Myanmar insurgents virtue signaling to China

DAVID SCOTT MATHIESON

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The unprecedented “Operation 1027” resistance offensive launched in late October 2023 continues to make advances on Myanmar military positions in northern Shan State.

Hundreds of ruling State Administration Council (SAC) bases have fallen or been abandoned to the rolling onslaught of the Three Brotherhood Alliance (3BA) comprised of the insurgent Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Arakan Army (AA).

The major towns of Hsenwi and Kutkai, both north of the main SAC-controlled (for now) city of Lashio, have fallen along with Namshan and Namtu.

The Kokang enclave capital of Laukkai has been recaptured after 15 years, and in a flourish of civil war theater, the towns of Hopang and Panglong have been “taken” by the alliance and handed over to Myanmar’s largest non-state armed group, the United Wa State Army (UWSA).

Today’s report of a “cease-fire” brokered by China between the SAC and 3BA may take the momentum out of the offensive, or like similar talks in recent weeks, do little to shape events on the ground in northern Shan state and hardly impact on armed conflict in so many other areas of Myanmar, especially as fighting rages in Rakhine state and the Karenni and Sagaing regions.

Yet in many respects, Operation 1027 has already achieved many of the long-standing aims of the MNDAA, as outlined in a recent New Year public message from its commander Lieutenant General Peng Deren, who is also the General Secretary of the group’s “political wing”, known as the Myanmar National Justice Party (MNJP).

The statement is a detailed and intriguing addition to the quixotic area of insurgent communications and strategic messaging, at times virtue signaling, to multiple audiences. Unlike the Myanmar language version, the original Chinese referred to the offensive as “Operation 1027 Hurricane (Jùfēng)”, which appears to be a designation almost totally absent from most media coverage of the past several weeks. MNDAA commander Peng Deren has a message for Beijing. Image: X Screengrab

But it suggests that the Chinese version of Peng’s speech has slightly different audiences (an official English version was not released), although a major factor was clearly contributing to a major Chinese crackdown on cyber-fraud scam centers.

Peng claimed the operation had seized 250 “large and small (SAC) military strongholds…blocked several large-scale reinforcements”, accepted some 1,000 surrendering troops, claimed five border crossings, forcibly closed down 300 ‘electronic fraud dens’ (Chinese organized crime-run scam call centers) and sent back 40,000 “fraudsters to return home and surrender.”

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As is well established by now, a prime objective of Operation 1027 was to close down the border scam centers. “The harm of electronic fraud to human society is comparable to that of drugs, and is far more severe and profound than a new coronavirus epidemic!” (emphasis in original) the Kokang leader stated amid reports of horrific mistreatment of captives, including the massacre perpetrated in the so-called “1020 Crouching Tiger Villa Incident” in Laukkai a week before Operation 1027.

Peng further alleges that the SAC military junta spirited away by helicopter, at exorbitant prices for a seat, leaders of the scam centers to KK Park near Myawaddy on the Myanmar-Thailand border, “the largest electronic fraud park in Southeast Asia.”

Yet the MNDAA commander also cast the operation in national anti-regime terms. As Peng argued, “Our party and our army conform to the trend of civilization of the times and bravely serve as the pioneers of Myanmar’s national democratic revolution. ‘Operation Hurricane’ made me very gratified to see the support and response of democratic fighters and revolutionary organizations across the country, and achieved unprecedented brilliant results for ethnic armed forces.”

The link to the Kokang site which carried the message has since been removed from Facebook as it does not comply with their “Community Standards”: the social media company de-platformed the 3BA and their nominal ally the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) in February 2019 for being “dangerous organizations.”

Given how pivotal the northern ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) have become to the course of the anti-SAC struggle, Meta/Facebook should reconsider this decision and render primary communications messaging from these groups more readily available.

The 3BA has translated many of their general statements in the past, including after Operation 1027 was launched, but Peng’s New Year’s message was more candidly detailed than the alliance’s usual messaging.

Yet the MNDAA, at least for the past 14 years and likely since its formation in 1989, is neither (ethnic) “Myanma” (Bama) or “national”, and certainly not “democratic.”

