This article follows the development of foreign intervention in the civil war in Myanmar. China has begun to take steps to extend a more substantial influence over the region, seemingly to counter US intervention after the recent National Defense Authorization Act and the Burmese Act. The NDAA and Burmese Act were aimed at supporting the resistance movements of the National Unity Government, the People’s Defense Forces and the various ethnic militant groups against a more technologically and materially superior military force of the junta. Now China is beginning to meet with junta leaders to balance out US influence. China’s interests lay beyond just balancing US interests, but to include Myanmar as a pathway to their access to the Indian Ocean, through investing in transportation infrastructure projects connecting China through Myanmar to the Indian Ocean.

The NUG guarantees no stability nor peace, which the Chinese government emphasizes to ensure their planned development for the region. If this is the case, is US and Chinese involvement prolonging this civil war and exacerbating the humanitarian crisis as Myanmar becomes a new battleground for a proxy war between the US and China? This may be a reality if either side country decides to become more involved in the conflict.

https://www.rfa.org/english/news/myanmar/visits-04282023171730.html