(Simon Tisdall’s opinion-piece from The GUARDIAN UK on
25 August 2024.)
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Symbol of Chinese Power in Myanmar? |
China’s deadly
divide-and-rule tactics in Myanmar risk shock waves across region. Far from acting as a broker, Beijing
is playing both sides in a state torn by brutality and chaos.
Things fall
apart, if you let them – and ethnically, religiously, ideologically fractured
Myanmar, formerly Burma, has never been a model of harmonious, integrated
nationhood. Yet since the 2021 military coup and ensuing civil war, new and old
divisions have grown rapidly. Western and neighbouring states supporting a
democratic restoration now face a more fundamental, urgent challenge: how to
prevent Myanmar’s anarchic disintegration.
A break-up would send destabilising shock waves
coursing across the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh and all of south-east Asia. The
humanitarian implications for its 54 million people are dire. A collapse would
boost separatist forces and non-state actors elsewhere. And it would severely
dent China’s claims to regional leadership. If President Xi Jinping cannot
manage Myanmar, what price Beijing’s superpower pretensions?
Reasons to fear
a fatal implosion proliferate. About two-thirds of the country, including
borders, is now beyond the control of the junta, led by Senior Gen Min Aung
Hlaing (The slowly-going-mad Little-Dictator). A sweeping offensive begun last October by northern ethnic armed
groups has rocked a desperate, illegitimate regime whose writ is confined
increasingly to the capital, Naypyidaw, and urban areas.