China and the Wars in Myanmar

中国与缅甸内战（机译）

作者：贝蒂尔·林特纳         来源：伊洛瓦底江

TNLA troops after taking complete control of Namkham near the Chinese border in northern Shan in December 2023 / The Irrawaddy

2023年12月，TNLA部队完全控制了掸邦北部靠近中国边境的Namkham

China has once again shown that it is the only outside power with the means, capacity, and motivation to intervene in Myanmar’s internal conflicts. In order to secure their China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), which provides its landlocked southwestern provinces—and indeed the rest of the country—with an outlet to the Indian Ocean, the Chinese have managed to put an end to fighting in northern Shan State. The Kokang-based Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and its close ally, the Palaung Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), have halted their advances, and there will be no “march on Mandalay” or even Pyin Oo Lwin, which some observers predicted a year ago.

中国再次表明，它是唯一有手段、有能力、有动机干预缅甸内部冲突的外部大国。为了确保中缅经济走廊（CMEC）的安全，中国已经设法结束了掸邦北部的战斗。中缅经济走廊为缅甸西南内陆省份以及该国其他地区提供了通往印度洋的出口。总部位于果敢的缅甸民族民主联盟军（MNDAA）及其亲密盟友Palaung Ta’ang民族解放军（TNLA）已经停止了他们的前进，而且不会出现一些观察人士一年前预测的“曼德勒游行”，甚至也不会出现平乌伦。

In early December, the MNDAA declared a truce with the Myanmar junta after Kokang chieftain Peng Daren went to China for “medical treatment.” A resolution to the conflict would be sought “under Chinese government arbitration,” it said on Dec. 3. The TNLA had issued a similar statement on Nov. 25, when it said it would “always cooperate with China’s mediation efforts and continue to cooperate [to achieve] good results.”

12月初，果敢部落首领彭达仁前往中国“就医”后，民盟宣布与缅甸军政府休战。它在12月3日表示，将“在中国政府的仲裁下”寻求解决冲突的办法。TNLA在11月25日发表了一份类似的声明，称其将“始终与中国的调解努力合作，并继续合作以取得良好结果”。

The third member of the Brotherhood Alliance, the Arakan Army (AA), which has managed to overrun most of its homeland of Rakhine State, announced on Dec. 29 that it, like its allies in the north, is ready to negotiate with the military regime.

三兄弟联盟的第三个成员阿拉干军（Arakan Army， AA）已成功占领了其家乡若开邦的大部分地区。该组织在12月29日宣布，与北部的盟友一样，它准备与缅甸军政府谈判。

The show goes on and, so far, nobody has been able to challenge China’s predominant role in Myanmar’s civil wars. Western peace-making outfits may be back sniffing for business opportunities, but that amounts to little more than securing aid to pay the salaries of foreign “experts.” As for potential regional players, nothing constructive can be expected from ASEAN and its toothless Five-Point Consensus, which was adopted a few months after the February 2021 coup and called for the immediate cessation of violence, constructive dialogue among all parties concerned, and humanitarian assistance to areas which have been affected by the fighting—but without any plan how those lofty recommendations should be implemented.

好戏还在继续，到目前为止，没有人能够挑战中国在缅甸内战中的主导地位。西方的和平组织可能会回来寻找商业机会，但这只不过是为了获得援助来支付外国“专家”的工资。至于潜在的区域参与者，不能指望东盟及其没有实力派的“五点共识”（Five-Point Consensus）有任何建设性的作用。该共识是在2021年2月缅甸政变几个月后通过的，呼吁立即停止暴力，在所有有关各方之间进行建设性对话，并向受冲突影响的地区提供人道主义援助，但没有任何计划如何实施这些崇高的建议。

ASEAN has never in its 58-year history managed to solve a single bilateral conflict or dispute between some of its 10 members, let alone end an internal crisis in a member state. Even so, Western countries appear to have outsourced the Myanmar issue to ASEAN, since the war in Ukraine and the still unresolved conflicts in the Middle East are much higher up on their list of priorities.

东盟在其58年的历史中，从未设法解决其10个成员国之间的任何双边冲突或争端，更不用说结束一个成员国的内部危机了。即便如此，西方国家似乎已经把缅甸问题外包给了东盟，因为乌克兰战争和中东尚未解决的冲突在他们的优先事项清单上要高得多。

But there are also wild cards over which China’s influence is limited. The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in the far north has little choice but to deal with the Chinese across the border, but in October it ignored their request not to seize control of the border town of Pangwa, the domain of former communist warlords who made peace with the Myanmar military in 1989 and  turned their area into a haven for logging, opium cultivation, and mining for rare earth metals. Today, the KIA controls not only Pangwa but also the official border-crossing at Kanpiketi and adjacent areas. China has even less influence in areas along the Thai border where Karen and Karenni resistance forces are active, or in Chin State in the west.

