Why China is backing elections in Myanmar

The vote in Myanmar, widely seen as a sham, is a bid for legitimacy by the military government. It is also a way for Beijing to exert its influence there

Five years ago, the United States played a pivotal role in Myanmar’s general election. Washington assisted with voter education programs, supporting civil society in the name of strengthening global democracy and countering China’s influence in the region.

It was one of the few truly contested elections in Myanmar, which has largely been ruled by its military since independence from Britain in 1948. Voters delivered a decisive win for the civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, but within months the generals again seized power, and Washington downgraded diplomatic ties with the nation.

Now election season has returned in Myanmar, as voters start casting ballots on Sunday. The polls, which will not include many politicians opposed to the junta and will only be held in areas controlled by the military, have been called a sham by the United Nations. But they have a surprising backer — China, a one-party state.

For Beijing, Myanmar is a crucial link to the Indian Ocean. China has committed funds worth billions of dollars for infrastructure projects in its smaller neighbour, including highways and a deep seaport. But the coup in 2021 and an ensuing civil war that has wracked Myanmar have threatened those plans.

In a remarkable statement last year, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, called on Myanmar to achieve domestic peace with an end to the fighting and “national governance based on the will of the people.”

China has promised to provide technological assistance and funding so that the junta can compile voter lists. The irony of a one-party state promoting elections is not lost on observers. Beijing views the poll as the best way to establish a semi-legitimate government in Myanmar that some countries may agree to grit their teeth and negotiate with. China, along with Belarus and Russia, are some of the handful of countries sending election observers.

“It’s a little bit of a joke to think that the Chinese are trying to shepherd election observation missions,” said Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Centre in Washington. “But that just attests to the Chinese effort to window-dress this election, to make it look as pretty and as legitimate as it can.”

Beijing has supplied arms to both the warring junta and the rebel armies to balance its interests. It has also used its leverage over some armed groups to pressure them to hand back territory to the military. Now its hope is that the election will lead to a semblance of stability that would allow it to revive its stalled deep-sea port and oil and gas pipelines on Myanmar’s coast. These projects were meant to reduce China’s reliance on the Strait of Malacca, which Beijing fears the United States could someday blockade.

Ko Ko Gyi, the chair of the People’s Party in Myanmar, said Chinese officials told him in Beijing last year that “Myanmar’s peace and stability directly affect China’s interests.” His political party was one of many in Myanmar invited to China for all-expenses-paid “study tours” in recent years.

Ko Ko Gyi, once one of Myanmar’s most prominent pro-democracy activists, said that even though China is clearly pursuing its own interests, it is “close, influential and willing to engage, while the U.S. remains on the fence.”

“Washington talks about values, but Beijing brings leverage,” he said. “That is why Myanmar keeps leaning toward China, because America offers rhetoric, not commitment.”

But ballots will only be cast in junta-controlled areas, or less than half of the country. Some rebel groups as well as the shadow National Unity Government, a pro-democracy movement, have urged a boycott of the election.

“It is absolutely impossible for Myanmar to become stable or for any meaningful political space to emerge simply by holding an election, as China appears to expect,” said Nay Phone Latt, a spokesperson for the shadow government. “Even if a so-called civilian government were to emerge through such an election, it would still be the same military coup leaders in civilian clothes who would continue to rule.”

Members of the pro-military party that is expected to win the elections, the Union Solidarity and Development Party, have travelled to China five times since 2021 for meetings with Communist Party officials.

“They explained how they systematically built that one-party system, enabling them to govern the country without rivals,” said Thaung Shwe, the director-general of the Myanmar party. “They also discussed how to achieve desired outcomes in elections and how to manage the process to ensure a favourable result.

“They shared ideas on how a democratic system can still function under centralised control.”

While Myanmar’s military will still control the levers of power, the elections could lead to a return to a nominally civilian government or a shake-up among the military elites. It is uncertain what role the junta chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, will play after the elections.

“Even if those who form the next government are the same individuals from the current military government, the system they operate in will change,” said Thet Thet Khine, founder of the People’s Pioneer Party, which comprises former military officials and businesspeople. “That means there will be a shift toward a more democratic path.”

China, she said, is helping Myanmar “move one step closer toward the democracy that our people desire.”

Peng Nian, director of the Hong Kong Research Centre for Asian Studies, compared this election to the 2010 poll, which was seen as a facade to cement military rule but eventually paved the way for the West to engage with Thein Sein, a former general who enacted reforms.

“Regardless of what the West thinks, it is at least a democratisation process,” Peng said.

Ultimately, the veneer of legitimacy that China provides in this election could help the Myanmar junta entrench its power and further the military’s idea of a so-called “disciplined democracy.”

“The last thing China wants is for there to be a full-scale revolution that advances systemic change and pushes the Myanmar military out,” said Jason Tower, the former country director for Myanmar at the United States Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan research organisation.

But despite the apparent bonhomie, the Myanmar generals remain suspicious of China. They dislike China’s role in funding the rebel armies in Myanmar’s borderlands and are wary of over-reliance on its giant neighbour. The country that Min Aung Hlaing has visited the most is not China but Russia.

China has also signalled its displeasure with the general, given the instability on the border, the junta’s failure to shut down the scam centres that have ensnared thousands of Chinese victims, and an attack on the Chinese consulate in Mandalay last year.

Analysts say these factors provide an opening for the West to engage with Myanmar, where many want to balance relations between the world’s two major superpowers.

“The international community needs to do something differently in Myanmar,” said Morgan Michaels, a research fellow for Southeast Asian security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a think tank. “But if they keep waiting and doing nothing, then the country is going to continue to fragment and be pulled closer and closer into China’s orbit.”

Myanmar’s coming election lays bare a reversal of roles and a vacuum of resolve. As Washington stays cautious and value-heavy but leverage-light, China’s transactional engagement fills the space — despite mutual mistrust and competing interests. The result is an election that is unlikely to bring peace or democracy, but may still harden Myanmar’s drift into a “disciplined democracy” shaped more by geopolitical convenience than by the consent of its people.

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.)