February 15, 2025: The Myanmar military government is continuing to lose control over larger portions of the country. This is causing problems because of the growing criminal activity against Chinese who do business in Myanmar. While the Chinese government likes to play down the risks and maintain their good relations with the military government in Myanmar, this strategy backfired when famous Chinese actor Wang Xing was kidnapped after he accepted an invitation by scammers pretending to be film producers. This took place in Myawaddy, a town on the Thailand/Myanmar border. Chinese embassy personnel in Myanmar and Thailand were aware of the illegal activity going on along the border but did not make an effort to publicize the problem because the Chinese government wanted to deal with any problems quietly. With a Chinese celebrity missing and the mass media in the regions talking about it, the diplomats had to pull back and let PR damage control specialists try to contain the scandal. While the Chinese government could censor domestic media, bad news still got around via the internet and social media apps. China continues censorship efforts that collapse under the weight of social media messages.

The media reports revealed that hundreds of Chinese had disappeared in the border area, and that the Myanmar government was helpless because tribal rebel militias had taken control as soldiers retreated south. While Chinese and Thai police have made a few arrests, most of the criminal activity takes place in areas of neighboring Myanmar that are lawless.

The unrest in northern Myanmar comes and goes. By 2025 the army losses included two command centers. These well protected military headquarters controlled operations in a specific region. As two of those regions were completely overrun by rebels, these headquarters were abandoned.

Since late 2023 there has been an expanding offensive by various rebel groups. The rebels are supported by local civilians and the army found it could not cope with this. It was a chaotic situation as non-tribal residents fled south and large groups of armed and angry tribal rebels moved south along with them. The army never expected this and fighting continued to move south outside and, eventually, inside towns where there was an army garrison. With few troops left in the area, the Myanmar military sent its warplanes to bomb towns believed to be occupied by rebels. This was an imprecise operation and many civilians were killed. This angered the locals as well as soldiers who deal with angry and often armed locals.

This growing armed and unarmed opposition to the military has resulted in several thousand deaths and tens of thousands of arrests. The economy is in shambles but, despite that, the population resists and the survival of the military government depends on how much China wants to spend saving them. Until recently China refused to contribute more than token assistance, while the rebel militias in the north became more powerful and the Myanmar army began to collapse, along with the military government when there was another major uprising in late 2023 that started in the north and is ongoing.

Then in 2024 rare earth deposits were found in Myanmar. Rare earths are extremely valuable and used for the production of high-end electronics. Myanmar had these materials and China wanted them. The Chin rebels on the border wanted a piece of the action and that held up shipments to China until it was discovered who was blocking the shipments. Chinese border guards were ordered to let the rare earth shipments in and threatened the Chin rebels with loss of access to China and the weapons and other supplies obtained inside China.

China has always been unofficially involved with the northern rebels because China allows the rebels, especially the ethnic Chinese Myanmar Chin rebels, to enter China to buy weapons and other supplies from local black market merchants.

One of the most active rebel groups is the AA/Arakan Army. Many AA attacks are ambushes or raids on road traffic, outposts or border posts. Control of the roads is essential for the army, which depends on regular deliveries of all sorts of supplies. The army also has some air support, mostly surveillance but also occasional airstrikes. The rebels know the mountains and forests, which the army enters and moves through more slowly. The war up here is about driving away locals who can provide support for the rebels. Most of these civilians have nothing to do with the rebels and see themselves as innocent victims of random military violence. There is some truth to that because troops often loot abandoned villages or rape female refugees they catch up with.

The rebels have another advantage in that their attacks are more precise and involve much less firepower. The soldiers spend most of their time wandering around in the forests seeking rebels who move faster in the bush and usually detect the troops before the soldiers can spot any rebels. Hiring, or forcing, local hunters to guide the troops rarely works because the local guides hate the troops and know that the rebels won’t forget if such guides and trackers cost them casualties.

