Managed chaos: Chinas game plan for a broken Myanmar

For over 2,000 years, the history of Myanmar has been written in the shadow of the giant to the north.

From the Pyu city-states sending tribute to the Tang court, to the Konbaung kings holding off Qing invasions in the 1760s, our ancestors understood a fundamental truth: Myanmar must be the bamboo that bends with the wind but never breaks.

We lived beside the “Middle Kingdom,” negotiated with it and sometimes fought it, but we never surrendered our soul to it. We were the river that flowed around the mountain, never the stream that disappeared into it.

Today, though, that ancient spine of steel has been snapped. The current military junta, led by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, has broken the sacred compact of sovereignty.

Desperate to survive a revolution he cannot defeat, he has turned our country into a geopolitical pawn shop. Today, as the regime rolls out its “election” theater, we are witnessing the final act of this betrayal.

As reported from the ground, the first phase of the election on Sunday (December 28), with two additional phases to come in January, was not a democratic exercise but a theater of the absurd performed at gunpoint.

In Yangon, polling stations stood empty as citizens staged a silent boycott. In Sagaing, soldiers forced motorists to vote at gunpoint. In Rakhine, the junta’s vaunted “electronic voting machines” failed in towns without electricity.

Yet, while the people of Myanmar rejected this charade, our neighbors embraced it. China, Russia, Thailand and Indonesia sent observers to legitimize the process. Beijing dispatched Special Envoy Deng Xijun, and Moscow sent a Duma deputy, signaling their intent to prop up a regime that cannot even control its own capital’s outskirts.

Why? Because for Beijing and Moscow, this election is not about stability. It is about contracts.

China’s managed chaos strategy

We must confront a disturbing reality: our neighbor’s strategy has darkened. As analyst Amara Thiha reveals inForeign Affairs, Beijing is no longer trying to “fix” Myanmar’s fragmentation—it is learning to better exploit it. China has shifted to a strategy of “managed chaos.”

Beijing now believes it can control the turmoil to its own advantage. It does not fear a divided Myanmar; it prefers one. By ensuring that no single faction—whether the junta or the resistance—can access resources or trade without going through Beijing first, China creates a state of total dependence.

China wants a Myanmar weak enough to be compliant, but stable enough to protect their pipelines.

While Beijing plays this cynical game, too many Western capitals are falling for the junta’s spin. They echo the fear of “fragmentation” as if it were an inevitable catastrophe, failing to see that this chaos is manufactured by the junta and managed by China.

Worse, rumors persist in Washington that the US might consider “normalizing” relations with the junta after the elections to secure access to rare earth elements (REEs). This is a dangerous fantasy.

The junta cannot offer the West a clean supply chain for REEs because the mines in Kachin state are controlled by militias deeply enmeshed with Chinese processing firms. Engaging the junta for resources is not strategy; it is complicity in the very corruption the West claims to oppose.

This geopolitical cynicism is matched by a growing arrogance. Recently, Chinese academic voices have taken to social media to claim that the Irrawaddy’s fresh water “flows from China,” implying that Myanmar’s people should be grateful—or even pay—for the water that sustains us.

This is the logic behind the resurrection of the Myitsone Dam project. Situated at the confluence that births the Irrawaddy River, a mega-dam there would give a foreign power a “tap” that they can turn off at will on our primary water source. It would hand over control of our agriculture, our delta and our very survival to Beijing.

Now comes the most dangerous phase. Beijing views this election as a mechanism to institutionalize a “hybrid” regime—giving the military a civilian façade just legal enough to sign valid contracts for the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC).

This is the “poison pill” strategy: creating a web of legal debt that will trap any future democratic government. By rushing these contracts through a puppet parliament, they intend to make it legally impossible for us to say “no” later without facing crippling debt or lawsuits.

Principled Western non-recognition

The US and its allies must see this trap for what it is. We do not ask for intervention, but for consistency. Our calls are:

1. Reject Normalization:Do not be seduced by the mirage of “stability.” The junta is the agent of instability.
2. Deny Legitimacy:The West must declare now that any government resulting from this sham election will be unrecognized. Its signature will have no more weight than that of a criminal cartel.
3. Advisory on Contracts:Western governments should issue advisories warning businesses that long-term contracts signed with the post-election regime carry extreme legal and reputational risks.

Ledger of resistance

For the people of Myanmar, the path is clear. We must operationalize our defiance.

We must support the opposition National Unity Government (NUG) and ethnic alliances in establishing a “Public Registry of Contested Contracts.”

We must warn every investor: if you sign a deal with the junta to steal our resources, the free people of Myanmar will review and potentially void it the day we win. This “Ledger of Resistance” will be our witness and our weapon.

The junta is trying to sell a house that does not belong to them. They are trading the Irrawaddy’s water, the mountains’ minerals and our dignity for a few more years of power.

But the title deeds to this land are written in the blood of our ancestors. We must keep our spirits alive, for even if the contracts are signed today, a united people can tear them up tomorrow. Sovereignty is not given; it is reclaimed. And we will soon reclaim it.

James Shwe is a semi-retired professional engineer and independent advocate for Myanmar democracy. He writes on infrastructure, sovereignty and regional geopolitics.