What is Myanmar Worth to China? How China Transformed Myanmar into a Semi-Colonial Appendage

Myanmar represents far more than a neighbouring Southeast Asian nation to China; it is a strategically indispensable asset upon which Beijing has constructed an intricate system of economic, military, and political dependency. China, over the years, has increased its role in the nation, especially its hold in Myanmar, which has increased after the military coup of 2021.

Illustration by The Geostrata

The Chinese have made sure that Myanmar's dependency on them remains intact, whether it is through political or economic debt, so that the Chinese interests are sufficiently protected. This calculated approach reflects a sophisticated understanding that chaos can be weaponised for control. This reflects a calculated approach 

THE STRATEGIC IMPERATIVE (BREAKING THE MALACCA DILEMMA)

Beijing's whole regional policy is shaped by a basic geographic vulnerability that must be understood to comprehend Myanmar's worth to China. Myanmar is characterized as essential to China's formation of a ‘Sino-centric macro-regional space’ through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), with its geographical location allowing China to gain access to the Indian Ocean, a transit region for energy resources, and to overcome the "Malacca dilemma" as a critical border state.

For Chinese strategic planning, this “dilemma” is existential in nature. Chinese leaders believe that the United States would close the Malacca Strait, which lies between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra, effectively controlling 80% of the oil that reaches China.

The Chinese have also developed gas and oil pipelines in Myanmar, an important strategic buffer zone that enables the Chinese to circumvent the perilous Malacca Strait chokepoint. Thus, the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), with Myanmar being an integral part of China's national security strategy, assumes significance beyond the mere infrastructure development project that it initially began as.

ECONOMIC LEVERAGE AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF DEPENDENCY

The China-Myanmar Economic Corridor has led to the establishment of asymmetric dependency relations. The corridor costs around $15 billion and covers almost 1,000 kilometres. While this project is spread across different parts of the country that are extremely affected by civil war, it has continued to work in Kyaukphyu and on smaller connectivity projects.

The deep-sea port at Kyaukphyu is the centrepiece of this economic design. A 50 per cent stake in the SEZ would raise the overall commitment of the Myanmar government for the projects to $3.5 billion, or about 5 per cent of GDP, from the present 30 percent stake in the Kyaukphyu port valued at $2.2 billion.

The Chinese have ensured that the financial burden is firmly placed on the country, given its current economic position, making Myanmar susceptible to the debt-trap policy the Chinese have already used on many countries. This problem has been proven via historical examples. The case of a seaport in Sri Lanka, which has only been in operation for seven years, teaches many lessons on this topic.

In 2016, there had been an agreement to transfer an 80% share of this seaport to a state corporation called China Merchants Port Holdings, which would give China control over this strategic object after it became clear that the government of Colombo had no way to repay its debts to Chinese lenders.

Similarly, this problem has been recognised openly in Myanmar’s government. A Myanmar deputy government minister stated, "Our country is poor, so we'll definitely be at risk of falling into a debt trap if we accept loans and investment from China for large projects without serious consideration of economic viability."

Other avenues of funding have been destroyed by the economic isolation of Myanmar since the 2021 coup. When Western investment started to dry up after the military takeover in Myanmar, China became the main foreign supporter of the Myanmar government, while Myanmar's mild resistance to China's increasing participation in the nation started shifting in favour of China. This is not an accident but rather an intentional consequence of Beijing's hedging strategy, whereby isolation strengthens China's hand.

MILITARY DEPENDENCE AND THE ARMS PIPELINE

The Chinese have been providing strong military support to Myanmar. It is not just symbolic in nature but serves as the backbone of their security. According to the United Nations report, unveiled that as of May 2023, at least $1 billion worth of arms, dual-use goods, equipment, and materials to manufacture weapons had been brought into Myanmar, with Russia and China being the primary sources, followed by India, Singapore, and Thailand.

The scale of Chinese military assistance is staggering. Chinese and Russian entities have sent more than US$660 million in weaponry and other arms-related equipment to Myanmar's military since its coup two years ago, with the report identifying US$267 million from 41 state-owned and private companies in China.

More critically, Chinese and Russian arms suppliers are the backbone of the junta's combat capabilities, without which its ability to hold on to the country's centre and urban areas would likely suffer substantially.

Chinese state-owned enterprises dominate this pipeline. The five biggest suppliers are listed as China North Industries Group (NORINCO), the Aviation Industry Corp. of China (AVIC), the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC), the China Aerospace Science & Industry Corp. (CASIC), and the China National Aero-Technology Import & Export Corporation (CATIC). This military relationship creates profound dependency; without Chinese aircraft, spare parts, and munitions, the junta's capacity to wage war against the resistance would collapse.