但也有中国影响力有限的不确定因素。在遥远的北方，克钦独立军（KIA）别无选择，只能与越境的中国人打交道，但在10月份，它无视了中国人不要夺取边境城镇邦古瓦控制权的要求。邦古瓦是前共产主义军阀的领地，1989年与缅甸军方达成和平，将该地区变成了伐木、种植鸦片和开采稀土金属的避风港。今天，克钦独立军不仅控制着Pangwa，而且还控制着Kanpiketi和邻近地区的官方过境点。中国在沿泰国边境的克伦族和克伦尼族抵抗力量活跃的地区，或者在西部的钦邦，影响力更小。

Recent developments raise three fundamental questions: what can the Bamar allies of the ethnic resistance armies realistically expect to achieve; what are China’s long-term objectives; and are there no outside forces at all that can stand up to China or, at least, counter China’s influence? Several resistance armies dominated by ethnic Bamar, including many youngsters who tried to oppose the junta by peaceful means after the coup and are collectively known as People’s Defense Forces (PDF), have since then been fighting alongside the ethnic armies. Many PDFs have raised the flag of resistance in Sagaing and even rural parts of Mandalay Region. But for the ethnic armies, the PDFs are mere buffers between them and the junta forces. By keeping Naypyitaw’s soldiers at bay, the ethnic armies can consolidate their hold on their own respective areas. The KIA, for instance, which has provided training and support for PDF forces now active in the north, would have no interest in marching into Mandalay, still less Naypyitaw or Yangon.

最近的事态发展提出了三个基本问题：少数民族抵抗军的缅族盟友现实地期望实现什么；中国的长期目标是什么？难道就没有外部力量可以对抗中国，或者至少抗衡中国的影响力吗？几支由缅族控制的抵抗军，包括许多在政变后试图以和平方式反对军政府的年轻人，被统称为人民国防军（PDF），从那时起就一直与缅族军队并肩作战。许多pdf文件在实皆甚至曼德勒地区的农村地区举起了抵抗的旗帜。但是对于少数民族军队来说，pdf仅仅是他们和军政府军队之间的缓冲。通过牵制内比都的士兵，少数民族军队可以巩固对各自地区的控制。例如，克钦独立军为目前活跃在北部的缅甸国防军提供训练和支持，它不会有兴趣进军曼德勒，更不用说内比都或仰光了。

China’s strategic objectives are clear. The CMEC has to be protected, and China is doing it by playing both sides—being a major supplier of military hardware to the Myanmar military as well as several resistance forces. The MNDAA, the TNLA, and the AA are equipped with Chinese-made guns obtained through the officially neutral United Wa State Army (UWSA). In other words, China has leverage over the Myanmar military as well as ethnic armed organizations in a way nobody else can compete with.

中国的战略目标是明确的。CMEC必须得到保护，而中国是通过两面讨好来做到这一点的——既是缅甸军方的主要军事装备供应商，也是一些抵抗力量的主要军事装备供应商。MNDAA， TNLA和AA都装备了通过官方中立的佤邦联合军（UWSA）获得的中国制造的枪支。换句话说，中国对缅甸军队和少数民族武装组织的影响力是其他任何人都无法比拟的。

At the same time, the emergence of a strong, peaceful, democratic, and federal Myanmar—the stated goal of most resistance armies—is not in China’s strategic interest. As long as Myanmar is weak, China can play official games of being a friendly neighbor and peacemaker and use a carrot-and-stick approach with whatever government is in power: trade coupled with investment on the one hand, and indirect support for the ethnic armies on the other. If Myanmar ever really became strong, peaceful, democratic, and federal, China would be the first to lose. Its leverage would be gone.

与此同时，一个强大、和平、民主和联邦制的缅甸的出现——大多数抵抗军的既定目标——并不符合中国的战略利益。只要缅甸还弱小，中国就可以扮演友好邻邦和和平缔造者的官方角色，对任何掌权的政府都采取胡萝卜加大棒的策略：一方面是贸易和投资，另一方面是间接支持少数民族军队。如果缅甸真的变得强大、和平、民主和联邦制，中国将是第一个失败的。它的影响力将不复存在。

But then China does not want the situation to get totally out of hand either, because that would mean serious instability in the frontier areas and, most likely, a flood of refugees across the border. And it would seriously disrupt normally lucrative cross-border trade.

