On June 3, Burmese-American scholar U Min Zin disappeared in China’s southwestern province of Yunnan, where he was set to attend an academic conference. On June 12, shortly before Myanmar’s ruler, Min Aung Hlaing, arrived in China for a state visit, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian confirmed that Zin had been arrested and accused of endangering Chinese national security. No further details were provided.
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Zin runs the Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar, a think tank in Thailand that is critical of Myanmar’s military government and the 2021 coup that brought it to power. Initially, the arrest of Zin, a U.S. citizen, may seem like another attempt by Beijing to engage in hostage diplomacy and gain the upper hand in any potential negotiations with the United States at the September summit between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump. But Beijing’s arrest of Zin actually has more to do with Myanmar itself. China wanted to remove a potentially destabilizing variable from the already unsteady foundations of Chinese investment in Myanmar, which is key to Beijing’s economic strategy in Southeast Asia.
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For China, its core strategic interests in Myanmar are the stability of its shared border, the safety of its economic investments, and the closure of scam centers that ensnare and enslave Chinese nationals. To that end, Beijing supports the military junta that seized power from Myanmar’s democratically elected government. China has provided the new regime with $3 billion in economic assistance, as well as selling it military weapons.
Beijing also applies diplomatic pressure on Myanmar’s ethnic armed organizations. Beijing has not been shy about detaining leaders of these resistance groups to force ceasefires between them and the military leaders in Naypyidaw and protect China’s infrastructure projects. If a person or organization is deemed a threat to China’s interests in Myanmar, Beijing is willing and able to use its full suite of tools against them, including forced detention.
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Since the launch of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Myanmar has been a key to China’s economic strategy in Southeast Asia. Of particular importance is the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), which connects China to the Indian Ocean and provides a much-needed economic infusion in China’s less-developed southwestern provinces.
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Beijing sources rare earth minerals from Myanmar’s northern Kachin State to meet its defense and clean-energy needs. Such processing involves using toxic chemicals to extract precious elements from the soil. Residents, outraged by the damage, protested the continuous harm to their environment, but by all reports, the extraction continues.
Residents of Kachin State allege that China’s rare earth mining has threatened water sources, putting their health and food supply at risk. The United Nations has reported that numerous mines have forcibly displaced civilians and received financial support from the military junta for their operations. According to the outlet Frontier Myanmar, since 2024, junta troops working with Chinese mines have routinely arrested and killed civilians at random.
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The backlash against Chinese projects endangers the vast sums of wealth that public and private enterprises have poured into Myanmar. If infrastructure investments falter, China will lose access to vast amounts of critical minerals, harming its ambitions to develop defense and other high-end technologies domestically.
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China’s interests in Myanmar are not limited to critical minerals. In 2016, Chinese state-owned firms reached agreements with the Burmese government to develop a deep-water port in the town of Kyaukpyu along the Bay of Bengal. This port, in which both China and Myanmar have agreed to invest a collective $7.3 billion, would provide China with direct access to the Indian Ocean, allowing ships ferrying oil and other vital goods to bypass the Strait of Malacca. The Strait of Malacca accounts for over 22 percent of international maritime trade; if there were a conflict involving China, Beijing fears that its foes could close the strait to harm China’s economy and defense deployments.
The deep-sea port could also serve as a staging area for People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) vessels.
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An estimated 20,000 people, mostly farmers and fishermen, will lose their land and be displaced by development of the port and its attached special economic zone. Farmers expressed frustration over a lack of consultation with the local government and a belief that the special economic zone and port will bring in Chinese workers instead of hiring locals. If backlash halts the projects or militia attacks endanger the lives of Chinese workers, the Chinese and Burmese governments would lose billions of dollars, and China would lose access to a strategic port.
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Burmese activists and academics, such as Min Zin, serve as the central node informing people about Chinese investments and projects in Myanmar, including their negative impacts. In fact, Zin’s ISP-Myanmar runs a dedicated China Desk that maps and outlines China’s infrastructure investments in the region, specifically highlighting China’s influence in northern Kachin State and its development in Kyaukpyu.
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Min Zin’s arrest signals that civilians who are inconvenient to China’s international growth and ambitions are subject to forced arrest and arbitrary detention. An active threat to the regime or its relationships is not required; even the perception of a threat is enough to result in arrest and an accusation of espionage.
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