THIS IS AN UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT
Hello, I'm John Milewski, and this is Wilson Center NOW, a production of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Well, it's been four years since the military coup in Myanmar, and we want to take a look at what's happening in that nation now.
And joining us is our man on that beat, Lucas Myers. He is senior associate for Southeast Asia with the Wilson Center's Indo-Pacific program. Lucas, welcome. Thanks for joining us. Thanks, John. Happy to be here. So February of 2021, the imprisonment of Aung San Suu Kyi and the takeover by the military, The Guardian had this headline just in the last week.
The junta's brutality has failed to secure victory in the civil war, but is devastating the country. That's their compact take on the current situation. I'd like to hear from you on on. Give us a sense of what's happening. So obviously, this is an incredibly complicated military conflict. It's been a much longer issue since just this four year period.
I mean, this really does extend all the way back to independence. Fundamentally, Myanmar has been riven by a conflict between the minority ethnic groups and the majority bamar. And the democracy struggle has been intertwined with this entire ethnic issue as well. So it's a it's a very complicated conflict, dozens of actors. But to keep it short and simple as much as possible, since the 2021 coup, the military has essentially failed to keep hold of the country.
Their control has essentially weakened to probably less than 50% of their country's territory, and a coalition of a variety of ethnic armed groups and pro-democracy forces has clawed back a significant level of the country, especially the on the border regions, and really attempted to roll back this this coup. And they've been remarkably successful. Now, they have a long way to go, but I think this is something that we should all look to as an inspiring story of resistance.
The so the less than 50% I've seen estimates as low as 21%. What's happening in those parts of the country that are not under military rule. So, again, it's it's a highly complicated picture. You have some groups, some rebel groups that have been active since the forties. I mean, these are really longstanding, entrenched. They're basically quasi local governments with armed forces of their own in some cases.
Then you have recent groups, something often they're called People's Defense Forces that sprung up after the 2021 coup. But, you know, this coalition and again, it's very broad have fought their way against the military. Initially, it took some time. It was a slow start. You know, guerrilla forces, hardscrabble, you know, local people rising up against the military. But now they've organized significantly and really taken some territory, especially since late 2023.
Now we're seeing cities fall to the resistance, including in places like Rakhine State, Sean State. These are areas along the border. And also you've seen the military really having to contract itself to the center of the country. It just doesn't have the manpower anymore to control this territory. That's why they say less than 30%. What they're really talking about is the military just being forced to give up its governance of large portions of the country.
How unified is the resistance in the sense that, you know, you paint this very complex picture of different factions now, Are they have they put aside their differences in order to resist the military coup? How unified is the group? So this is this is a tricky question. So obviously, there's been a long history of inter-ethnic conflict in Myanmar.
Those issues remain. What's different about this iteration is the Bamar majority has now sees the military in the way that the ethnic minorities do as an oppressor. And they've really risen up. And this is why the military fundamentally is having such difficulty controlling the country is this is a much wider resistance movement than we've seen in past struggles against military dictatorship in Myanmar's history.
So I would say that there's a lot more unity. It's unprecedented in Myanmar's post-colonial history. However, that doesn't mean that it's simple or, you know, that there are some sort of catch all answer. One big issue to keep an eye on is that there's not really an agreed upon political framework for after the military or even really how to you know, there's no off ramp right now of how do we get from, you know, defeating the military on the battlefield to a postwar political settlement that's not really been decided.
And you can see some of these divisions within the rebel groups, you know, emerging Some the Arakan Army is a big one. They are clearly aiming for a quasi independence. They have very little interest in democracy. But then there's other groups that that are fighting for what they call a spring revolution. The idea that we're going to throw out the old constitution, we're going to remove the military from political power and really forge a new federal system in Myanmar that can accommodate these ethnic differences and rebuild democracy.
But that divergence has not really been bridged yet. Lucas, talk to us about the resources on both sides of this equation. You know, how is the resistance having enough ammunition to keep resisting and those types of factors are there external players who are supporting either side? Yeah, And again, this is further complexity. So right now what I would say is the resistance initially started out with basically homemade weaponry.
In many cases, some of the existing ethnic armed groups had their own military capabilities, kind of local production. Others actually got a lot of weaponry from China. This is where China's role is kind of complicated. China has attempted to exert leverage over basically all political factions in the country at various times. That includes arming some groups, especially the ones that are on their border.
And then those groups sort of, you know, filter weaponry to the other groups elsewhere. You get a lot of smuggling over the Thai border. Thai has a pretty active black market. And then other rebel groups just simply have captured weapons from surrendering who to soldiers. So it's a bit of a mixed picture. And this ammunition supply issue has been a perennial problem, especially for the People's Defense Forces.
The newer groups, the larger long standing ethnic groups have their own capabilities, their own supply lines. But the newer groups have have struggled with this. But again, I think the buildup has been slow. But now as of 2025, even just looking at combat footage, the this is a far cry from 2021. The even the newer groups are looking like professional forces.