Rebels attack outposts and border posts for loot. These attacks are not just about stealing some weapons and other gear, it is also intimidating the border guards and troops into backing off on border security. A major source of income for the AA is getting illegal drugs from nearby Shan State, where most illegal drugs in the country are produced, into Bangladesh. The AA also works with Myanmar Rohingya refugees just across the border in Bangladesh.

The AA has support from one of the rebel coalitions, the NA, or Northern/Brotherhood Alliance tribal rebels, who refuse to attend peace talks unless the government allows the Arakan Army, or AA, to attend. The AA and the army have been fighting for nearly a decade with no end in sight. The government, pressured by the army, declared the AA an outlaw organization in early 2020. The other tribal rebels disagreed and saw the army as the true outlaws. No long-term peace deal is possible without the NA and some NA members are still engaged in combat with the army.

The NA consists of four tribal militias: TNLA/ Tang National Liberation Army, AA, MNDAA/ Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and KIA/Kachin Independence Army. The NA exists because its members refused to sign the 2015 Myanmar Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement/NCA. Those who did sign the NCA have made progress in working out differences with the government and military. The army, which tends to do as it likes in the tribal areas of the north, is the primary cause for violence. China is also involved because Northern Alliance members survive via their access to China. The access is tolerated as long as these Myanmar rebels do not let the fighting spread into China or interfere with Chinese commercial operations in Myanmar. This includes the BRI/Belt and Road Initiative project, which NA members object to. So do other tribal rebels and the largest such group, the UWSA/United Wa State Army, boycotts peace conferences and otherwise tries to get their point across to the army and the government.

Army leaders have become more outspoken about foreign support the tribal rebels are receiving. The generals won’t come right out and name China, but it is no secret that China has done little to curb Chinese weapons dealers from selling all manner of military small arms to tribal rebels and getting it across the border into Myanmar. That cannot be done without the acquiescence of the Chinese government. In this way the Chinese are sending a message to the Myanmar generals, who the Chinese see as equally responsible for the violence in the north, sometimes right on the Chinese border. Both the rebels and the army are often using Chinese weapons and ammunition against each other. There are not a lot of casualties and most of them are from army convoys being ambushed or the army firing into pro-rebel villages to drive the civilians, and any rebels, out and into the bush. The army does not have enough troops to occupy all the territory they push tribal rebels and civilians out of. Often the rebels, if not the civilians, at least not right away, come back and resume attacking convoys and patrols.

Since 2018 Rakhine State has been the scene of soldiers fighting the Arakan Army rebels for control of territory. Along the west coast in Rakhine and Chin states the fighting is mainly about the army effort to control and tax illegal activities by tribesmen. The tribes have been mistreated by the military for so long it is difficult to generate a lot of trust and put an end to the armed resistance.

The Arakan Army had been avoiding soldiers since a series of clashes in late 2015 ended badly for the rebels. Clashes resumed in early 2016 as troops moved into territory where Arakan Army rebels were known to operate. All this was unexpected because the northwest coast has not had as much tribal violence as states to the east. In this case the Arakan Army had help from Kachin State tribal rebels and have become a problem on both sides of the Bangladesh border. The government ordered the army to increase its efforts to destroy the Arakan Army and the successful clashes in late 2015 led to the military working with police to find and arrest the many Arakan Army supporters in the area. Unlike most tribal militias in the north, the Arakan Army was never given official recognition, in large part because the Arakan Army was more of a gangster operation than tribal rebels.

All this police activity was unpopular but at least it was less arbitrary and lawless than in the past when soldiers would torture and kill people they picked up. That sort of behavior has always been illegal but few violators were prosecuted. In 2020 those illegal practices returned in a big way as the army sought to shut down the Arakan rebels once and for all. As of 2025 the rebels continued moving south and China rejoiced as actor Wang Xing was released. The Myanmar military government is desperately seeking a way out of this mess, even if it involves holding the long promised and long delayed elections. The generals believe that they could control the counting of the votes to ensure continued military rule. Opposition political groups announced that they would not accept the outcome of a rigged election.