Most Myanmar citizens distrust Chinese Communist Party’s motivations in their war-torn nation, experts say

Voice of America

Beijing’s perceived support for Myanmar’s military junta has caused widespread frustration in the conflict-torn Southeast Asian nation, analysts said.

Since Myanmar’s military seized power from the democratically elected government in February 2021, critics have accused the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) of backing the junta to safeguard Beijing’s One Belt, One Road infrastructure scheme.

Public distrust of Beijing also stems from its long-standing ties with Myanmar’s military, according to analysts and activists. “There’s a widespread perception that China is stalling progress in the anti-coup revolution,” said Lin Htet, a Myanmar activist who fled the country after the military coup.

Fifty-four percent of key stakeholders in Myanmar had a negative view of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as a neighbor, according to a mid-2024 survey by the Institute for Strategy and Policy Myanmar (ISP-Myanmar). That rose to 72% among civil society organizations, with respondents describing the PRC as either “not good at all” or “not a good neighbor.” Sixty percent of ethnic armed organizations and 54% of the People’s Defense Forces, the armed wing of the National Unity Government or local defense forces formed after the coup to oppose the military regime, reported the same sentiment.

“Many believed China supported the military takeover at the time,” said Nan Lwin, head of the Myanmar China studies program at ISP-Myanmar, an independent think tank. “While those sentiments initially subsided by mid-2021, they resurfaced later as Beijing began high-level engagements with the regime.”

Htet Min Lwin, a Myanmar expert at Canada’s York University, highlighted the growing anti-PRC sentiment in Myanmar since Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to Naypyitaw in August 2024, where he met with junta leader Min Aung Hlaing.

“Historically, Myanmar’s political stakeholders have rarely been united,” Htet Min Lwin said. “Yet, during Wang Yi’s visit, all revolutionary forces opposed to the military regime expressed unanimous anti-China sentiment.”

In recent months, anti-military activists have staged protests and boycotts to draw attention to Beijing’s interference in Myanmar. In November 2024, there was a call to boycott Chinese-made products.

Lin Htet recently organized a demonstration outside the Chinese embassy in Washington. He said the protest was to demand that the CCP stop meddling in Myanmar’s affairs and change its policies, while emphasizing a desire to be good neighbors.

“We have absolutely no need to hate China or Chinese people,” Lin Htet said. “But if the Chinese government continues interfering in Myanmar’s affairs as it does now, it could face even more resistance, further alienating itself from the Burmese [Myanmar] people.”