They're well equipped, They have uniforms, they have weaponry. The the humanitarian costs are significantly high. Looking at some figures here, 4 million people displaced, half the population forced into poverty, less than half with access to electricity. The U.N. says American state is at imminent risk of acute famine. Is there any relief for the people who are suffering on the humanitarian side, unfortunately, no.
So the military strategy at this point is punishment and retaliation for what they've lost. Towns and cities, they know they don't have the strategic reserves to retake these areas. Instead, what they've done is indiscriminate, bombed them with their air force because they know the resistance lacks any sort of anti-air capability. They can't defend themselves. And so the military resorts to bombing civilian targets.
They don't really even attempt to deploy these against strategic areas. They're hitting civilians and they very much intend to do so. They've had this strategy. They call for cuts, which essentially is just, you know, burning and pillaging areas that they've lost. It's quite brutal and horrible. And this is why the humanitarian situation is so dire. Talk about international interests.
You know, often it takes the least support, if not the actual intervention from international forces to resolve situations like this. Well, does anyone care enough to expend resources on the situation in Myanmar? So, yeah, I'll paint the picture broadly. So right now what's interesting is the US is by far the most significant backer of the pro-democracy forces. We have spent the most money, we've been the most supportive diplomatically.
This is pretty this is pretty accurate assessment. I think the US has been pretty committed on that front. However, by far the most influential actor here is China. China borders Myanmar. There are significant material interests at stake for Beijing. Rare earths, huge, actually percentage of Chinese rare earths are mined in Myanmar along the border regions. They also have a massive Belt and Road initiative, a series of projects, a big infrastructure route to the Indian Ocean that that connects China to the Bay of Bengal.
These are big interests that China has, and they've been active especially the last six months or so. They invited the leader of the military junta to China in a big show of support. They've really come down hard to us to back him up. These are big shifts. And so China right now is trying to essentially assert their influence they've picked to the military as their guy to back, and they've recently really pushed in that direction.
Other actors, of course, matter. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, has a role to play. However, they don't really have much leverage here. So countries like Thailand have, you know, put their foot forward. But again, the big player here is China, I would say, and China is the key actor in all of this. China has made noises about pressing for elections, which sounds absurd, given given the circumstances.
Is there anything of merit to talk about there or would that just be some dog and pony show that no one would really take seriously? It's a fig leaf of legitimacy. So here's how Beijing sees this. They see the military situation pretty accurately. I mean, they understand the military is not performing well on any fronts. The economy is imploding.
The battlefield situation looks really grim. So their their solution is elections. So they've actually pushed the military, you know, in many cases to say, okay, you're going to hold that election in 2025 and you're going to call it an election. Everyone knows it's not a real election. The military will win whatever contest is had. It's not really a contest right.
But the idea here is that the military can then parade this around as this is our political offramp. There's a new government, you know, maybe probably the same people from the military just in new positions. Right. And then the Chinese can back them up on this, go to the international community and say, hey, the military is reforming. They made peace.
Look, the resistance forces are being obstinate. They're the problem. And then that's their that's the Chinese approach. The military's approach now is sort of to use this to rehabilitate themselves at the world stage,
So the leadership I want to ask you about, you know, we talked you talked about there is no clear off ramp.
There is no plan after the win over the the military junta if that is in the cards. But but among the resistance, are there voices, are there leaders who could potentially emerge? Usually it's going to take somebody to unify around if there's going to be any unification. So that's the hard part. So the resistance forces will talk about this is a bottom up revolution.
You know, we don't want a single leader. I mean, many of the ethnic groups would also say that in the past, the arm of a majority has really used their dominance, you know, to harm ethnic interests. And so that's bad for them to have a too centralized system. Right. That's that's they don't want that. They want a much more decentralized approach.
That's why they say federalism is their preferred, preferred solution to the overall crisis. That said, I think the leadership is a bit of an open question because you have really right now two big factions that I would, you know, for simplicity's sake point to. On the one hand, you have the pro-democracy forces. Now the national unity government is the main, you know, face of this umbrella group.
They are the remnants of the parliamentarians of the former ruling National League for Democracy, plus civil society actors. They've been the most active on the international stage. They're the ones who are meeting with American officials. They are sort of putting themselves forward as the the face of this the overall leadership of this movement. But then, you know, you have several longstanding ethnic armed groups like the Koran and the kitchen and the chin who have worked with them recently and have a pretty similar set of goals.
But then on the other hand, you have the three Brotherhood alliance. They are much closer to China. They are not very keen on democracy. If anything, they're quite authoritarian. You know, there's been human rights violations, certainly in Rakhine state committed by the Arakan Army. These guys, you know, they share a stance against the junta, but they're not necessarily fighting for democracy.
And so that that is a rift, that that could be a problem down the road, especially because China has a lot of leverage over those groups who also are the best forces on the ground, bar none. The three Brotherhood alliance are the most effective in combat. And so the resistance has a real dilemma here. You know, where they need these three brotherhood alliance, you know, ethnic armies to fight alongside them.
