Myanmar’s Rebels & Their Foreign Supporters Really Dislike Thailand’s Four-Point Plan

They’ve convinced themselves that the Tatmadaw can be dealt a strategic defeat during a potentially forthcoming offensive just like Ukraine and the West thought they could deal to Russia during last year’s ultimately failed counteroffensive.

Thailand’s House Committee on Foreign Affairs proposed a four-point plan for resolving the latest phase of Myanmar’s decades-long civil war. It calls for creating a special panel of foreign policy and security experts to craft a comprehensive solution, establishing contingency plans for if the conflict worsens, expanding last month’s proposed humanitarian corridor, and launching a “Myanmar Troika Plus” of ASEAN, China, and India. Here are some background briefings for those who haven’t followed the war:

* 8 February: “Myanmar’s Three-Year-Long Conflict Isn’t As Simple As It Seems At First Glance”

* 23 February: “America Is Preconditioning The Public For More Meddling In Myanmar”

* 5 March: “American Meddling Could Disrupt Myanmar’s Fragile Chinese-Mediated Peace Process”

Basically, January’s Chinese-mediated ceasefire still holds, but Myanmar’s military (Tatmadaw) is enforcing its conscription law in a move that some fear might portend an end to this “cold peace”. Others interpret it as them preparing for the “Three Brotherhood Alliance” (3BA), whose 1027 offensive late last year was more successful than any in their country’s history, striking first. As for Thailand’s view, its Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara had this to say about everything at Davos in mid-January:

“The long-standing armed struggles of the various ethnic groups have intensified; they have been emboldened in their call for greater autonomy. Most unfortunately, the democratic and economic progress achieved before the crisis broke out almost 3 years ago has now unraveled. There seems to be no end in sight to this protracted conflict. The fear among the regional countries is Myanmar becoming increasingly fragmented and becoming an arena for major-power competition.”

This outlook shaped the four-point plan that its House Committee on Foreign Affairs just unveiled. The expert panel will craft a comprehensive solution to share with all stakeholders, the contingency plans would be for dealing with large-scale refugee influxes, the humanitarian corridor can keep internally displaced people on the other side of the border, while the “Myanmar Troika Plus” could involve that country’s two other neighbors. It’s perfectly sensible, but some outside the country are still against it.

Igor Blazevic from The Irawaddy, an opposition-run online project, published a piece in early February about why “Thai Humanitarian Aid Initiative for Myanmar Is Flawed and Won’t Work”. He suspects that “The political plan behind the ‘humanitarian initiative’ is to try to bring the military junta and other political and resistance actors to the negotiating table, and the promise of aid is only a carrot. Basically the message is, either you agree to ‘de-escalate violence’ and start ‘all-inclusive’ negotiations, which we will facilitate—and then we will open corridors for aid”, or they’ll be left on their own if they refuse.

To his credit, that might very well be what Thailand intends, which could explain why US Government-financed Radio Free Asia cast skepticism on this initiative at the end of that month in their piece asking “Will Thailand’s aid corridor with war-torn Myanmar make a difference?” Al Jazeera, which sympathizes with the Rohingyas whose “Arakan Army” is part of the 3BA, also just published a very critical piece about how “Thailand, Laos try to ‘make junta presentable’ amid ASEAN Myanmar inertia”.

The impression that one gets from these three articles is that the 3BA and its foreign supporters are against Thailand’s four-point plan, particularly its humanitarian corridor, since they correctly understand that it’s meant to pressure them into compromising with the Tatmadaw. Instead of peace, they want to continue the war since they believe – whether rightly or wrongly – that they can build upon the 1027 offensive’s successes to deal a deathblow to the Tatmadaw.

In a sense, these expectations are similar to those that Ukraine and its patrons had in spring 2022 after Russia’s goodwill gesture of withdrawing from Kiev during the course of negotiations was interpreted as weakness, hence why Zelensky pulled out of peace talks at former British premier Johnson’s suggestion. They then went on to push Russia out of Kharkov and part of Kherson, only for their counteroffensive to fail and reverse the military-strategic dynamics by placing them back on the defensive once again.

Something similar is arguably taking place right now among the 3BA and its foreign supporters, who appear to be preparing for their own Ukrainian-like offensive in the hopes that it’ll strategically defeat the Tatmadaw just like Kiev and the West sought to do to Russia last year. For that reason, they’re reluctant to go along with Thailand’s four-point plan, but the failure of their potentially forthcoming offensive could place them in a much weaker position from which to negotiate later on.

Thailand fears an influx of refugees if the fighting recommences at a large scale, however, hence why it wants to preemptively avert that scenario through its humanitarian-driven peace proposal that’ll also involve neighboring China and India. Beijing is already leading the latest round of peace talks, but Delhi has yet to gain a seat at the table, which could worsen their already intense security dilemma and thus provoke more “major-power competition” in Myanmar like Bahiddha-Nukara warned about.

The best-case scenario is that Thailand’s four-point plan sets the basis for a more comprehensive solution to the conflict, with that country’s trump cards being its ability to facilitate humanitarian access to Myanmar as well as shut down Western ratlines for arming the 3BA via its territory. These could be sufficient for coercing the rebels into staying the course with the Chinese-mediated peace process while broadening that framework in an informal capacity to give India some input into it alongside ASEAN.

Regrettably, it can’t be taken for granted that the 3BA and their foreign supporters will react rationally by embracing this proposal, especially since they seem to have convinced themselves that the Tatmadaw can be dealt a strategic defeat during a potentially forthcoming offensive. In the event that Thailand’s four-point plan and the Chinese-mediated peace talks fail, then more “major-power competition” is expected as the conflict predictably worsens, which could destabilize the broader region.