Myanmar has been locked in conflict since the military seized power in a coup in 2021 that sparked nationwide chaos and abruptly ended a decade of tentative democracy and economic reform. The sanctions, which freeze any US assets of those targeted and generally bar Americans from dealing with them, comeContinue Reading
Ultimately Beijing’s strategy is to maximise its interests in Myanmar, where the tussle for power has intensified and the future is extremely uncertain. With the State Administration Council, opposing National Unity Government, the People’s Defence Forces as well as the myriad of ethnic armed organisations all vying for power, Beijing must hedge its bets and work with whoever serves its interests best.
When scholars discuss hedging as a foreign policy practice, it is often described as the best choice in uncertain geopolitical contexts. Much has been said about how countries in Southeast Asia have practiced hedging amid US-China competition as an “active insurance-seeking behaviour aimed at mitigating risks and cultivating fall-back options under uncertainty”.
Though few have applied this logic to relations between foreign governments and domestic actors, the hedging logic is applicable in the Myanmar context, where there are competing regimes and a plethora of armed resistance groups with their own agency and special interests. In this uncertain environment, Beijing, which has a huge economic and strategic stake in Myanmar, will naturally want to engage with as many actors as possible.
This has encompassed groups at the forefront of the opposition to the junta. Since late October 2023, the Three Brotherhood Alliance – comprising the Arakan Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army – has waged a well-coordinated military offense against junta strongholds in the northern Shan State. This alliance of ethnic armed organisations has since made significant advances against the State Administration Council and its affiliated Border Guard Forces.
Since the launch of Operation 1027, the alliance has captured at least 12 towns and overrun more than 400 junta bases and outposts in Rakhine, Chin and northern Shan States. Along the Myanmar-China frontier, the alliance has effectively taken over several prominent crossings through which a substantial amount of cross-border trade takes place.
The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army’s primary goal is to retake the Kokang region, previously the Special Region One of the Shan State, from which it was driven out by the Myanmar military in a major offensive in 2009. Yet in its official statement, it says the goal of its operations is to help China crack down on online scam syndicates based in Kokang, where the junta-approved leader Bai Suocheng was labelled the main culprit.
On Dec 11 last year, China’s Ministry of Public Security issued an arrest warrant for Bai. Since he is backed by the Myanmar military, Beijing has been dissatisfied by the lack of action by the State Administration Council. Instead, Beijing decided to rely on the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army to achieve its goal.
The Chinese government has also tried to broker a ceasefire agreement between the State Administration Council and the Three Brotherhood Alliance in Kunming. The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army ultimately captured Laukkai, the capital of Kokang, and it is believed that Beijing is, for now, satisfied with the success of the ethnic armed organisations and would like to see political stability return to the borderland region.
Addressing media on Wednesday, Move Forward’s leader Chaithawat Tulathon warned that the ruling could make the royal institution increasingly “a factor behind conflicts in Thai politics”.
Former party leader Pita Limjaroenrat also bemoaned a “lost opportunity for us to use the parliament to find a consensus for such an important and sensitive issue”.
Mr Pita was absolved by the Constitutional Court a week before, in a different case to do with allegations of illegally possessing shares in a media company.
The broadcaster in question, iTV, went off-air in 2007 and therefore couldn’t be considered a media company anymore.
The ruling also reinstated him as a member of parliament, where he almost immediately took the opportunity to criticise the government’s flagship cash handout plans.
But the most recent ruling could put Mr Pita and Move Forward’s political future in jeopardy yet again.
One only needs to look at what happened to Move Forward’s predecessor Future Forward.
In 2020, the Constitutional Court ruled that the latter party’s then-leader Thanathorn Juangruanroongkit allegedly violated finance laws. He and the entire executive board were banned from seeking political office for 10 years.
If another attempt to dissolve Move Forward succeeds, it’s expected that the party leadership would be punished the same way.
But generally, party dissolutions have proven to be a blunt, yet ineffective tool.
Thai political parties often have plans in place for remaining lawmakers to carry on under a new banner.
Even the ruling Pheu Thai Party is the third incarnation of the original Thai Rak Thai Party; which has won two elections since a court-ordered dissolution in 2007.
And if Move Forward’s diligent legislative record as an opposition party and its election success in 2023 show one thing, it’s that beyond political parties, the popularity of the reformist-progressive platform is no fluke and its trajectory points upwards.
About 2.3 million people have been displaced, according to the United Nations, while efforts by Myanmar’s Southeast Asian neighbours to initiate dialogue have seen no progress, with the junta refusing to negotiate with what it calls “terrorists”. The extension of emergency rule came on the eve of the third anniversaryContinue Reading
NATURAL RESOURCES The prize in all this is access to Afghanistan’s wealth of untapped mineral resources – as well as a market for Chinese goods. “The vast natural resources of Afghanistan, such as copper, lithium, or rare earths, have significant economic potential for China,” said Jalal Bazwan, assistant professor ofContinue Reading
BANGKOK: A Thai court on Wednesday (Jan 31) ruled the biggest party in parliament had violated the constitution in seeking to change a law against insulting the monarchy, in what could set a precedent for any future review of one of the world’s strictest lese majeste laws. The Move Forward PartyContinue Reading
Pita – who stepped down as party leader last year – returned to parliament last week after the same court cleared him of breaching election laws in a case that could have seen him barred from politics. Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, the former leader of Future Forward Party – an MFP forerunnerContinue Reading
JAKARTA: Indonesia’s Chief Security Minister and vice presidential candidate Mahfud MD on Wednesday (Jan 31) said that he would tender his resignation to President Joko Widodo once he has the chance to meet the president. The president is scheduled to be in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta on Thursday. Mahfud did notContinue Reading
Tashiro is one of the most senior women in Japanese finance, where, like many industries, the top echelons remain overwhelmingly male. Women account for only 13.4 per cent of directors and executive officers at the 1,836 firms listed on the TSE’s “prime” market, and of these a mere 13 perContinue Reading
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Former Pakistan prime minister Imran Khan and his wife were sentenced on Wednesday (Jan 31) to 14 years in jail after being found guilty of graft in a case involving gifts he received while premier. The verdict, a week before national elections, comes a day after Khan wasContinue Reading