Heading off: Min Aung Hlaing shaking hands with a military officer while other junta leaders look on at a ceremony for his departure to China at an airport in Naypyidaw. — AP
THE country’s embattled junta chief arrived in China – his first reported visit since leading a coup in 2021 – but analysts say the invitation is only a lukewarm endorsement from his key ally and could backfire.
Min Aung Hlaing was in Kunming yesterday for a summit of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) – a group including China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia – starting today.
When the military ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected civilian government in 2021, Chinese state media refused to describe it as a coup, preferring “major Cabinet reshuffle”.
China has stood by the junta since, even as others shun the generals over their brutal crackdown on dissent which opponents say includes massacring of civilians, razing villages with air and artillery strikes.
Richard Horsey, Crisis Group’s senior Myanmar adviser, said Min Aung Hlaing had been lobbying for an official invitation ever since the coup, as a public show of support.
But Beijing has stressed the regional focus of the Kunming gathering, saying it wanted to consult “all sides” against “a background of a weakening global recovery and geopolitical turbulence”.
“While this (invitation to the summit) still implies recognition as head of state, it does not have the same diplomatic weight as a bilateral invitation to visit Beijing,” said Horsey.
Min Aung Hlaing’s trip comes with the junta reeling from a devastating rebel offensive last year that seized an area roughly the size of Bosnia – much of it near the border with China.
Analysts say Beijing is worried about the possibility of the junta falling and suspicious of western influence among some of pro-democracy armed groups battling the military.
The junta’s top brass are wary of China, insiders say – stemming from Beijing’s support for an insurgency waged by the Communist Party of Burma in the 1960s and 1970s.
China gave its tacit backing to last year’s rebel offensive, military supporters say, in return for the rebels dismantling the billion-dollar online scam syndicate compounds in territory they captured. — AFP
