Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing held talks with Premier Li Qiang of key ally China on the civil war roiling his country. File photo
| Photo Credit: AP

Myanmar’s junta chief has held talks with Premier Li Qiang of key ally China on the civil war roiling his country, state media said Thursday, during his first visit to the country since seizing power in a 2021 coup.

Min Aung Hlaing told Li at a meeting in the southwestern city of Kunming that the military was ready for peace if armed groups would engage, according to an account of the meeting in the Global New Light of Myanmar (GNLM).

Myanmar has been racked by conflict between the military and various armed groups opposed to its rule since the army ousted Aung San Suu Kyi’s elected government in February 2021.

The junta is reeling from a major rebel offensive last year that seized a large area of territory, much of it near the border with China.

“The door of peace is always open if they genuinely want peace,” Min Aung Hlaing told Li, according to the GNLM report.

“The armed insurgents should do what needs to be done instead of giving priority to their needs and wishes.”

China has been a major arms supplier to the junta and provided Myanmar with political backing even as other countries shun the generals over their brutal crackdown on dissent.

But Beijing is concerned about the chaos unfolding on its doorstep, in particular the growth of online scam compounds in Myanmar, run by and targeting Chinese citizens.

In its report of the Kunming meeting, on the sidelines of a regional summit, China’s state news agency Xinhua said Li had stressed the need to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens and projects in Myanmar.

Last month, a blast targeted the Chinese consulate in Mandalay. There were no casualties but Beijing issued a furious rebuke.

Li did not explicitly back the junta’s approach to the civil war, according to the Xinhua report.

Instead, he told Min Aung Hlaing that China supported Myanmar in “advancing the political reconciliation and transformation”.

Beijing is concerned about the possibility the junta could fall, analysts say, and is suspicious about Western influence among some of the pro-democracy armed groups battling the military.

Myanmar is a vital part of Beijing’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road initiative, with railways and pipelines to link China’s landlocked southwest to the Indian Ocean.