March 6, 2025

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Just A Matter of Time? The Enduring but Weakening Grip of Myanmar’s Junta

More than four years ago, the Myanmar military, known as the Tatmadaw, seized control in a violent coup following the 2020 elections, where the pro-military Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) suffered a significant loss. The coup plunged Myanmar directly into a civil war, marked by a proliferation of violent non-state groups – an astonishing 2,600 according to ACLED data – and an alarming surge in human rights violations, extinguishing the fragile democratic project nurtured over the past decade. Myanmar's trajectory has long been defined by cycles of military dictatorship and civil strife, with the Tatmadaw wielding power from 1962 until 2011, sparking a series of insurgencies led by ethnic armed organizations (EAOs). Now, four years into the State Administration Council led by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the junta faces serious challenges, controlling only 21 percent of Myanmar's territory, according to BBC data. The junta not only lost significant swaths of territory, but it has also struggled with growing public dissatisfaction and military defections.

Since the start of the civil war, the junta has relentlessly sought to crush opposition leaders, stifle civilian protests, and target vulnerable minority groups, notably the Rohingya, a stateless and predominately Muslim ethnic group that has existed in Myanmar for centuries. The conflict has evolved into a complex battlefield, with a diverse landscape of anti-junta factions, including EAOs and the National Unity Government (NUG) through its armed wing, the People Defense Forces (PDFs), asserting control over significant portions of territory. In 2023, the junta lost control of roughly eight towns and 36 military bases in the first two months of Operation 1027, following an offensive by the Three Brotherhood Alliance, a front of three armed groups that have been important in contesting the junta in the northern Shan State. The operation was highly effective, largely due to the junta’s military vulnerabilities, including their reliance on outdated weaponry, as well as their overextended forces, which limited their ability to mount a credible counteroffensive. The Arakan Army, the EAO from the Arakan people, took control of almost the entirety of the Rakhine State in early 2025, and according to the February update on the situation by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the conflict between the military and the Arakan Army has spread into neighboring states in Myanmar.

Aside from the significant territorial losses, the junta has also struggled with growing public dissatisfaction, not only related to brutal repression and human rights abuses but also a contracting economy and a surge in humanitarian demands. According to Security Analyst Nyein Nyein Thant Aung “the widespread psychological effects of the regime's mass violence and human rights violations have fueled deep-seated grievances and animosity, leading to the emergence of strong anti-junta armed resistance, even within predominantly Burman-dominated areas.” Within its rank and file, there have also been growing signs of discontent and disunity, with frequent reports of defections and “snatch and recruit” arrests of children to refill its manpower. The losses and weakening grip of the junta, as well as the cooperation between different resistance groups against the Myanmar military, must be contextualized: intergroup clashes between armed factions continue to be reported, and no consensus about what a post-junta Myanmar looks like has been established, nor the path to that future. Additionally, the junta remains propped up by Chinese and Russian military aid, underscored by General Hlaing's Tuesday visit to Russia—his fourth since the coup.

In September 2024, after the junta announced it would conduct a census as a precursor to elections, it received $3 billion in aid from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), including funds for the census and election. While the census has failed to be comprehensive, and any elections most likely serve the goal of legitimizing the junta, it shows the CCP’s continued pragmatic support for the junta, bolstering it militarily while superficially supporting alleged future elections. The CCP’s economic interests in Myanmar are diverse, including access to the Indian Ocean, major infrastructure and energy projects under the Belt and Road Initiative, natural resources, and crucial trade routes for inland Chinese provinces.

The civil war has also transformed the country into an epicenter of organized crime, with border regions, such as the Shan State in the east, serving as a key hub for illicit narcotics production. Myanmar has surpassed Afghanistan as the world’s largest opium producer, according to a 2023 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) survey, while also emerging as a leading supplier of synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine and fentanyl. The disintegration of state control and proliferation of armed groups have facilitated a thriving war economy, funding both resistance forces and pro-junta militias. Myanmar’s military has increasingly relied upon illicit revenue streams to sustain its war effort amid territorial losses along the eastern border, leveraging its collusion with the Border Guard Forces (BGFs) and local militias to facilitate operations.

The Kokand BGF, for example, operating in the north of Shan State, maintains links with Chinese criminal syndicates and has established large-scale online gambling operations in the region, leveraging the power vacuum to expand its enterprises within Myanmar. EAOs such as the United Wa State Army (USWA) and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) have engaged in extensive drug trafficking schemes to fund their operations. The UNODC has reported record-breaking drug seizures since the coup, highlighting the nexus between crime and conflict.

Beyond narcotics, Myanmar has become a hub for cybercrime, particularly in “scam centers” which run illegal online schemes to defraud victims from across the globe and are operated by Chinese criminal syndicates in militia-controlled regions. These highly lucrative fraud schemes have entrapped trafficked workers from across Southeast Asia and Africa, including thousands of Chinese nationals, and have prompted direct intervention from Beijing. In 2023, cybercrime operations in Myanmar were estimated to have generated nearly $15.3 billion in revenues, almost a quarter of the country’s GDP. While China provides material and military support to the junta to safeguard its economic investments, the military’s inability and unwillingness to curb criminal enterprises along the Chinese border has led Beijing to adopt an approach of strategic pragmatism, supporting certain EAOs while pressuring others to negotiate peace. This was evident in China’s tacit approval of the Three Brotherhood Alliance’s Operation 1027 targeting cybercrime networks and saw key trade routes and towns fall from junta control in late 2023. Although Beijing later brokered a ceasefire, its motivations were largely economic – focused on restoring trade and curbing criminal networks that directly impact China.