Myanmar’s military dictators don’t care about Aung San Suu Kyi. Here’s what they really crave

May 2, 2026 — 10:29am

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Singapore: Myanmar’s military has moved Aung San Suu Kyi, the nation’s most popular politician, from jail to home detention, marking the most significant shift in the regime’s strategy towards opponents since it rolled the tanks over her democratically elected government in the 2021 coup.

It may also be the beginning of a process leading to her full release.

What to make of this? The starting point is to note that in more than five years of brutal repression, civil war and economic vandalism, coup leader Min Aung Hlaing – a military dictator who now calls himself president after faux elections this year – has shown no liberalising tendencies.

It would seem unlikely the leopard is changing his spots. What he does crave, though, is credibility and, in turn, the easing of sanctions, access to finance and the normalisation of international relations.

Myanmar’s economy, growing at more than 6 per cent in the year before the coup, is now utterly cooked. Regime blundering and conflicts with pro-democracy........

© Brisbane Times