China Power | Society | East Asia

How an Academic Became Collateral Damage to China’s Interests in Myanmar

The arrest of Burmese-American scholar U Min Zin highlights China’s determination to ensure its role in Myanmar doesn’t come under scrutiny. 

On June 3, Burmese-American scholar U Min Zin disappeared in China’s southwestern province of Yunnan, where he was set to attend an academic conference. On June 12, shortly before Myanmar’s ruler, Min Aung Hlaing, arrived in China for a state visit, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian confirmed that Zin had been arrested and accused of endangering Chinese national security. No further details were provided. 

On August 20, the U.S. State Department officially classified Zin as “wrongfully detained.” Assistant Secretary of State for Global Public Affairs Dylan Johnson pledged that the U.S. government “will continue to advocate for Mr. Zin and call for the release of all U.S. citizens who are arbitrarily detained or exit banned in China.”

Zin runs the Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar, a think tank in Thailand that is critical of Myanmar’s military government and the 2021 coup that brought it to power. Initially, the arrest of Zin, a U.S. citizen, may seem like another attempt by Beijing to engage in hostage diplomacy and gain the upper hand in any potential negotiations with the United States at the September summit between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump. But Beijing’s arrest of Zin actually has more to do with Myanmar itself. China wanted to remove a potentially destabilizing variable from the already unsteady foundations of Chinese investment in Myanmar, which is key to Beijing’s economic strategy in Southeast Asia.

For China, its core strategic interests in Myanmar are the stability of its shared border, the safety of its economic investments, and the closure of scam centers that ensnare and enslave Chinese nationals. To that end, Beijing supports the military junta that seized power from Myanmar’s democratically elected government. China has provided the new regime with $3 billion in economic assistance, as well as selling it military weapons. 

Beijing also applies diplomatic pressure on Myanmar’s ethnic armed organizations. Beijing has not been shy about detaining leaders of these resistance groups to force ceasefires between them and the military leaders in Naypyidaw and protect China’s infrastructure projects. If a person or organization is deemed a threat to China’s interests in Myanmar, Beijing is willing and able to use its full suite of tools against them, including forced detention. 

China especially wants to protect the stability of the newly elected Burmese government. Though the election was widely condemned as a sham, the nominally civilian Parliament can sign contracts and negotiate agreements that the junta cannot. The veneer of civilian administration allows for continuity in China’s projects and legal leverage should the junta’s leadership change.

Since the launch of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Myanmar has been a key to China’s economic strategy in Southeast Asia. Of particular importance is the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), which connects China to the Indian Ocean and provides a much-needed economic infusion in China’s less-developed southwestern provinces. 

As technological competition with the West intensifies, Myanmar has only grown more important. Beijing sources rare earth minerals from Myanmar’s northern Kachin State to meet its defense and clean-energy needs. Such processing involves using toxic chemicals to extract precious elements from the soil. Residents, outraged by the damage, protested the continuous harm to their environment, but by all reports, the extraction continues. 

Residents of Kachin State allege that China’s rare earth mining has threatened water sources, putting their health and food supply at risk. The United Nations has reported that numerous mines have forcibly displaced civilians and received financial support from the military junta for their operations. According to the outlet Frontier Myanmar, since 2024, junta troops working with Chinese mines have routinely arrested and killed civilians at random.

The public opposition is having real consequences. In February 2022, a Chinese oil and gas pipeline was attacked by a civilian militia opposed to Chinese support of the junta. In 2024, the Burmese and Chinese governments reportedly were working together to assemble a joint security company to protect Chinese projects and personnel from attacks. 

The backlash against Chinese projects endangers the vast sums of wealth that public and private enterprises have poured into Myanmar. If infrastructure investments falter, China will lose access to vast amounts of critical minerals, harming its ambitions to develop defense and other high-end technologies........

© The Diplomat