Will Shan-South Be Liberated? China Says Nope!

  (Based on the staff articles from The MYANMAR NOWMEDIA on 30 August 2024.)

Many locals from the Shan-South’s Capital City Taung-gyi have started fleeing the City since the fearsome rumors of approaching ethnic rebel armies started spreading like wild fires after the Shan-North’s Capital Lashio City was liberated by the combined forces of MNDAA and TNLA and Mandalay PDF.

Since the shameful-loss of North-Eastern-Regional-Command (Ya-Ma-Kha) in the Shan-North to combined forces of MNDAA and TNLA in last July, Myanmar Army has been rapidly reinforcing the Eastern-Regional-Command (Ya-Pa-Kha) at Taung-gyi City in the Shan-South, the Middle-Eastern-Regional-Command (Ya-La-Kha) at Kho-Lam City in the Mid-Shan, and the Triangle-Regional-Command at Tachileik City in the Shan-East.

Stupidly-clueless Myanmar Army generals are still dreaming of retaking-back Shan-North from the ethnic rebels for they know very well that the resistance forces will not just be stopping at Shan-North but continue onto capturing the Shan-South which is crucial to further capturing the Shan-East.

Also the ethnic armies reclaiming their native lands are well aware that Myanmar Army will never let the union territories go and aready preparing a major offensive to reoccupy the Lashio and Shan-North. By attacking Shan-South and then Shan-East the ethnic armies will keep massive pressure on the Myanmar Army.

Strategic Importance of Shan-South?

Shan-South is strategicall so important that the Myanmar Army has two infantry divisions (LID-55 at Kala Town and MOC-7 at Phae-Khone Town) in addition to the two Reginal Military Commands (Ya-Pa-Kha at Taung-gyi and Ya-La-Kha at Kho-Lam). Nearly twenty thousand Myanmar troops permanently stationed there.

Those four Myanmar Army divisions there are tensely facing the UWSA (United Wa State Army), SSPP/SSA (Shan State Progressive Party/ Shan State Army), RCSS/SSA (Reconstruction Council Shan State/ Shan State Army), PNLA (Pa-Oh National Liberation Army), and PNA (Pa-Oh National Army). The UWSA alone has thirty thousands well-armed-and-trained troops there.

At present the Shan-South basically is being underseiged from three directions. From the north the MNDAA-led Northern Alliance forces, from the west the TNLA forces through NaungCho-YartSout Way, and from the south the Kareni forces such as KNDF.

Also the NUG’s PDFs, especially the Mandalay-PDF, have been actively engaging the Myanmar Army in the neighbouring Mandalay Division and already captured the crucial towns such as Mattayar, SintGu, DaGaung, and ThaBeikKyin. Only obstacle in the resistance forces capturing the Shan-South seems to be the Big Bully Chna now watching from the sideline.

China now Worries that Myanmar Is Collapsing?

But the bully China has started showing strong reluctance to let the ethnic rebel armies (who basically are the proxy-armies fully-armed and mostly-manned and heavily-financed by China itself all along as the strategic hedges to keep Myanmar Army on a short leash) go all the way to rid of universally-hated Myanmar Army.

China has known very well that once Myanmar Army had collapsed there wouldn’t be a unified-Burma to protect China’s interest such as heavily-invested Trans-Burma-Crude and Ntural-gas pipelines. Also the China’s strategic access to Indian Ocean (now fully-guaranteed by the Myanmar Army) will become only a pipe dream if USA-financed NUG has the control of the Proper-Burma.

Right now China is seriously trying to stop the Northern Alliance Armies (MNDAA, TNLA, AA, and KIA) marching down into the Proper-Burma and wiping out the seriously-weakened Myanmar Army forever: for China does not believe wisely that 25% minority-ethnics will be ever able to control and govern 75% majority Burmans.

China is threatening to financially-starve its own proxy armies?

On August-29 China sent the following  strongly-worded letter to the victorious PaOh Army the TNLA. The letter (both in Chinese and Burmese) demands TNLA to stop their forces at wherever they are at present time and if TNLA doesn’t satisfy that demand China will have to take stern and dangerous actions against the TNLA.

According to the inside sources, similar letters had been sent to MNDAA and KIA and AA, but only TNLA has released their letter from China while the rest so far had refused to acknowledge their China-letters publicly.

The widespread pro-China sources active on Social Media are disclosing that China’s first stern action could be the permanent closures of the ethnic armies’ bank accounts in both Chinese government and commercial banks. Like the Chinese Government’s recent forced-closure of US-supported NUG’s Hong Kong bank accounts holding 528.2 million Yuan.

One pro-China social-site has even disclosed recently that MNDAA has 7.8 bilion Yuan in CNB (China National Bank) and YGB (Yunan Government Bank), TNLA has 5 billion Yuan in YGB (Yunan Government Bank), AA has 5.8 billion Yuan in CCB (China Co-operative Bank), and KIA has 6.1 billion Yuan in CTB (China Foreign-Trade Bank).