Myanmar confirms a key northeastern city on border with China has been seized by an ethnic alliance

Myanmar’s military government has admitted that it withdrew its soldiers from a crucial city on the country’s northeastern border with China after it was taken over by an alliance of ethnic armed groups against which it had been fighting for months.

The loss of Laukkaing late Thursday is the most significant in a string of defeats for Myanmar’s military administration since the ethnic coalition started an onslaught on 27 October. It highlights the government’s precarious position as it fights pro-democracy insurgents and ethnic minority armed groups across the nation in the aftermath of a military takeover in 2021.

While ethnic armed groups have long fought for further autonomy, since the army overthrew Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in February 2021 and sparked armed resistance across the country by pro-democracy forces, Myanmar has been plunged into what has effectively become a civil war.

The Ta’ang National Liberation Army, the Arakan Army, and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army make up the Three Brotherhood Alliance that captured Laukkaing. The Kokang minority, who are ethnic Chinese, have a military unit called the MNDAA.

Social media posts included images and videos of several weaponry that the alliance claimed to have taken.

Laukkaing is the capital of the Kokang Self-Administered Zone, which is geographically part of northern Shan state in Myanmar.

Myanmar government spokesperson Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun told the Popular News Journal, a pro-army website, on Saturday that the military and its local commanders relinquished control of Laukkaing after considering many aspects, including the safety of the family members of the soldiers stationed there.

He said the military also took into consideration Myanmar’s relationship with China, which is just across the border from Laukkaing. China, which has good relations with both the military and the ethnic alliance, has been seeking an end to the fighting.

Beijing protested after artillery shells landed in its territory on Wednesday, wounding five people. Zaw Min Tun said the alliance had fired the shells and that it tried to blame the military in order to damage its relationship with China.

A statement posted by the alliance on social media late Friday declared that the entire Kokang region had become a “Military Council-free area,” referring to Myanmar’s ruling junta.

It said 2,389 military personnel — including six brigadier generals — and their family members had surrendered by Friday and that all were evacuated to safety.

Video clips circulating on social media purportedly showed the soldiers and their family members being transported in various vehicles. The Shwe Phee Myay News Agency, an online news site reporting from Shan state, reported that many of them were taken to Lashio, the capital of Shan’s northern region, under an agreement with the MNDAA for their repatriation.

It’s unclear whether the Three Brotherhood Alliance will try to extend its offensive outside of Shan state, but it has vowed to keep fighting against military rule.

The alliance cast its offensive as a struggle against military rule and an effort to rid the region of major organized criminal enterprises. China has publicly sought to eradicate cyberscam operations in Laukkaing that have entrapped tens of thousands of Chinese nationals, who have been repatriated to China in recent weeks.

But the offensive was also widely recognized as an effort by the MNDAA to regain control of the Kokang Self-Administered Zone by ousting a rival Kokang group backed by the military government from its seat of power.

Peng Deren, the MNDAA commander, said in a New Year’s speech published by The Kokang, an affiliated online media site, that the alliance had seized over 250 military targets and five border crossings with China. He said more than 300 cyberscam centers were raided and more than 40,000 Chinese involved in the operations were repatriated.