From a detailed Anthony Davis piece in Asia Times on the contours of the emerging battle for Mandalay:
“While highlighting the role of well-organized PDFs with strategic punch, 10.27 Phase Two has also laid bare the stark limits of Chinese influence in stemming the coming landslide.
Following the collapse of the Hai Geng ceasefire, an agreement reached in Kunming in January this year, repeated efforts to broker another cessation of hostilities in the midst of fierce battles proved predictably unsuccessful.
All three Brothers – including the alliance’s third partner, the Arakan Army (AA) – benefit to a greater or lesser degree from cross-border connectivity with China and have been at pains to stress that they will safeguard Chinese economic and infrastructure interests.
At the same time, all three are evidently intent on prioritizing war objectives that go well beyond securing autonomy for their own regions to include supporting at various levels Bamar efforts to bring down the edifice of military dictatorship.
For its part, China is undoubtedly deeply frustrated with Senior General Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, a capricious and incompetent dictator whose 2021 coup effectively torpedoed Beijing’s long-term economic and geostrategic objectives in Myanmar.
At the same time, China has no interest in facilitating the collapse of the SAC regime, which it fears would mean either a descent into fragmentation and chaos or an interim administration in Naypyidaw centered on a NUG that Beijing views as a stalking horse for Western meddling in its backyard.
As a result, Beijing appears caught between the Scylla of the Brotherhood and aggressive PDFs it cannot rein in and the Charybdis of its support for a regime in Naypyidaw led by generals whose floundering defeats and potential collapse have set at risk years of economic and political investment in Myanmar.”
Paul Staniland 