An Insight - Rebel fire and China's ire: Inside Myanmar's anti-junta offensive

People's Liberation Army forces walk near Sagaing Region in Myanmar November 23, 2023. - Reuters

YANGON (Reuters): Generals from Myanmar's junta held peace talks in June near the border with China with representatives of three powerful ethnic armies. They sat across a wide table covered with blue cloth and decorated with elaborate bouquets.

But the rebels were playing a double-game. Secretly, the ethnic armies - collectively called the Three Brotherhood Alliance - had already laid the groundwork for Operation 1027, a major offensive launched in October that has become the most significant threat to the regime since it seized power in a 2021 coup.