Fifty-two years after it was founded to fight the Communist Party of Burma in northeastern Myanmar near the Chinese border, the military’s Northeastern Command in Lashio, northern Shan State, fell on Saturday.
The defeat marks the first time since 1962, when the military staged its first coup, that a military command has been lost to ethnic armed groups and their allies. It was also a major milestone for Myanmar’s resistance movement, which has captured its first command since the 2021 coup.
The article notes that Lashio’s Northeastern Command was formed to battle the Chinese-formed and backed Communist Party of Burma (CPB).
“In 1971, Northeastern Command-led troops successfully repelled 40 days of “human-wave” attacks on Kunlong by the CPB, halting the offensive’s momentum and marking a historic turning point in the battle against the insurgency.” “Human-wave” attack is a common mainland Chinese military attack tactic noted in Korea, and later on in Vietnam. This begs the question, whether CPB’s troops back then in 1971 were in fact Communist Chinese troops.
Ironically, Northeastern Command has fallen to the MNDAA, a splinter group from CPB who are ethic Han Chinese.