China’s government has reportedly proposed the establishment of a “joint security company” with Myanmar’s military junta in order to ensure the safety of Chinese projects and personnel in the country.
According to a November 15 report in The Irrawaddy, the junta formed a working committee on October 22 to prepare a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the establishment of the security company.
According to the junta’s gazette, the 13-member working committee is chaired by Maj.-Gen. Toe Yi, the deputy home affairs minister. It also includes the deputy police chief and officials from the ministries of defense, communications, and transport.
The committee’s responsibilities include “scrutinizing the importing and regulating of weapons and special equipment,” and ensuring their proper control and usage, The Irrawaddy reported. It added the working committee would remain in place until the MoU is signed with China.
Once established, the security company will reportedly handle the import of weapons and special equipment, “including communications devices and restricted tools.” The news was also reported by BBC Burmese.
Since the February 2021 coup, one of China’s primary concerns has been the safety of its assets in the country, and the progress of established infrastructure projects. This first arose the month after the coup, when several Chinese-run factories were smashed and set on fire during large-scale demonstrations in Yangon’s industrial suburbs.
Unfortunately for Beijing, many of China’s large infrastructure projects, and the CMEC corridor itself, are located in areas that have become active conflict zones. This means that whether or not they are being targeted specifically, increasing numbers of Chinese enterprises and joint ventures are falling into the hands of resistance groups. In July alone, anti-regime People’s Defense Forces took control of the China-backed Alpha Cement factory in Mandalay Region, and a major Chinese-backed nickel processing plant in Sagaing Region.
The issue has arisen in recent meetings between senior junta officials and their Chinese counterparts. During his meeting with Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing in Myanmar in August, Foreign Minister Wang Yi “expressed his hope that Myanmar will earnestly safeguard the safety of Chinese personnel and projects in Myanmar,” according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s official readout. Then, during Min Aung Hlaing’s visit to China earlier this month, his first since the coup, Chinese Premier Li Qiang also urged Myanmar to “take effective measures to ensure the safety of Chinese nationals, institutions, and projects in the country.”
While it remains unclear if and when a joint security company will be established, such a move would affirm the decisive shift in China’s policy in Myanmar, toward more direct support for and intervention on behalf of the junta. Paradoxically, this has taken place right when the junta’s battlefield positions have retreated in many parts of the country, including in Shan State along the border with China.
Over the past six months, as the military has melted away in the face of resistance attacks, Beijing has intensified its diplomatic outreach, expressing strong support for the junta’s proposed “election” as a potential solution to the civil war, pressuring ethnic armed groups in border areas to halt their attacks on the junta, and increasing arms shipments to the military.
This seems to reflect a fear that the collapse of the military administration would be detrimental, if not fatal, to its economic and strategic interests in Myanmar. These involve integrating Myanmar into a China-centered regional economy, preventing the spread of Western influence, and fashioning an infrastructure corridor – the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) – between Yunnan province and Myanmar’s Indian Ocean coast.
Despite its recent reverses, Beijing apparently views the military’s continued control as the best of a range of bad outcomes, and no doubt fears that Chinese assets may come under more direct attack by resistance groups.
Perhaps China’s greatest fear is the fate of the oil and gas pipelines that run across the country, linking the Rakhine State coast to the interior of Yunnan province. As a source of import revenue for the junta and a symbol of China’s influence in the country, the long, exposed pipelines would be an obvious target for sabotage, should resistance forces wish to do so. Myanmar troops guarding the pipeline’s off-take stations have faced frequent attacks from resistance groups, and during his visit to Myanmar in August, Wang raised the issue of the pipelines’ “proper operation.”
While the opposition National Unity Government (NUG) has repeatedly pledged to protect Chinese investments in the country, there are growing indications that China views it as unduly influenced by Western countries including the United States. This leaves it with few options other than doubling down on the junta, and taking on a more active role inside the country.
While Chinese leaders are fond of stating that their country practices a policy of “non-interference” in its partners’ internal affairs, this principle has always been subject to a good deal of flexibility. Once Chinese security personnel are deployed inside Myanmar, even with the consent of the military junta, it will be harder for Chinese leaders to square the rhetoric of Chinese engagement with the practice.