The Kokang enclave has been an isolated hive of illicit enterprise since 1989 when the MNDAA was formed out of factions of the imploding Communist Party of Burma (CPB) by Peng Deren’s father, the colorful drug trade personality Peng Jaisheng.

An anti-military guerilla and opium merchant, the older Peng created a semi-autonomous enclave, legally guaranteed by the 2008 constitution, until his ousting by the army in 2009 (personally led by SAC leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing).Myanmar military commander-in-chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has history in Kokang. Photo: Asia Times Files / Reuters / Lynn Bo Bo / Pool

Peng Jaisheng’s funeral in 2022 in another China-Myanmar border enclave called Mong La was a guerilla’s gala of A-list veteran and new-wave rebel leaders: many who led Operation 1027 and post-coup resistance forces such as the Karenni National Defense Force (KNDF) were in attendance.

The MNDAA conducted a major offensive in 2015 to wrestle control of Laukkai away from their bitter rivals who expelled the Peng family 15 years ago: “the Four Big Families…in Kokang Old Street” heavily involved in the call center scams according to Peng’s statement.

In one of northern Shan state’s most surreal conflict incidents, the MNDAA raided several casinos in Laukkai in March 2017, reaping an estimated US$73 million according to an investigation by Ann Wang in the South China Morning Post.

Far from “justice” or “democracy”, the MNDAA’s struggle is largely predicated on restoring its monopoly on criminal enterprise in Kokang Another post-1027 reality is the centrality of China to the gravity of the northern theater of Myanmar’s post-coup civil war.

It is still a matter of speculation what role China played in the preparation for the offensive, but the synchronicity of a Chinese official call-center crackdown and an anti-SAC military operation against the Myanmar army with multiple interlocking agendas for all the EAOs involved was almost certainly within Beijing’s tolerance zone.

Absent from Peng’s messaging seems to be the West, whose capitals were shaken from their analytical stupor of conflict stagnation in Myanmar to the possibility the revolution might be won after all – albeit by groups not in the traditional diplomatic orbit of the United States or Europe.

The Sinophobic saber-rattling from some quarters of the American foreign policy establishment, those not consumed with Gaza, Ukraine and containing China, is also out of step with many of the Myanmar resistance forces and the network of loose alliances that the 3BA represents.

Many resistance groups quietly express concerns over being caught in the middle of a new Cold War between Beijing and Washington. Bashing China for predominantly US political agendas, therefore, is counterproductive, if not hypocritical, to supporting the anti-SAC resistance

If Peng’s allegations that Chinese gangsters were spirited away by helicopter to the Thailand-Myanmar border scam centers, then it behooves American officials to consider listing the local warlord Saw Chit Thu and the Kayin State Border Guard Force (BGF) that provides protection for these border zones and has been involved in various illicit rackets over the years. Chit Thu in Border Guard Force uniform in a 2014 file photo. Photo: Facebook

Western humanitarian assistance is urgently needed and much appreciated in many parts of Myanmar. Despite manifold difficulties, a great deal of health and livelihood aid is navigating around SAC restrictions. Money for redevelopment and stabilization of the northern borderlands such as Laukkai, Muse and the territory north of Lashio will not come from Western donors.

China is a repressive dictatorship and its interest in Myanmar is purely transactional and exploitative, but its immediacy is forcing nearly all anti-SAC forces to engage in complex bargaining with Beijing.

The anti-coup National Unity Government (NUG) has launched into its own virtue signaling to China strategy, releasing a ten-point China strategy on January 1 that in part vowed to safeguard legitimate Chinese investment in Myanmar. The statement was criticized for being formulaic, dull and obvious, and an approach that should have been pursued in mid-2021 soon after the NUG was formed.

But it was roundly ridiculed for confusing the “One China Principle” (that Taiwan is an inalienable part of China) and the “One China Policy” (one that doesn’t take a position on the issue). In its zeal to emulate the 3BA approach to Beijing, the NUG may have overstretched its tone. Peng Deren struck a difficult balance, absent of any genuine sincerity, pretty much just right.

David Scott Mathieson is an independent analyst working on conflict, humanitarian and human rights issues