But there are some real political differences. Look, I know you've been covering this story for a long time and you have deep knowledge. So I want to ask you, is there anything I haven't asked you about yet so far in our discussion that's really important for people to know. I think one thing that often gets missed is it often gets broken down.
So I would say that in D.C., but just broadly sort of the Western conversation, in the media conversation on Myanmar, it's often humanitarian focused or it's viewed as this, it's another one of those long running civil wars that there'll be no end. I want to complicate that narrative quite a bit, actually. On one hand, I'll say this.
This is not this is a very unprecedented situation in Myanmar. This is totally different than the previous decades of conflict, the Bamar majority being on the side of the resistance. It's a big deal. Military has never been this week in the last six months, basically two of their military headquarters, the in Northeast and Western commands surrendered to resistance forces.
That's never happened in 7580 years of conflict. That's a big deal. So this is a once in a generation opportunity, really. And too, I would say that there actually is a lot of American interest here. And I'll point to why I think it's of a strategic interest beyond the human rights, beyond democracy aspect, there are strategic interests at play.
Number one, I would say Myanmar is really important for China. China actually is paying a lot of attention here. Xi Jinping personally is paying attention to this. Beijing is paying attention. That's why, as I said before, it links China to the Indian Ocean. That's big right now. If you look at a map, a lot of Chinese trade, a lot of their oil imports, something like 80% of their imported oil flows through the Malacca Strait, which is Indonesia in Malaysia.
Right. That could be blockaded in a conflict over Taiwan by the United States Navy fairly easily. They want to bypass that issue. So they've been building this infrastructure route through Myanmar. To them, this is a vital geostrategic interest. That's why they're paying so much attention and that's why they're backing the military so heavily. Now, you know, if we are in this great power competition with China, I think we have an interest here in seeing this opposed.
Right. And I think right now the resistance is the actor that would oppose this. And, you know, the military junta is essentially a puppet of the Chinese. This is something that the US should pay attention to. Beyond that, Myanmar is a big country. It's 50 million or so people. They have a real sense that this is their opportunity to change their lives.
And I think if we were a part of this, it would be beneficial for us, not least in ASEAN. You know, as long as this continues, ASEAN is incredibly weakened. Again, that allows Chinese influence in Southeast Asia. And three, Myanmar again, is a huge source of rare earth minerals. There is a lot of strategic resources in the country and, you know, just ignoring it is not a viable solution.
And I think relative to what it might, you know, the expenditure here, I think we have a big opportunity to really shift the geostrategic playing board in Southeast Asia is, you know, this is fast and fascinating. And I'm wondering, are there any voices in the US policy community, whether in Congress or in the new administration, anywhere that that are singing the same tune that agree with the strategic importance that you just outlined?
I would say so, especially on the Hill in Congress, there was a Burma caucus that's been, you know, started up in the last couple of years. They've been very active on this and talking about these issues and putting forth these this policy agenda. I think right now the problem is this fundamentally, it sounds trite and simple, but attention is a limited resource and the US government is very busy in the foreign policy space.
I mean, you have active conflict in Ukraine, you have the Middle East. I mean, these are huge issues. You have the border crisis now. I mean, it's there's a lot to deal with. The National Security Council, frankly, just, you know, limited time. Right. And so Myanmar tends to slip down that list of priorities. And what I'm saying and arguing for is that I think it probably needs a much higher prioritization, especially because if we're serious about this Indo-Pacific move, if we want to focus in the Indo-Pacific, this is one of the places where we will have to pay more attention.
Final thought, Lucas, on the sort of the optimism pessimism meter. You know, you began by talking about how the resistance is inspiring and you also said this is a generational, if not once in a lifetime opportunity potentially, given those notions, are you optimistic about how this might play out? Yes. So I think some analysts will say, you know, this is the year, this is the time.
And I want obviously, we saw what happened in Syria just a few months ago. So, you know, surprises happen all the time. Right. But I think generally I stay optimistic, even if I don't think necessarily this is over in the next six months or 12 months even, because the trend right now is the military is weakening. If you look at 2025 that you can then compare it to 2021.
There's a whole nother picture. I mean, the military looks commendably weak and you move forward and you continue that trend line. I think you can see some real change. However, the one looming issue here is increased Chinese support for the military and sort of this election issue. You know, if the military can pull off some sort of fig leaf, that could be a real death knell in the international space, especially if ASEAN just decides to accept it.
You know, and the U.S. is not able to really, you know, lead the charge on backing up the pro-democracy resistance. These are some issues that I think need to be, you know, thought about in D.C. and how we want to approach this. Maybe in the next eight or nine months is probably the timeline when it's going to become critical.
Lucas Myers, thank you very much. You know, I really appreciate you keeping our eyes on the trend lines and not just getting completely distracted by the headlines. So good stuff. Thanks, Lucas. Thank you, John. We hope you enjoyed this edition of Wilson Center now and that you'll join us again soon. Until then, for all of us at the center, I'm John Milewski.
Thanks for your time and interest.
