Chinese, Myanmar junta diplomats discuss planned election at Yunnan summit

The subject of the Myanmar junta’s December 2025 elections arose on Thursday at a diplomatic meeting in China’s Yunnan Province, where junta foreign minister Than Swe spoke with both his Chinese and Thai counterparts, according to regime-run media. During the discussions, which took place at a summit of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation in Yunnan Province’s Anning, Than Swe informed China’s top diplomat Wang Yi about the junta’s plans for holding the elections, the junta-controlled newspaper Global New Light of Myanmar (GNLM) reported. According to the GNLM, Than Swe also met separately with Thailand’s foreign minister Maris Sangiampongsa to discuss cooperation on border affairs, a concern that Thailand shares with Myanmar’s larger neighbour. The Chinese government has publicly expressed support for the planned junta-managed elections in Myanmar despite criticism from other voices in the international community, and Wang Yi reiterated this support in his conversation with Than Swe in Anning, the GNLM report said. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi meets the Myanmar military regime’s foreign minister Than Swe in Anning, a city in southwest China’s Yunnan Province, on August 14, 2025. Photo: Chinese Embassy in Myanmar) Tom Andrews, an independent adviser to the United Nations on human rights in Myanmar, has called the planned elections “fraud” meant to deflect questions about the legitimacy of the military regime, which came to power in 2021 by ousting the elected government of civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi. “The Chinese Foreign Minister expressed the full support of China for the holding of the election and political development in Myanmar,” GNLM reported. The Chinese state media outlet CGTN reported that Wang Yi communicated China’s backing for Myanmar’s junta in “in safeguarding its sovereignty, independence and national unity,” and expressed hope that the regime would “ensure the safety of Chinese personnel, institutions and projects in the country.” Myanmar is home to several infrastructure development initiatives backed by investment from China, including a deep sea port construction project in the war-torn Rakhine State, where the safety of onsite Chinese workers is a continuing concern. Amid the full-blown civil war that has raged in Myanmar since the military coup, the junta has faced an onslaught of attacks by resistance forces and ethnic armed groups, struggling to maintain control over the country’s territory. Due in part to its interest in ensuring stability on its border with Myanmar and allowing trade to proceed between the two countries, China has pushed some of the strongest anti-junta groups in Myanmar’s border areas to negotiate ceasefires with the junta and lay down their arms. The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA)—an armed group whose membership is of predominantly Kokang Chinese ethnicity—responded to China’s pressure by relinquishing control of Lashio, the strategically critical city in northern Shan State that it had captured from junta forces the previous year. China is now similarly pushing the MNDAA’s ally, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), to surrender towns still under its control to the military regime. Junta forces succeeded in driving the TNLA out of Nawnghkio, northern Shan State last month, retaking a town the TNLA had held for a year. In November of last year, Myanmar junta chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing made his first visit to China since the 2021 coup. At the end of last month, Min Aung Hlaing officially ended the state of emergency that had been in place in Myanmar since the coup and rebranded the military regime under a new name in a move some interpreted as preparation for making himself president after the planned December elections.

Chinese, Myanmar junta diplomats discuss planned election at Yunnan summit

China’s foreign minister reiterated that his government supports the Myanmar junta’s plans to hold the upcoming elections, which the regime’s opponents have dismissed as a fraudulent ploy for legitimacy

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