the United Nations have all strongly condemned the move and demanded the military’s immediate release.
President Joe Biden said Monday that it was a direct attack on “Burma’s shift to democracy and the rule of law. Biden called on the international community to “speak with one voice” to force the Burmese military to return to democracy and release the men immediately. Earlier, the White House also said the U.S. would take action against the individuals involved if the Burmese military did not reverse course.
Aung San Suu Kyi (right) shakes hands with Burmese military leader Min Aung Hlaing (left) in 2015.
British Prime Minister Johnson said, “I condemn the coup in Burma and the unlawful imprisonment of civilians, including Aung San Suu Kyi. People’s right to vote must be respected and democratically elected leaders must be released.”
European Council President Michel tweeted, “I strongly condemn the Burmese ‘coup’ and call on the (Burmese) military to release all those illegally detained in operations across the country.” He also wrote: “The election results must be respected and the democratic process needs to be restored.”
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric also said in a statement, “The Secretary-General strongly condemns the detention of Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint.” And it said, “This chain of developments is a heavy blow to democratic reform in Myanmar.”
The Chinese Communist Party did not condemn the coup; instead, it struck a more moderate tone than any other country. Asked what China had to say about Myanmar’s military detaining Aung San Suu Kyi and others and declaring a one-year state of emergency, CPC Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said, “We have noticed what is happening in Myanmar and are learning more about the situation. China is a friendly neighbor of Myanmar, and we hope that all parties in Myanmar will properly handle their differences under the constitutional and legal framework and maintain political and social stability.”
As Myanmar is isolated, the Chinese Communist Party has consistently presented itself as a “friendly neighbor”
Analysts say that the Communist Party’s attitude on Burma is dictated by its vast interests in the country. Murray Hiebert, a senior fellow in the Southeast Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington think tank, told the Voice of America, “They realize that the international community is going to condemn what’s going on. I think they thought this was a good opportunity to show that the Chinese Communist Party is supportive of Burma and is a good friend of Burma.”
Hibbert said it does not surprise him that the Chinese Communist Party has taken such an attitude, as its current attitude is in line with the one it displayed in 2017 when Myanmar was isolated on the international stage due to the Rohingya crisis.
Back then, more than 740,000 Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar’s Rakhine State were forced to leave Rakhine State and move to neighboring Bangladesh to escape mass killings, rape and village burning by the Burmese military. U.N. Secretary-General Guterres dismissed the military’s practice as “textbook ethnic cleansing. The international community condemned Aung San Suu Kyi’s government and imposed sanctions on Myanmar’s top military officials, including Min Aung Hlaing. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has expressed support for Myanmar’s approach and said it “welcomes” the government’s actions against the so-called “extremist terrorists. In addition, the Chinese Communist Party is the only country that has not stopped investing in Burma.
Hebert said the Communist Party is also doing this to frustrate U.S. efforts to advance democracy in Burma. Naturally, the Chinese Communist Party does not want to see a pro-U.S. democratic government emerge on its own border. Burma is estranged from Europe and the United States because of the Rohingya crisis. Coupled with the coup, Hebert predicts that Burma’s generals should be more willing to deal with the Chinese Communist Party.
The coup in Burma is also a challenge for the new Biden Administration‘s strategic competition with the CCP, he said. In the future, the Biden administration may also have to consider not pushing the Burmese military further into the arms of the Chinese Communist Party when it takes action against them.
A 2018 report by the U.S. Institute of Peace titled “China’s Role in the Burmese Conflict” said the Rohingya crisis actually provides an opportunity for the CCP to not only reassert its dominance in Burma’s diplomatic relations, but also gain support from the Burmese government for the CCP’s political and economic interests in Burma.
For strategic interests, the CCP wants to maintain good relations with the Burmese military
Hibbert wrote a book on China-Southeast Asia relations in 2020 – In the Shadow of Beijing: The Chinese Challenge in Southeast Asia. He has made a number of studies on the CCP’s relationship with Myanmar. He says that because of the CCP’s strategic interests in Burma, the CCP wants to maintain good relations with both the democratically elected and military governments.
Hebert noted that in a sense, Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government appears to be more helpful in advancing the CCP’s interests in Burma than the Burmese military.
In 2011, the military-backed Thein Sein government In 2011, the military-backed Thein Sein government unilaterally halted Chinese investment in the Myitsone hydropower plant project in Myanmar.
In September 2018, the Chinese government and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s government signed a memorandum of understanding to jointly build the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor. In December of the same year, Myanmar established the Belt and Road Implementation Steering Committee, chaired by Senior Minister Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and vice-chaired by First Vice President Myint Swe, which includes several federal ministers and provincial chief ministers. The two countries also signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation on the feasibility study of the Mandalay-Kyaukpyu railroad during the visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Myanmar on January 10 this year.
Hebert believes that the Chinese Communist Party’s failure to condemn the Burmese military is still motivated by a desire to safeguard the Communist Party’s interests in Burma.
I think it’s still because of a desire to continue to have good relations with the government recognizing that Burma is a very important neighbor to China and that the CCP has many strategic and economic interests,” he said. If the government changes, I think they think that this government [the military] will be in power for quite some Time. They think it’s useful to remain friendly with the military even if they have differences with them.”
Myanmar’s China-Myanmar Economic Corridor is an important part of the Communist Party’s “One Belt, One Road” project in Southeast Asia. The aforementioned Kyaukpyu port is of strategic importance to the Communist Party. Kyaukpyu is located in Rakhine State in western Myanmar and is the starting point of the China-Myanmar oil and gas pipeline. Now, the CCP is planning to build a deep-water port in Kyaukpyu. Once the 1,470-kilometer route from Kunming, the capital of China’s Yunnan Province, to Kyaukpyu is opened, the Communist Party will be able to access the Indian Ocean by land without fear of enemy intervention in the Malacca Strait.
The CCP is friendly with both the Burmese military and the democratically elected government
In fact, the CCP has maintained friendly relations with both the military and the democratically elected government in Burma. In its contacts with both the elected and military governments, the CCP emphasizes the traditional friendship and “brotherhood” between the two countries.
In January 2021, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Myanmar, where he met not only with Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto leader of Myanmar’s democratically elected government, but also with Min Aung Hlaing, the commander-in-chief of Myanmar’s defense forces. According to Xinhua, Wang said that China appreciates that the Tatmadaw takes national revitalization as its mission, thinks about the future development of the country from a long-term perspective, adheres to the traditional friendship between China and Myanmar, and promotes the “brotherhood” between the two countries.
Xi also met with Aung San Suu Kyi and Min Aung Hlaing during his visit to Myanmar in January 2020, and sent a letter to Aung San Suu Kyi on Nov. 16, 2020, congratulating her National League for Democracy on its re-election to power in the recent elections.
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