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China helps military junta with fighter aircraft to bomb and strafe civilian population in Myanmar

မဲခေါင် 14 Feb - 2023
Linn Maung Beijing is helping the Tatmadaw with advanced fighter aircraft to help the military junta ruling Myanmar to bomb and strafe the helpless civilian population of the country. This clearly shows to the world that human rights have no value for the mandarins of the Communist Party of China

Linn Maung

Beijing is helping the Tatmadaw with advanced fighter aircraft to help the military junta ruling Myanmar to bomb and strafe the helpless civilian population of the country. This clearly shows to the world that human rights have no value for the mandarins of the Communist Party of China when it comes to furthering their own interests.

The military of Myanmar, incidentally, is known as Tatmadaw. Irrawaddy, a newspaper in Myanmar run by the opposition, reported in October, 2022, that the air force of Myanmar had ordered several FTC-2000G midrange fighter jets from China. A group of about eight air force pilots, eight technicians and at least two armament officers travelled to China via Kunming in June, 2022, to take training in flying the aircraft and operating the weapon platform on board.

Though the news about the delivery of the fighters have been kept under the wraps, Aero Time, a web magazine dealing with news in the aviation sector, reported in December 2022, quoting local and international media, that the first shipment of six latest generation fighter jets known as Mountain Eagles had been delivered. Irrawaddy has reported that the aircraft reached Myanmar in June 2022. The celebrated defence publication Janes has reported that regional intelligence sources have confirmed the delivery.

Close on the heels of this piece of information has come the disturbing news that the military of Myanmar is increasingly turning to airstrikes in villages in Myanmar with deadly results to try to crush stiff armed resistance two years after its seizure of power. “The military is heavily reliant on fighter jets and helicopter gunships supplied by its allies Russia and China,” an AP report from Bangkok said on January 31, 2023, quoting Myanmar Witness and other human rights organizations.

Myanmar Witness has compiled 135 “airwar incidents” from July to December 2022. The number of airstrikes has increased since September. Significantly, on January 10, 2023, one of the five bombs dropped by the Myanmar air force at Mount Victoria on the headquarters of the rebel Chin National Front dropped in the neighbouring Champai district of Mizoram. Confirming the incident, a top Indian army official said in a news conference in Kolkata in late February 2023 that the bomb had dropped on a river bordering Myanmar and Mizoram and damaged a vehicle on the Indian side.

“As the Myanmar military struggles to exert control over areas of resistance, air strikes have become a key part of their offensive,” the Myanmar Witness report has said. “The military is putting the population of Myanmar in a precarious position, destroying homes, schools and places of worship which should be safe for civilians.” The underground National Unity Government said in a statement in January 2023, that 460 civilians, mostly children, have lost their lives in the airstrikes.

With the European Union imposing an arms embargo on Myanmar as well as a ban on the supply of weapons that can be used for internal repression or for monitoring communications and the United States barring any commercial transactions with the military of Myanmar, its major cronies and agents, combat aircraft supplied by China have come in handy for the military rules of Myanmar to kill civilians.

The AP report has quoted David Eubank, a former member of the U.S. Army Special Forces and founder of Free Burma Rangers, that he saw in 2022 Chinese K-8 jet fighters being used almost daily for airstrikes, bombing and strafing and rocket attacks on villages and clinics. “We witnessed the first air strikes right after the coup in Karen state; in villages around us, killing and maiming civilians. Many of the women and children we treated in our clinic.”

Amnesty International said in a statement in November 2022 that these “airstrikes have devastated families, terrorized civilians, killed and maimed victims,” and appealed to “supplies, shipping agents, vessel owners and maritime insurers to withdraw from a supply chain that is benefitting the Myanmar air force.”

The appeal does not seem to have cut any ice with the merciless Communist Party of China rulers in Beijing.

Two years after taking over Myanmar, the military junta still controls the country with Chinese diplomatic and political support despite strong civilian resistance, the Europe Asia Foundation has reported. The support from Beijing has come as a relief for the oppressive military junta in Myanmar. Immediately after the coup in February 2021, the Chinese official news agency Xinhua had played down the political developments in Myanmar as “nothing more than a cabinet reshuffle in which a set of new union ministers was appointed for 11 ministries while 24 deputy ministers were removed.” In the wake of the brutal suppression by Tatmadaw of the protests against the military rule, the democratic world with respect for human rights has started asking questions about the interests of China in the political developments in Myanmar.

