Myanmar’s Kachin insurgents take control of their border with China

Read RFA coverage of this topic in Burmese.

The most powerful insurgent group in northern Myanmar had captured the last crossing in its region on the border with China in defiance of Chinese efforts to press it and other Myanmar rebel forces to make peace with the junta that seized power in 2021.

The Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, has been fighting for self-determination in Myanmar’s northernmost Kachin state on and off for decades and has made significant advances against the military over the past year.

KIA and allied fighters launched a final push for Kan Paik Ti town, 75 kilometers (46 miles) east of the state capital, Myitkyina, early on Wednesday and captured it by around 7 p.m., a resident and a source close to the KIA said.

“The junta soldiers fled to the border fence or to the Chinese side,” said a town resident who declined to be identified for safety reasons. “Employees of the junta administration have also been fleeing from the border gate to China.”

Junta forces initially sent an aircraft to fire at insurgent positions but the town was quiet on Thursday, the resident said. The source close to the KIA said junta forces had launched attacks in other areas after the fall of Kan Paik Ti.

Residents had no information about casualties in the latest fighting.

RFA tried to reach Kachin state’s junta spokesperson, Moe Min Thein, and the KIA’s information officer, Naw Bu, for information but neither responded by time of the publication.

The KIA and allied forces in northeastern, western and eastern Myanmar have made stunning gains over the past year, putting the army under the most severe pressure it has faced since shortly after independence from Britain in 1948.

But the insurgents’ success has alarmed giant neighbor China, which has extensive economic interests in Myanmar, including energy pipelines running up from the Indian Ocean and mining projects.

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China has thrown its support behind the junta, promising to back an election next year that the junta hopes will bolster its legitimacy, and putting pressure on the KIA and other insurgent groups to respond positively to junta offers of talks.

The junta leader, Sen. Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, renewed a call to insurgent forces to talk peace while on a visit to China on Nov. 6, telling Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang that stability was crucial for economic development and trade.

But the insurgents have dismissed the junta’s offer as a trick and reject the planned election as a sham when Myanmar’s most popular politician, Aung San Suu Kyi, and hundreds of other opponents of military rule are in prison.

Over the past year, the KIA has captured jade and rare earth mines that export to China, and both sides have at different times sealed the border, partly to put economic pressure on the other side.

China recently closed the border to civilians seeking shelter from fighting and has also shut off supplies reaching KIA-controlled areas leading to shortages of fuel and medicine.

The KIA responded by suspending exports of rare earths to China, and the group now controls every border crossing through which the minerals vital to a range of Chinese manufacturing pass.

Translated by Kiana Duncan. Edited by RFA Burmese.