When Myanmar’s military staged a coup on February 1, 2021, many assumed history would repeat itself. The junta, with decades of experience in repression and vast firepower, was seen as “too big to fail.” Previous uprisings in 1988 and 2007 had been brutally crushed, as were the anti-coup protests thatContinue Reading
Myanmar’s economy is set to shrink by 2 percent this financial year, due to the effects of intensifying conflict and economic mismanagement by the military junta, according to the latest Myanmar economic outlook from the research group BMI. BMI, a unit of Fitch Solutions, cited the World Bank’s recent projectionContinue Reading
The head of Myanmar’s military junta arrived in Belarus yesterday for a two-day state visit aimed at shoring up support for his sanctioned and besieged military administration. Arriving from St. Petersburg, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing was welcomed at the airport in Minsk by Belarusian Minister of Foreign Affairs MaksimContinue Reading
Almost everyone in Myanmar wants democracy, yet few have considered what kind of democracy best aligns with the country’s political realities. Myanmar has endured decades of political instability, ethnic conflict, and economic inequality, stemming from a system that fails to represent all ethnic groups fairly. Different factions have competing visionsContinue Reading
Myanmar is currently at a pivotal moment, and the U.S. has the opportunity to turn the country’s crisis into a foreign policy success story. Since the 2021 military coup, violence has escalated, displacing millions and creating a severe humanitarian crisis. Ethnic and religious minority regions like Chin, Kachin, Karen, andContinue Reading
Myanmar’s current conscription system is an act of fascist control, exploiting the lives of civilians in order to safeguard the country’s military junta against resistance forces. In 2024, the junta started enforcing the 2010 People’s Military Service Law, making it mandatory for men to serve as conscripts. Over a yearContinue Reading
“The Union long united must be divided and long divided must be united. Thus, it has ever been.” If you are an avid follower and reader of Chinese history and literature, you may sense that the above line is a copy and twist from the opening line of the “RomanceContinue Reading
The military junta in Myanmar has extended its state of emergency for another six months, in order to prepare for an election that it has promised to hold sometime later this year. According to a report in the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar, the decision was made at aContinue Reading
Myanmar marks four years of a bloody civil war on Saturday with anti-regime forces holding the upper hand on battlefields across the country amid growing hopes that the junta led by Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing will buckle and be defeated, perhaps by the end of the year. But inContinue Reading
On January 5, the 2024 Ruili China and Muse Myanmar Cross-Border Marathon came to an end. This event, marked by its distinctive “One Marathon, Two States” theme, is designed to highlight the unique characteristics of the border between China’s Yunnan Province and Myanmar’s Shan State. The race once attracted nearlyContinue Reading
