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Myanmar’s junta, the military government that seized power in a 2021 coup, is drawing fresh engagement from neighbours and major powers. A sham January election installed junta chief Min Aung Hlaing as civilian President. The military’s war on its own people continues, so engagement rewards a regime that has not ended the violence.

What is happening inside Myanmar?

1. Civil war since the coup: Since the coup, the junta has fought the anti-coup People’s Defence Forces and ethnic armed organisations, militias drawn from Myanmar’s ethnic minorities.
2. Death toll: More than a lakh people are estimated to have died since the coup. Air strikes on rebel-held villages have killed thousands of civilians to force surrender.
3. World attention elsewhere: Wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, Yemen and Iran have drawn the world’s attention away, so the junta acts without fear of punishment.
4. The takeaway: The election changed the junta chief’s title, not the regime’s conduct.

Who is engaging the junta, and how?

1. Russia and China: Both are the junta’s principal arms suppliers. Russia supplied jets used to bomb civilians.
2. China on both sides: China quietly let three ethnic armed organisations launch an offensive in Shan and Rakhine States in late 2023. It then pressed most of them into ceasefires and backed the election.
3. ASEAN: The President has visited India, Thailand, Vietnam and three other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members. ASEAN still backs its Five-Point Consensus peace plan: end violence, hold dialogue.
4. United States: U.S. officials reportedly held secret talks with the junta in Tokyo, and a senior delegation met the President in Naypyidaw.
5. Japan: Japan is reportedly pressing the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global watchdog against money laundering, to take Myanmar off its blacklist.

What do the engaging powers want?

1. China’s corridor: China wants an outlet to the Indian Ocean and security for its oil and gas pipelines across Myanmar.
2. China’s rebel ties: China also deals with the Kachin Independence Organisation, whose land holds rare earths and jade, and the United Wa State Army, which runs a massive tin mine.
3. India’s connectivity goal: New Delhi wants to revive its stalled Act East policy of closer ties with Southeast Asia, including the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project.
4. U.S. interest in minerals: Washington eyes access to heavy rare earths such as dysprosium and terbium, used in electric vehicles and weapons systems.

Can business with the junta deliver what its partners want?

1. Peace before trade: Trade thrives in a country at peace, not in one where armed groups are perennially battling for control.
2. A regime that cannot deliver peace: A junta that has killed its citizens and scuttled every move towards democracy cannot deliver that peace.
3. ASEAN’s contradiction: Members are eager to do business with a regime that has flouted every point of their consensus.
4. Accountability as the condition: Unless the generals answer for their war crimes, Myanmar will remain a war zone, ruinous for its people and for businesses trading with it.

Challenges

1. Stalled connectivity: Security threats and internal conflict have stalled India’s Kaladan and India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway projects for years.
2. Rebel-held ground: Armed resistance groups control nearly half of Myanmar’s territory, so deals with the junta alone cannot secure projects on the ground.
3. Impunity rewarded: Engagement without conditions tells the junta that war crimes carry no diplomatic cost.

Way Forward

1. Conditional engagement: Tie visits and trade to verifiable steps under the Five-Point Consensus, starting with an end to air strikes.
2. Accountability support: Back international efforts to hold the junta’s leadership responsible for war crimes.
3. Talk to all sides: India should engage the anti-coup forces and ethnic armed organisations that hold the territory its projects cross.

Conclusion

Engagement with Myanmar’s junta now runs on strategic and commercial interest rather than on any change in the regime’s conduct. Whether partners attach accountability conditions will decide if Myanmar’s corridors and minerals can ever be reached in peace.

Back2Basics: Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project

1. What it is: An India-Myanmar project linking India’s Northeast to the sea through Myanmar.
2. Route: It joins Kolkata port to Sittwe port in Myanmar by sea, runs up the Kaladan river to Paletwa, and continues by road to Mizoram.
3. Strategic value: It reduces India’s dependence on the Siliguri Corridor and strengthens India’s trade route to ASEAN markets.
4. Chinese competition: The China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, from Yunnan to Kyaukphyu on the Bay of Bengal, competes with it.

Matching Previous Year Question

“[2026] Which of the following connectivity projects is/are a part of cooperation between India and the ASEAN member countries? 1. Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project 2. IMT Trilateral Highway 3. Agartala-Akhaura Rail Line (a) 1 and 2 (b) 2 and 3 (c) 1 and 3 (d) 2 only ANSWER: A”