Myanmar Junta Chief Rebuilds Ties With Neighbors Despite Civil War

Yangon, Myanmar – When Malaysia invited coup leader and Myanmar president Min Aung Hlaing to visit in September, it insisted the trip did not amount to recognition. The purpose, according to an official, was to address the "long-standing problem" of Myanmar refugees and migrants in Malaysia.

But when Min Aung Hlaing arrived in Kuala Lumpur last week, the former general — whose 2021 power grab triggered a devastating civil war — was received with full honours, including a guard of honour.

After an official lunch on Thursday, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said Myanmar was ready to take back its citizens at its own expense, a message with appeal in a country where anti-refugee sentiment is rising. Malaysia currently hosts about 193,000 Myanmar nationals, most of them members of the persecuted Muslim Rohingya minority.

"Because the weather is favourable, I will send navy ships to take them back," Min Aung Hlaing said.

For his part, Anwar pledged to help Myanmar reintegrate into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the 11-member bloc that has barred Min Aung Hlaing from high-level meetings for refusing to implement its peace plan. Malaysia was once a strong backer of that plan, known as the Five-Point Consensus, which calls for an end to violence and constructive dialogue among the warring parties.

Myanmar's civil war is now in its fifth year, having killed as many as 100,000 people and displaced at least 3.5 million, according to monitoring groups.

"Malaysia will do everything possible to ensure that… in the end, we bring Myanmar back as part of the community of nations, without prejudice, especially within ASEAN," Anwar told reporters.

Malaysia is the fifth ASEAN nation to host Min Aung Hlaing since he became president in April, following elections held in December and January from which major opposition parties were barred. In recent months he has visited Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. After returning from Malaysia, his spokesman said Indonesia and Brunei could be next.

"Malaysia's reversal on Min Aung Hlaing has broken the wall of opposition to the military regime," said Bridget Welsh, an honorary research fellow at the University of Nottingham's Asia Research Institute in Kuala Lumpur. She argued that regional leaders who have welcomed Min Aung Hlaing, despite allegations that he committed crimes against humanity, are putting pragmatism above human rights.

"This is a setback for ASEAN as an organisation, and for Myanmar," she said. "It offers no concrete path to resolving the Myanmar crisis, and in fact may worsen it by giving the military international legitimacy it does not have inside Myanmar itself."

'Convenience plays a part'

Min Aung Hlaing's rehabilitation extends beyond Southeast Asia.

Since April, the former general has also visited India, China, Russia and Belarus. At each stop, he has sought to present his government as stable and "on the path to democratisation", while pitching trade and infrastructure deals.

Even the United States appears to have opened a door. Reuters reported last week that Washington had begun direct talks with Min Aung Hlaing's government, despite sanctions imposed on him for human rights abuses, including the 2017 campaign against the Rohingya that drove more than 700,000 people into Bangladesh and which the US has called genocide. Reuters said the latest talks focused on shutting down scam centres operating from Myanmar that have defrauded Americans of billions of dollars.

Khin Zaw Win, director of the Tampadipa Institute in Yangon, said Min Aung Hlaing's push for international legitimacy is being aided by a coordinated effort from China, India and Thailand, all of which share a border with Myanmar. These three neighbours have absorbed spillover from the war, such as fighting near their borders, trade disruptions and refugee flows. Khin Zaw Win said the three "have the biggest stake in where Myanmar goes" and want the military-installed government recognised. "Convenience plays a part for all of them," he said.

Yet growing diplomatic recognition is doing nothing to resolve the conflict. While Min Aung Hlaing invites all armed groups to peace talks, fighting continues to rage across much of the country. His forces have launched offensives to retake territory seized by opposition resistance groups and ethnic armed organisations in Rakhine, Chin, Kachin, Karen and Sagaing. They are backed by an intensified air campaign and a recruitment drive that has added tens of thousands of troops. China has also helped by brokering ceasefire deals between the military and powerful ethnic armed groups along the border.

Even so, Laetitia van den Assum, a former Dutch diplomat, said the military is unlikely to regain control of the entire country. "That would require a huge occupying army, not — as now — a garrison army controlling a specific location," she said. "That is why Min Aung Hlaing… is betting on more and more temporary ceasefires in some areas so he can move troops to the areas where he wants to keep fighting."

Van den Assum said she found it "quite surprising" that ASEAN nations were seeking to repatriate Rohingya from the very man accused of directing atrocities against them. Myanmar has long denied Rohingya citizenship, so it is unclear whether the country will accept them as citizens. And with much of Rakhine state — their homeland — now controlled by the Arakan Army, it is also unclear where they would go.

"It is the blind talking to the blind," she said.

'Low cost, high optics'

Min Aung Hlaing has made other moves, too. Not long before his August visit to Thailand, he allowed the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to meet Aung San Suu Kyi, the civilian leader he deposed in 2021. The 81-year-old Nobel laureate had been held incommunicado since the coup, and the ICRC meeting on 3 August produced the first photographs of her in years.

Sai Kyi Zin Soe, a research fellow at the University of Sydney, called the move "a low-cost, high-optics gesture rather than a genuine political opening". The meeting only confirmed that Aung San Suu Kyi is alive, "nothing more", he said. He noted that the military's air strikes have continued unabated even as ASEAN leaders roll out the red carpet, including a 28 September attack on a market in Rakhine state that killed about 50 people.

He said the continuing attacks are "the strongest evidence that soft diplomacy has created no deterrent effect whatsoever". Sai Kyi Zin Soe also warned that the legitimacy conferred by overseas visits will only embolden the military further.

"With deterrence almost entirely absent, sanctions enforcement negligible, ASEAN tilting towards re-engagement, and the continued flow of weapons and fuel via China and Russia, the military has every structural incentive to keep escalating, particularly in contested areas like Sagaing and Rakhine where its control is weakest," he said.

Much now depends on the Philippines and Singapore, ASEAN's current and incoming chairs. Phil Robertson, director of the Asia Human Rights and Labour Advocates group, said the two countries must set an agenda that pushes back hard against calls from other regional states to let "Myanmar fully back in", and keep promoting the bloc's five-point peace plan.

He also urged the US, UK, Canada, Australia and the European Union to impose targeted sanctions, such as a ban on aviation fuel, rather than leaving "the whole Myanmar conundrum" to the regional bloc.

"International accountability is more urgent than ever, whether through more universal jurisdiction cases or some breakthrough to bring Myanmar's generals before the International Criminal Court," he added.

Zaheena Rasheed reported and wrote from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.