Notably, China has employed sophisticated dual-sourcing strategies. Beijing's strongest ally, the United Wa State Army, receives and then sells or transfers Chinese weapons to many armed groups in Myanmar, including anti-junta groups, wherein, when fighting escalated, Chinese-origin weapons could be found on both sides, with the military junta's air force including Chinese-supplied jets while the anti-regime Three Brotherhood Alliance employed Chinese-manufactured small arms purchased from China-backed groups along the border. This "hedging strategy" allows Beijing to maintain leverage over multiple actors while preserving deniability. 

POLITICAL COERCION (DIVIDED LOYALTIES AND STRATEGIC MANIPULATION)

China's political strategy in Myanmar deliberately exploits fragmentation rather than resolving it. After the military coup in February 2021, China outwardly embraced the junta but quietly maintained contacts with the pro-democracy civilian government and continued arming its longstanding proxies along the China-Myanmar border. This simultaneous backing of opposing forces reflects not inconsistency but sophisticated realpolitik.

China's approach explicitly rejects Western stability-building models. China's goal is to keep Myanmar as "a weak and fragmented country with just enough stability to protect Beijing's strategic economic interests." This represents a fundamental departure from Western diplomatic philosophy; rather than promoting democratic governance or institutional development, Beijing accepts, indeed, cultivates perpetual instability.

Evidence of coercive political manipulation abounds. Beijing has intervened in the conflict by brokering a ceasefire agreement in the Kokang region in early 2024 and, more recently, has placed economic pressure on EAO combatants to cease their offensive in the borderlands.

When ceasefire negotiations advanced Chinese interests, Beijing brokered agreements; when political movements threatened Chinese projects, Beijing reversed course. This reflects what one analyst described as mounting conflicts of interest between involved Chinese actors, a fraying of the "BRI" label and its connection to extractive and illicit business activities, and constant renegotiation with changing power holders across the country.

MILITARY PRESENCE AND SOVEREIGNITY VIOLATION

The presence of Chinese armed security personnel on Burmese territory is perhaps the most worrisome of all. To be able to use the armed Chinese security personnel to protect its interests that span across several borders, China coaxed the military government in Burma into allowing a joint venture for a security company. The pact allows China access to military strength on Burmese territory despite the Burmese constitution’s prohibition of any military presence on its territory.

There are quite serious strategic implications here. Insofar as the Chinese government identifies these armed soldiers as "private security," what the Chinese are doing here is erecting grassroots military infrastructure with the benefit of plausible deniability. This has all the markings of the sort of imperialism the international order once thought it was avoiding.

THE ILLUSION OF MULTIPOLARITY

While Western research tends to emphasise the absolute dominance that exists in the case of the People’s Republic of China in the matter of Myanmar, the reality is much more complex and worrying. The actions that China is taking are essentially aimed at protecting its own interests, the majority of them being economic: ensuring the availability of resources such as rare earths to the point that other countries cannot buy them is one such goal that is being affected by the economic engagement the West has with Myanmar.

This is not a mere coincidence. China had established such an enormous political, military, and economic infrastructure network that even when Western allies made an attempt to re-engage a country in the region after a coup, other alternatives were not possible.

The ethnic armed groups could not resist Chinese pressures without risking loss of access to cross-border sanctuaries; civil society could not mobilise without challenging an established Chinese security order; and Myanmar’s government could not resist Chinese investments without effectively ceasing to receive military access routes.

CONCLUSION

Myanmar, on every level, stands as important for China, from military assets (strategic infrastructure and proxy troops) to geopolitical statements about China's ability to police its region, economic opportunities (resource exploitation and market access), and physical necessities (access to the Indian Ocean). The calculus is brutally pragmatic: Myanmar must remain both stable enough to function as an economic conduit and weak enough to be controlled.

Economic debt, reliance through weapons supply, political intimidation through asymmetrical support of different factions within rival nations, or military presence through seemingly legitimate contracting for protection services by private companies, among other ways, that China exploits the people. This is portrayed in the complex form of statecraft aimed at maximising control with little accountability.

The impact has been disastrous on the people of Myanmar. In practice, sovereignty has been compromised through financial and military entanglement; China's control over fragmentation has stifled political solutions; the military power of the military government has become dependent on Chinese arms; and the country's economic future has been tied to Chinese investments.

Today, Myanmar has ceased to be a nation but a semicolon of China's strategic orbit; imperatives of geography and geopolitical realities make this status irreversible, not through force of arms but through the cynical play of weakness, isolation, and geopolitical imperatives.

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BY ABHIIGYA LANGEH

COVERING PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

TEAM GEOSTRATA

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