但中国也不希望局势完全失控，因为那将意味着边境地区的严重不稳定，而且很有可能出现难民潮。这将严重扰乱通常利润丰厚的跨境贸易。

Western peaceniks, ASEAN, the U.S., and the EU are not in a position to influence the course of the civil wars, which are the heaviest and most widespread since the years immediately after independence from Britain in 1948, when the regime was so isolated that it was referred to as “the Rangoon Government.” Japan too, despite a strong interest in containing China’s influence, has been utterly unsuccessful in its efforts to bring peace to Myanmar.

西方的和平主义者、东盟、美国和欧盟都无法影响缅甸内战的进程。缅甸内战是自1948年脱离英国统治独立以来规模最大、波及范围最广的内战，当时缅甸政权被孤立到被称为“仰光政府”。尽管日本对遏制中国的影响力有着强烈的兴趣，但它在为缅甸带来和平的努力中也完全失败了。

AA troops in Maungdaw after seizing a border guard post in July 2024 / AA

2024年7月，若开部队在孟都占领了一个边防哨所

Myanmar’s western neighbors India and Bangladesh, which are not hamstrung by ASEAN’s Consensus and non-interference principles, could play roles—if only they had a clear strategy for dealing with the geopolitical consequences of wars in Myanmar. The Bangladeshis, naturally, are concerned about more than 1 million Rohingya Muslim refugees languishing in camps in their country, and about what would happen if the AA took over the whole of Rakhine State. Bangladesh shares a 271 km porous border with Rakhine and Chin states, and developments there would have a direct impact on its national security.

缅甸的西部邻国印度和孟加拉国没有受到东盟共识和不干涉原则的束缚，只要他们有一个明确的战略来处理缅甸战争的地缘政治后果，他们就可以发挥作用。当然，孟加拉国人担心的是100多万罗辛亚穆斯林难民在他们国家的难民营中苦苦挣扎，担心的是如果AA接管了整个若开邦会发生什么。孟加拉国与若开邦和中国共享长达271公里的边境，那里的事态发展将对其国家安全产生直接影响。

India’s interests in Myanmar appear to be motivated by four major concerns. The first is the future of New Delhi’s “Act East” policy. Myanmar is the obvious link between India and lucrative markets in Southeast Asia. India’s security planners also want to ensure that ethnic Assamese, Manipuri, and Naga rebels are deprived of cross-border sanctuaries in the remote hills of northwestern Myanmar, from where they can launch raids into India and smuggle guns into India’s volatile northeastern region. Unrest in Sagaing Region and Chin State has already spilled over into Manipur, which borders Myanmar. Thirdly, India’s rapidly expanding economy needs energy, and India has shown interest in importing oil, gas, and perhaps also hydroelectric power from Myanmar. That is not possible as long as wars are raging across the border. Lastly, India, more than any other neighboring country, wants to keep China’s influence in Myanmar at acceptable levels.

印度对缅甸的兴趣似乎是由四个主要问题驱动的。首先是印度“向东行动”政策的未来。缅甸显然是印度与东南亚利润丰厚的市场之间的纽带。印度的安全规划者还希望确保阿萨姆族、曼尼普尔族和纳迦族叛乱分子在缅甸西北部偏远山区的跨境庇护所被剥夺，他们可以从那里向印度发动袭击，并向印度动荡的东北部地区走私枪支。实皆地区和钦邦的骚乱已经蔓延到与缅甸接壤的曼尼普尔邦。第三，印度快速发展的经济需要能源，印度已经表示有兴趣从缅甸进口石油、天然气，或许还有水力发电。只要战争还在边境上肆虐，这是不可能的。最后，印度比其他任何邻国都更希望中国在缅甸的影响力保持在可接受的水平。

In February, it will be four years since the military seized power, arrested democratically elected representatives of the people, and re-introduced a strict dictatorship. In the coming year, it is highly unlikely that the junta will be able to defeat the plethora of ethnic and political resistance forces that are active in large areas throughout the country. But it also doubtful whether the resistance will be strong and united enough to unseat the junta. The present strategic stalemate is likely to continue, but everything depends on China’s next move.

今年2月，军方夺取政权、逮捕民主选举的人民代表、重新实行严格的独裁统治，将迎来四年。在接下来的一年里，军政府几乎不可能击败活跃在全国广大地区的过多的民族和政治抵抗力量。但同样令人怀疑的是，抵抗力量是否足够强大和团结，足以推翻军政府。目前的战略僵局可能会持续下去，但一切都取决于中国的下一步行动。

Bertil Lintner is a Swedish journalist, author and strategic consultant who has been writing about Asia for nearly four decades.

贝蒂尔·林特纳是瑞典记者、作家和战略顾问，近40年来一直在撰写有关亚洲的文章。

作者：贝蒂尔·林特纳          来源：伊洛瓦底江