Geopolitics: Communist China in Myanmar (Burma)

                    (Based on staff articles from the MYANMAR NOW in July 2023.)

Recent surprise offensives by the Myanmar Army targeting Laiza the KIA capital on Chinese border in Kachin State might be signaling the reversal of Communist China’s long-running neutral stance in Burmese Civil War.

Despite nearly 20,000-strong KIA Kachin troops, together with KIA-trained Burmese PDF forces over 15,000-strong, blocking Mynamar Army’s advances along the roads leading to the Laiza the whole division 5,000-strong of Myanmar Army’s Myitkyinar-based Northern Command has suddenly appeared in the mountainous jungles arround the Laiza last month.

What surprised KIA was that the attacking troops have brought along with them the heavy weaponery such as 155mm howitzers and so many 75mm recoiless guns to smash heavily-fortified KIA bunkers. The rumours were that Chaina has secretly given Myanmar Army troops permission to march through China or even air-lifted their heavy weapons right back into KIA-controlled jungles.

Following is the direct translation of a Facebook post by Dr. Soe Min the famous Burmese rebel surgeon who joined the NUG’s CDM campaign more than two years ago and now running a large KIA field hospital near Se-zin Village in Burma’s jade region known as Phar-Kant in the Kachin South region.

“China keeps on saying openly that the military coup in Myanmar was Myanmar’s internal affairs and China and ASEAN nations should not be concerned. And top Chinese leaders have been coming to Naypyidaw so many times not just to say HELLOs to Myanmar generals. They are there to protect their poitical and enormous economic interests in Burma.

Just look at the Myanmar Army’s ongoing big offensive on Laiza and Nam-san-yan right now. Army sent 11 infantry battalions just to take a KIA fortified border post and those troops didn’t just drop down from the sky. I won’t be surprised those heavily-armed Myanmar troops got Chinese permission to go through China to attack KIA camps by the backdoors.

The ways to the KIA camps are blocked by KIA and PDF troops at mutiple locations down south it was totally impossible to penetrate up into the deep-east Kachin Land. And the Chinese are now conspicuously silent while Myanmar Army is bombarding the borderline with howitzers unike their previous noisy protest against such bombardment in the past cross-border artillery spillovers.

KIA has been training and arming the NUG’s Burmese PDF rebels and the alarming success of them against the Myanmar Army is causing ddep-seated panic among the Chinese leadership and Chinese are now taking serious actions against the KIA. Definitiely there is Chinese black hands behind the present assault on KIA’s fortified Laiza HQ.

I believe Chinese Communists are obviously acting to protect their political hold on China since the fall of Min Aung Haing dictatorship and the utter destruction of Myanmar Army (basically the China’s proxy-army in the Mainland S.E.Asia) will have unpredictable turmoils on Chinese political landscape.

Please do not forget the 1989 Tiannanmin Uprising which was right after the 8-8-88 Uprsising in our Burma. Our revolution is now causing major turbulences in Thailand where the quasi-military government was recently voted out by the large majority.

Eventually it will be China’s turn as the Chinese people are now being sick of the perpectual ruling of successive Communist Party Chairmans one after another from Chaiman Mao to Chairman Xi.”

Dr. Soe Min was not wrong about his opinion on China as China also needs Myanmar Army as their proxy rulers of Burma to protect their economic interests mainly the 24/7 Energy flow coming through Trans Burma Oil and Gas pipeline.

Russian Crude Oil to China Flowing Through Burma

Russia is using Myanmar’s cross-country pipeline to deliver oil to a refinery in China’s Yunnan province, according to a report in Energy Intelligence on 17 April. Russia has been seeking new and expanded markets for its crude oil since the European Union imposed an embargo on Russian crude in December in response to Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine, a conflict now into its second year, according to news agency reports.

Russia has reportedly been supplying oil to China through Myanmar since September last year. Myanmar has maintained friendly ties with Russia, even as both remain under sanctions from Western countries.

This latest report from Energy Intelligence says Myanmar’s Kyaukphyu port data shows shipment of Russian oil to China since February 2023, now running at 3 million barrels a month or 70,000 barrels a day. The Myanmar-China pipeline opened in 2017 as part of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) with the aim of reducing China's dependence on the Malacca Strait route.

Security of the pipeline has been an issue for the Myanmar junta that grabbed power in a coup in February 2021. But there appears to be an unwritten agreement that Myanmar resistance forces will not attack the 770-kilometer pipeline that is so important to China.

