Inside Myanmar's anti-junta offensive dhakatribune.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dhakatribune.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The anti-junta operation came amid rising anger in Beijing with the junta over rampant crime on the border, which created conditions that supported the blitzkrieg, analysts say.
Secretly, the ethnic armies - collectively called the Three Brotherhood Alliance - had already laid the groundwork for Operation 1027, a major offensive launched in October that has become the most significant threat to the regime since it seized power in a 2021 coup. "We were already preparing for the operation when we met them," said Kyaw Naing, a spokesman for the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), a largely ethnic-Chinese group that is part of the rebel coalition. They disclosed previously unreported elements of the planning, including details of the formation of a unified battlefield brigade and the extent of China's impatience toward the junta, which some analysts believe emboldened the militias.
Generals from Myanmar’s junta held peace talks in June near the border with China with representatives of three powerful ethnic armies. They sat across a wide table covered with blue cloth and decorated with elaborate bouquets.