The President of military-ruled Myanmar has said the country is at risk of breaking apart due to ineffective management of recent violence in its border regions with China. Myanmar’s junta is encountering with the hugest roadblock to its authority since it got power in a 2021 coup, with attacks by revolutionary and ethnic armed forces on hundreds of junta bases in the north, north-east, north-west and south-east of the nation.
“If the government does not appropriately manage the incidents taking place in the border area, the nation will be split into several parts,” Mr Myint Swe, president of the State Administration Council, told a national defence and Security Council meeting. “It is important to take necessary steps in order to control this problem,” he said. “As currently is a necessary time for the state, the entire people require to help the Tatmadaw (the military).”
The military has, for decades, compelled that it is the only institution having the potential of holding the diverse previous British colony collaboratively, using that argument to justify its grip on power and to crush opposition. Myanmar has been in turmoil since the 2021 coup, when the generals ousted an elected government, governed by democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, bringing an end to 10 years of tentative reform after decades of strict military rule. In the north-east in past days, the junta has not been able to hold its control of some border trade towns with China.