Since its takeover of the control of Myanmar in February 2021, Beijing has been steadfast in extending diplomatic support to the Myanmar military. In April 2021, Foreign Minister of China Wang Yi, in interactions with his counterparts in Thailand and Brunei, urged ASEAN members to “fend off external interference” and ensure a “soft landing” for the military rule in Myanmar, according to a report of the Europe Asia Foundation.

While the rest of the international community hesitated to interact with the Tatmadaw leadership in 2021, the Foreign Minister of Myanmar travelled to China to interact with his counterpart. In July, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi attended the Lancang Mekong Cooperation meeting in Myanmar.

In terms of military support, in December 2021, China also provided Myanmar with a ‘Ming-class’ diesel-electric submarine. There are reports that Tatmadaw has agreed to the presence of Chinese technicians on board. Even the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Myanmar has noted that China has transferred weapon systems to Myanmar “with the full knowledge that they would be used to attack civilians.”

The Europe Asia Foundation has reported that the sustained diplomatic and military support of Beijing to Tatmadaw has deepened the anti-Chinese sentiments in Myanmar. But analysts say it is unlikely that Beijing will scale down or alter the trajectory of its engagement with Tatmadaw as Myanmar is a vital land route to access the Indian Ocean and increase the Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean region. The dependence of Tatmadaw on diplomatic and military support from China goes to expand the influence of Beijing in South-East Asia.

Analysts have ruled out the possibility that China would take the role of a mediator in stopping the increasing bloodshed in Myanmar. Beijing views the situation in Myanmar as “business as usual” and is going to ramp up support for the military junta, undertake major investments, pursue the Belt and Road Initiative; and thus push the Myanmar government further into the debt of China. This will help China to take even a greater advantage of the natural resources and the strategic location of Myanmar.

And indeed this analysis has much merit. The AP reported on April 1, 2022, that during a visit by the Foreign Minister of Myanmar to the Anhui province of China, Foreign Minister of China Wang Yi, in an unequivocal support for the ruling Military Council in Myanmar, announced that China would back Myanmar “no matter how the situation changes;” and also that Beijing desired to “deepen cooperation with Naypyidaw. There was also talk on accelerating work on the China – Myanmar Economic Corridor. With the attention of the world distracted to the war in Ukraine, China has ramped up support for the oppressive military junta in Myanmar so that it wins the civil war and protects Chinese investments in Myanmar.

Jason Tower of the United States Institute of Peace has noted that Beijing does not seem to care at all how it is perceived regionally or internationally, and is bent on fully backing autocratic regimes. Besides the China – Myanmar Economic Corridor, Beijing has agreed to boost a range of cross-border cooperation, including cross-border industrial zones. China will provide a grant of 650 million yuan to the military junta in Myanmar, will allow Myanmar to open a consulate at Chongqing and China will finance a massive new LNG plant in Myanmar.

All these are not, however, purely philanthropy. Beijing hopes that the military junta would help settle the issues of ASEAN with China in the South China Sea in China’s favour and stonewall efforts by ASEAN to put a check on Beijing’s increasing domination of the international waters.

#MeKongNews

(လွတ်လပ်သည့် မီဒီယာအဖြစ် ရေရှည်ရပ်တည်နိုင်ရေး သင်တို့အကူအညီလိုအပ်နေပါသည်။ ဤနေရာတွင် www.mekongnewsmm.com/donation နှိပ်၍ လှူဒါန်းနိုင်ပါသည်)

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မဲခေါင်သတင်းဌာနမှ အကြီးတန်းတာဝန်ခံ အွန်လိုင်းအယ်ဒီတာတစ်ယောက် ဖြစ်သည်။ သတင်းမီဒီယာကျင့်ဝတ်၊ လူသားကျင့်ဝတ်တို့ကို လိုက်နာပြီး သတင်းများကို တင်ဆက်သွားမည် ဖြစ်သည်။

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