When insurgents seized the hill town of Kyaukme last year—along the legendary Burma Road linking China’s border to central Myanmar—it seemed like the military junta’s grip was finally slipping. The Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA)’s victory there marked a high point for the armed opposition, whose morale soared after years of gruelling civil war. But this month, the junta took just three weeks to recapture Kyaukme. Its forces flattened large sections of the town with daily airstrikes and reclaimed nearby town Hsipaw, restoring control over the key trade corridor to China. The reversal was swift, brutal—and deeply symbolic.
The junta’s battlefield resurgence has been staggering. In Kachin State, regime aircraft launched massive airstrikes this week against the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) near Hpakant—Myanmar’s jade-mining hub—dropping 30 bombs in a single sortie. The strikes came even as the junta fended off a siege there earlier this year.
In Shan State, forced conscription has added 60,000 new soldiers to the ranks. Many are raw recruits, but their numbers alone have tipped the balance. Across Kyaukme, Hsipaw, Lashio, and Demoso, insurgent lines are buckling under relentless bombardment.
Across northern Myanmar, the balance of power is tilting back toward the generals, thanks to a surge of Chinese backing that has transformed the battlefield and reshaped the country’s war ahead of a controversial election planned for December.
China’s new embrace of the junta comes after months of shifting calculations in Beijing.
When the Brotherhood Alliance—an ethnic coalition of the TNLA, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), and the Arakan Army (AA)—launched Operation 1027 in late 2023, Beijing stood aside. The offensive humiliated the military, seized swathes of Shan State, and shut down cross-border scam centres that had preyed on Chinese citizens.
Now, however, Beijing is backing the same generals it once scorned. On the afternoon of 30 August, Chinese officials hosted two meetings between junta leader Min Aung Hlaing and Xi Jinping at the Tianjin Guest House, promised technical and financial support for the upcoming election, and quietly helped the regime rebuild its war machine.
“China opposes chaos and war in Myanmar,” Foreign Minister Wang Yi declared during his visit to Myanmar in August—diplomatic shorthand for Beijing’s decision to prioritise stability over democracy. Analysts say that as the junta teetered, China feared state collapse more than military rule.
“Beijing’s policy is no state collapse,” says Morgan Michaels of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “It has no love for the regime, but when it looked like the military might fall apart, China stepped in.”
China’s influence is visible not just in diplomacy—but in the sky. The junta has flooded its frontlines with Chinese-made drones, reversing the early advantage that resistance groups once held with homemade models. Thousands of multi-rotor drones and fixed-wing UAVs now guide artillery fire, drop explosives with pinpoint accuracy, and scout insurgent strongholds.
“These almost constant drone attacks have forced resistance fighters to retreat,” says Su Mon, a senior analyst with the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED). “The accuracy of air strikes has increased dramatically because they’re being guided by drones.”
A new development in Beijing could tighten that advantage further. On 9 October, China’s Ministry of Commerce issued Decision No. 58 of 2025, imposing export controls on high-energy lithium batteries, cathode materials, and artificial graphite—components essential for long-range drone operations. The restrictions, effective 8 November, target batteries exceeding 300Wh/kg, curbing the supply that insurgents use for multi-rotor drones.
The move could cripple the resistance’s aerial capabilities. For months, anti-junta groups have struggled to source components after China cracked down on dual-use exports. Prices have spiked, smuggling routes have dried up, and the military’s improved electronic jamming systems now down many opposition drones before they strike.
Meanwhile, the MNDAA—another Brotherhood Alliance member—has bowed to Chinese pressure and halted attacks. The powerful United Wa State Army (UWSA) has stopped supplying arms to other groups, further isolating the resistance.
Even the Karen National Union (KNU) in the south, once ascendant, has lost key strongholds including Lay Kay Kaw, a model town built with Japanese aid during an earlier ceasefire. In Kayah State, the military has retaken Demoso and Mobye, while advancing in Kachin and Sagaing regions.
But the generals’ resurgence has come at a horrific cost. Entire towns have been razed. “The military has burned down 110,000 to 120,000 houses across the dry zone,” says Michaels, a research fellow for the Southeast Asian Security and Defence. “The violence has been immense—there are few people untouched by it.”
The junta’s progress indicates a renewed political goal: to stage an election that looks legitimate. By retaking trade routes, border towns, and resource hubs, the generals hope to project control and claim a veneer of stability. The regime says the December voting will be possible in nearly all of Myanmar’s 330 townships, though opposition sources believe far fewer are safe.
Kyaukme and Hsipaw—recently recaptured—are among the towns designated as polling sites, underscoring how military operations are intertwined with election logistics.
To many, the vote is a hollow spectacle. Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy remains banned; millions are displaced; vast regions are under martial law. The Union Election Commission (UEC) in Myanmar, appointed by the junta, has prohibited campaign rallies and street processions for the elections. This restriction is officially due to security concerns, limiting political parties to holding campaign speeches only at designated, approved venues. Yet with China’s endorsement and regional silence, the junta is poised to claim victory before a world unwilling to intervene.
From the ruins of Kyaukme to the bombed-out jade pits of Hpakant, the cost of the junta’s comeback is visible in ash and grief. The resistance, fractured and under-equipped, clings to pockets of control in Rakhine and Chin States. But without external support and with China closing its borders, its future looks bleak.
“Being forced into a ceasefire because you can’t hold your lines is one thing,” Michaels says. “But political bargaining for peace still seems very distant.”
As the generals prepare to stage their election—and Beijing moves to contain the chaos—the people of Myanmar remain trapped between a military that rages its own cities and a superpower that fears disorder more than oppression.
