China-Myanmar Relations

From Cambodia to Myanmar: Can ASEAN and China broker another peace?

ASEAN played a significant role in dealing with the decade-long Cambodian crisis in much of the 1980s and early 1990s. Could this experience help it play a greater role in resolving the Myanmar crisis? Malaysian academic Ngeow Chow Bing examines the issue.

Ngeow Chow Bing

China and Southeast Asia: Chinese President Xi Jinping’s possible visits in 2025

In the year ahead, says ISEAS researcher Lye Liang Fook, China’s focus on strengthening ties with Southeast Asia looks set to continue or may even be stepped up especially with more turbulence in the US-China relationship expected on the horizon.

Lye Liang Fook

From ambiguity to endorsement: China’s backing of Myanmar’s junta

For the past few years, China has maintained strategic ambiguity in Myanmar, engaging with both the military junta and ethnic armed groups. Now, with its closure of border trade points and its open endorsement of the junta, China’s strategy has shifted. Indian academic Rishi Gupta examines the key motivating factors.

Rishi Gupta

ASEAN-China Summit in Laos: Focusing on cooperation amid global challenges

Chinese academic Peng Nian asserts that the recent ASEAN-China Summit in Laos reaffirmed strong bilateral ties. He believes that ASEAN countries will resist external pressures to choose sides, given the larger need to work with China to address common issues.

Peng Nian

Myanmar's crisis set to be drawn-out struggle

The situation in Myanmar is expected to be a drawn-out struggle, with the extension of the state of emergency, and the opposition groups gaining strength and occupying more townships. Researcher Hein Khiang notes that the Myanmar issue is also troubling for the international community, especially for China and ASEAN, both of which could play a role in resolving the situation.

Hein Khaing

How China and India are handling Myanmar's crisis three years on

In the three years since the coup in Myanmar, the country's northern border with China has become an economic and strategic challenge to Beijing's interests, while India is faced with the biggest humanitarian and security crisis, with refugees entering India posing an immediate security challenge.

Rishi Gupta

Will the PLA cross the Chinese-Myanmar border to safeguard security?

Lianhe Zaobao correspondent Yu Zeyuan notes that while the recent live-fire drills by China's Southern Theater Command at the China-Myanmar border is aimed at testing the PLA's capabilities, it is evidently a form of warning to all sides involved in the war in northern Myanmar. Some are even supporting the idea of Chinese military deployment across the border to tackle the serious, long-term issues of smuggling, drug trafficking and telecommunications fraud in northern Myanmar.

Yu Zeyuan

What do the official Chinese media's mixed messages on the Myanmar coup mean?

China's willingness to side with the Myanmar military and the SAC regime has been evident since the immediate aftermath of the February 2021 coup, despite its apparently mixed messages, say researchers Su Mon Thazin Aung and Nan Lwin. Through its state media, China has in fact consistently transmitted messages largely in favour of the military takeover of its smaller neighbour and sought to pin anti-Chinese sentiment in Myanmar on the West's moves.

Su Mon Thazin Aung

A year on from the coup, Chinese New Year in Myanmar hijacked by politics

Hein Khaing rues the fate of the Chinese in Myanmar, who have always been treated as "third-class citizens" and were put in a bind again this Chinese New Year, which falls on the anniversary of last year's coup. Forced to keep their shops open yet called upon to unite against the junta, many of them faced a "damned if you do, and damned if you don't" situation. What will it take for the plight of the Chinese in Myanmar to change?

Hein Khaing

Myanmar's submarines: The race is on between China and Russia

Last month, Myanmar became the first Southeast Asian country to take delivery of a made-in-China submarine, the UMS Minye Kyaw Htin. Given that the EU will not sell arms to Myanmar, that leaves China and Russia as possible arms suppliers. The latest sale gives China an advantage over Russia to supply Myanmar with a new fleet of submarines, as both countries ignore US calls to ban arms sales to Myanmar. This means that price and geopolitics will decide which country wins.

Ian Storey

ASEAN-China relations stay robust despite Myanmar's absence from virtual summit

The recent virtual summit commemorating 30 years of ASEAN-China dialogue relations was held without a representative from Myanmar, the second time in a month that Myanmar was absent from the ASEAN family. The Myanmar issue is likely to pull ASEAN on many sides in the days to come, but the fact that the summit went on and concluded with some deliverables speaks for the strength of ASEAN-China relations.

Yang Danxu

Will the Chinese government's crackdown on cross-border crime in Myanmar work?

In recent years, Chinese criminal gangs have moved to Southeast Asia including Myanmar, Laos and Thailand as China tightened its crackdown on telecom fraud at home. These gangs even have the support of local authorities in some cases. Now that the Chinese authorities are cracking down on cross-border crime, will the situation improve? Or will it be a never-ending merry-go-round?

Caixin Global