Beijing appears to have strengthened ties to the illegal Myanmar junta largely to protect its Belt and Road Infrastructure (BRI), investments, and mines in the country. It is unclear whether Beijing is maintaining back-door communication with the National Unity Government (NUG) – an opposition or resistance body partly made up of remnants of the National League for Democracy-led government under Aung San Suu Kyi who during their tenure had a robust relationship with China.

Chinese soldiers in Myanmar Police uniforms guarding pipelines in Burma.

Russia moves crude to Chinese refineries via Myanmar pipeline

Russia is transporting oil to China through Myanmar via a pipeline owned jointly by the Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE) and a Chinese firm, according to the industry information site Energy Intelligence. The pipeline runs from Made Island, part of Kyaukphyu Township, Rakhine State, to a refinery operated by Petrochina in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China.

Petrochina’s parent company, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), owns a majority share (50.9 percent) of the pipeline while MOGE, which is controlled by the Myanmar military, owns the rest. The CNPC pays a transit fee to the Myanmar regime for use of the pipeline.

Energy Intelligence confirmed that three tankers, each carrying cargoes of up to one million barrels of crude oil from the Russian ports of Novorossiysk and Murmansk, had unloaded at Made Island, the site of the Kyaukphyu port. The island houses a liquids storage facility also owned by CNPC and MOGE.

The Myanmar regime announced plans in August 2022 to begin importing Russian gasoline and fuel oil in order to ease ongoing fuel shortages and frequent power cuts, but China is the likeliest destination for the unrefined Russian oil shipped to Kyaukphyu.The crude cargoes from Russia averaged to around 70,000 barrels per day, far too much for Myanmar’s refining capacity, according to Energy Intelligence.

“It’s impossible to know for sure whether all the Russian barrels going to Kyaukpyu [sic] end up in China, given the lack of reliable data from Myanmar. But given that the country has only one functioning refinery, with a capacity of just 6,000 [barrels per day], it seems more than likely that most of it does,” Energy Intelligence said. 

Under a European Union (EU) embargo that went into effect in December of last year, Russia is no longer able to export petroleum to Europe and has sought clients elsewhere, including in Asia. The embargo, along with other commercial and financial sanctions on Russia, was imposed in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, initiated in February 2022.

By dollar value, in 2021 Russia was the second-largest crude oil exporter globally, surpassed only by Saudi Arabia. Russia is also one of the main suppliers of arms and military equipment to the Myanmar junta.

MOGE is the Myanmar junta’s single largest source of revenue and pro-democracy organisations have long called for direct international sanctions against the military-controlled entity. While the EU has sanctioned MOGE, the United States Treasury has only sanctioned its managing director and deputy managing director as individuals.

Earlier this year, the French and American energy giants Total and Chevron withdrew from a joint project with MOGE and the Thai state-owned company PTTEP to develop Myanmar’s largest natural gas fields, citing humanitarian concerns.

Pipelines are a potential point of tactical vulnerability for the junta. Since January, the military has laid landmines and deployed troops along oil and gas pipelines running to China through Shan State and Mandalay Region, ostensibly to protect them from sabotage by anti-junta resistance fighters.

When People’s Defence Force (PDF) fighters shelled junta troops stationed at a pipeline facility in Natogyi Township, Mandalay Region, in mid-February, the resistance group’s officer claimed they were targeting the soldiers, not the pipeline. In an apparent retaliation, soldiers stormed a nearby village in the township over the next few days, intimidating and detaining the civilian residents.

According to Yee Mon, deputy defence minister for the anti-junta, publicly mandated National Unity Government (NUG), China has appealed to the NUG and the PDF fighters under its command not to target infrastructure in Myanmar funded by Chinese investments.

A PLA division was stationed at the border-town Jiegao in 2022.

Chinese troops assembling on the Myanmar border

There is now potential for international escalation as Chinese troops are reported to be assembling in Jiegao, an important border town, which is not unexpected during periods of elevated tension.

The troops are said to have rapid response capabilities if it is deemed necessary to guard the Kyaukpyu pipelines. The pipelines are a significant part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Myanmar, along with the Muse–Mandalay highway, the Myitkyina Industrial Zone and the Yangon Redevelopment plans. These projects could bind the two countries together at a functional level even when the governments scarcely speak to each other.

It was always difficult to believe that there were no Chinese boots on the ground ready for just such an occurrence, although rumours were difficult to substantiate. Plans have certainly been drawn up should the worst eventuate and pose a serious threat to the wellbeing of prominent Chinese interests in Myanmar.