Myanmar rebels prepare to hand key city back to junta, China says

YANGON: A Myanmar ethnic minority armed group is preparing to hand a captured city back to the military in a Beijing-brokered deal, China's foreign ministry said Tuesday, as residents reported junta troops already returning.

The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) ousted Myanmar's military from the city of Lashio in August 2024, capturing their northeastern command and a key trade route to China.

Analysts say it was the worst strategic loss the military suffered since seizing power in a 2021 coup that sparked a civil war pitting the generals against anti-coup fighters and long-active ethnic armed groups.

But Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun told reporters the MNDAA is set to relinquish the city to the military without firing a shot.

"At the joint invitation of both sides, China recently dispatched a ceasefire monitoring team to Lashio, Myanmar, to oversee the ceasefire between the Myanmar military and the MNDAA and to witness the smooth and orderly handover of Lashio's urban area," he said.

China is a major ally and arms supplier of the junta but also maintains ties with ethnic rebel groups that hold territory near its border like the MNDAA, which can muster around 8,000 fighters.

Monitors have said the fall of Lashio -- around 100 kilometres (62 miles) from Chinese territory -- was a step too far for Beijing, which balked at the prospect of instability on its borders.

Military movements in Lashio

The MNDAA has not commented on the handover and a spokesman for Myanmar's military could not be reached by AFP for comment.

But a military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP: "Some military officers have been transferred to Lashio in recent days. Some are on their way to Lashio already."

One Lashio resident this week told AFP they had been turned away by an MNDAA checkpoint outside a hotel, after being told members of the group were meeting Myanmar military officials inside.

And a spokesman for the Lashio office of another ethnic armed organisation, allied with the MNDAA, told AFP they were "seeing military vehicles in town".

In late 2023, the MNDAA and two other ethnic rebel groups began a combined offensive which seized swathes of Myanmar's northern Shan state, including lucrative ruby mines and trade links.

Beijing has long been eyeing the territory for infrastructure investment under its trillion-dollar Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.

After Lashio's fall China cut power, water and internet to the MNDAA's homeland region of Kokang, a source close to the group told AFP.

In December it said it would cease fire and was ready for China-mediated "peace talks with the Myanmar army on issues such as Lashio".