Junta and TNLA meet in China as fighting continues in northern Shan State

Members of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) reportedly fought junta troops this week in northern Shan State despite ongoing participation in peace talks by the group’s leaders in China. Lt-Gen Tar Gu Jar and Col. Tar Moe Hein, the head of Ta’ang armed group’s Allied Relations Department, are among the TNLA delegation attending Chinese government-brokered ceasefire negotiations in Kunming, the capital of China’s Yunnan Province. The Myanmar junta’s delegation includes Lt-Gen Ko Ko Oo, head of Military Operations Command 1 (MOC-1) in Kyaukme, northern Shan State, who previously attended talks with the Kokang ethnic armed group Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), a past ally of the TNLA. The talks were ongoing as of Tuesday, with intense fighting continuing at the same time between TNLA and junta forces in the town of Nawnghkio and areas nearby due to recent advances by the military, a frontline source said. “In the Artillery Battalion 406 area, the junta has launched counteroffensives in recent days,” the source said. “The battles resumed because of those offensive operations. The fighting has not stopped for some time, and currently it’s very intense there.” The junta continues to hold all artillery battalion bases in Tawng Hkam, Nawnghkio Township, while the TNLA and its allies have succeeded in besieging junta battalion bases 902 and 206. Col. Tar Bhone Kyaw, the TNLA’s second-in-command, said in a Facebook post on Monday that the military regime—which previously reached an agreement with the MNDAA—is trying to negotiate from an advantageous position by continuing its offensives in Tawng Hkam, Nawnghkio Township and Mandalay Region’s Pyin Oo Lwin Township. Although negotiations have now entered their second day, details about the matters under discussion or the potential outcomes of the talks remain uncertain. TNLA spokesperson Lway Yay Oo told Myanmar Now on Saturday that the TNLA’s priority in the talks with the junta would be to discuss the lives, property, and interests of civilians. However, he declined to disclose further details about the status of the negotiations. The MNDAA and junta agreed to a ceasefire in January after China exerted various forms of pressure on the group to negotiate, including the closure of border crossings that the MNDAA depended on for vital trade goods. Reports also emerged Chinese authoruties were holding MNDAA leader Peng Daxun under house arrest in China, although Chinese authorities claimed his reason for staying in the country was to undergo medical treatment. According to Than Soe Naing, a political analyst who served for about 20 years in the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) in northern Shan State, the TNLA and MNDAA have faced different levels of pressure from China. He predicted that the TNLA would not yield as easily to the junta's demands since they are likely to be less impacted by Chinese authorities’ control over border crossing between Yunnan Province and northern Shan State, a key factor in the Chinese authorities’ leverage over the MNDAA. In Than Soe Naing’s estimation, talks between TNLA and the junta have very little chance of success. “China’s pressure on the TNLA, compared with the MNDAA, is such that it can’t really reach them, so I don't think they'll get them to agree to the same kind of terms that they got from MNDAA. However, they might be able to negotiate regarding the reopening of the Muse-Mandalay trade route,” said Than Soe Naing, referring one of the junta’s and China’s shared objectives in the talks. The TNLA is likely to demand the cessation of junta airstrikes on civilian targets in the territories under their control, according to Than Soe Naing. However, he noted, after the junta’s loss of many towns in northern Shan State and inability to recover them through ground operations, airstrikes and heavy artillery remain the junta’s chief tactical advantages. The MNDAA and TNLA were two of the three member groups of the Brotherhood Alliance, which launched a sweeping offensive in northern Shan State against the military called “Operation 1027” in late 2023. While the junta was losing ground, the alliance agreed to a Chinese-mediated ceasefire in January 2024 that broke down five months later. In response to what it claimed were unprovoked artillery and aerial attacks by the junta on territories under their control, the TNLA and MNDAA resumed the offensive in June 2024. Over the two phases of Operation 1027, the TNLA has captured substantial swathes of territory in northern Shan State as well as the neighbouring ruby production hub of Mogok, Mandalay Region.

Junta and TNLA meet in China as fighting continues in northern Shan State

Even as the ethnic armed group’s leaders negotiated peace terms with Myanmar’s military regime, intense clashes raged on in and near northern Shan State’s Nawnghkio Township

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