China’s foreign affairs ministry announced on Monday that the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) had agreed to return control of the northern Shan State capital to the Myanmar military regime in a new ceasefire deal.
Representatives of the Myanmar junta and the MNDAA—also commonly called the Kokang army—concluded the ceasefire agreement on Saturday following negotiations mediated by Chinese officials.
The MNDAA is an ethnic armed organisation whose members are mostly Kokang people, a Mandarin-speaking ethnic community native to an area of northern Shan State that borders China’s Yunnan Province.
Although the Chinese ministry’s statement provided few details about the terms of the agreement, sources in Myanmar and China confirmed that the Kokang army’s forces will be required to withdraw from the city of Lashio, northern Shan State, the location of the Myanmar military’s northeastern regional headquarters, by June.
Chinese authorities have been pressuring the MNDAA to withdraw from Lashio and cease hostilities against the Myanmar junta for months, threatening action against the Kokang group’s commanders and throttling the traffic of fuel, medicine, food and other vital supplies to MNDAA-held territories via the Chinese border.
With the ceasefire already in force on Sunday, Chinese authorities opened the border crossing in Chin Shwe Haw, northern Shan State, a town in the MNDAA-controlled territory of Shan State Special Region 1 or the Kokang region of Myanmar, previously designated as the Kokang Self-Administered Zone in Myanmar’s 2008 constitution.
Spokespersons for the United Wa State Party and its armed wing the United Wa State Army—a larger ethnic armed organisation in control of other territories in northern and eastern Shan State—announced on Monday that the Namtit Bridge border checkpoint in Namtit Subtownship had also reopened with permission from Chinese authorities.
In an alleged bid to pressure the Kokang army, Chinese authorities detained MNDAA head Peng Daxun in China, claiming he was undergoing medical treatment when pressed for an explanation. Peng Daxun’s status and whereabouts are still unknown.
This is significant news. Lashio is a major city of mixed ethnicities in Shan State. Despite efforts from Junta’s army and owning the air they haven’t been able to dislodge the MNDAA from Lashio. Kokang army known as MNDAA are ethnic Han Chinese who sought refuge in Myanmar after Manchurians invaded China and founded China’s last dynasty - the Ching Dynasty. MNDAA was part of Chinese founded Burmese Communist Party until it broke apart along ethnic lines.
While China approved of the 3 Brothers Allliance campaign in 2023, they didn’t anticipate the rebel armies to be successful enough to take a major city and have been displeased with capture of Lashio by MNDAA.