General Min Aung Hlaing was appointed president of Myanmar in early April, formalizing a hold on power that he has held for more than five years. This week, he walks the red carpet in Beijing, a cornerstone in the whirlwind of diplomatic negotiations that have justified his installation in the highest civilian office following elections that were neither free nor fair in December and January.
For many ordinary citizens, the diaspora, and those of the opposition, the election does not change anything; war is it’s not over. This alleged shift from military to civilian rule serves as an early example of the cost of engaging with the West in weak institutions. The election was sponsored by China and provides another piece of data to show Beijing’s tendency to operate in weak or failed states where traditional Western allies have withdrawn their involvement.
Post-conflict elections in other countries, including Nepal, Cambodia, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, have attracted Chinese financial support. What does Beijing’s electoral financing playbook mean for such states left with precious few elections? As the example of Myanmar shows, China’s intervention is designed to achieve order and stability of the state to protect its borders and investments, regardless of a unified or legitimate peace.
Before 2021 revolution, the international community invested enthusiastically in Myanmar’s fledgling democracy. From 2015 to 2021, official development assistance was moderate $2.4 billion annually. Development partners such as Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom prioritized aid to support the public sector, civil society, and health systems. In the seven years preceding the revolution, the United States alone spent 500 million dollars on human rights, elections, democratic participation and civil society. Internationally donor communities they were betting on a fundamental approach: that the power of citizen participation, justice reform, and political dialogue would put Myanmar on the path to development and prosperity.
But since the civilian government was overthrown in February 2021, many donors have refused to legitimize or fund the regime. As a result, aid passed through the public sector dropped by two-thirds in just two years. After 2021, the international community has largely allocated its foreign aid to humanitarian aid, and by 2024 (the latest year of available data), total aid to Myanmar had fallen by more than half, to $1 billion. Combined with the international sanctions system, this has starved the junta of legitimate income as it manages a failed official economy.
It is little wonder, then, that the government has sought funding from less traditional sources.
China’s history as Myanmar’s development partner goes back a long way. In 2015, Beijing was Myanmar’s largest provider of aid and development finance, spending close to $1 billion including debt-financed infrastructure projects such as ports and gas pipelines. After years of loan repayment problems and difficulties in implementing infrastructure commitments, by 2023, China’s contribution had dropped to $3 milliona decrease of 97.7 percent in eight years.
But at the end of 2023, Beijing was plunged into a mid-century civil war, fueled by the dangers posed to it by the spread of civil war. scam centers in northern Myanmar. Tens of thousands of Chinese citizens were taken into captivity in the compounds as Beijing’s frustration builds over the military’s failure to maintain law enforcement powers in rebel-held areas.
The rebellion that was known as Operation 1027 saw China support Myanmar’s armed tribal group in their mission to dismantle organized crime groups operating in border areas. With China silent consentopposition groups, incl about 15,000 soldiersachieved regional success, but failed to turn that momentum into a real challenge to the military regime in Naypyidaw.
The year 2024 heralded a new phase of China’s activities in Myanmar. A business opportunity presented itself: legality to buy-or-rent. Myanmar is rich in resources, ranking as the world’s third largest producer of rare earths and holding some land. 600 billion cubic meters of natural gas reserves. Beijing had already begun construction on the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, a multibillion-dollar project that includes the aforementioned crude oil pipeline and a deep-sea port. It occupies a strategic location on the periphery of China, presenting a land route to the Indian Ocean that could be useful in military planning for conflicts in Asia.
China has registered elections in weak states in the past. In Sudan in 2010, China contributed $3 million for the first election in the country after two decades of civil war. In 2011, elections marred by violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo were supported by 1.5 million dollars from Beijing, which later financed the construction of a new parliament building at the cost of 58 million dollars. At least 11 million dollars it was used in Cambodia’s controversial 2018 election, after US and EU allies he left support in response to the suppression of the opposition.
And in March 2026, Nepal election-following the bad protests witnessed the fall of the old government– benefit from a 4 million dollar grant from the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu. These are private interventions that together form a foreign election financing structure, a surprising behavior for a single-party government.
There are credible accusations that China has been involved in election interference in some of the richest democratic countries in the world, including. Canada, Australia and United States. The approach used so far in developing Asian and African nations, however, is designed around weak and failing states—where Beijing can devise a blunt solution to a wicked problem without much money.
In that sense, Beijing put a price on democracy in Myanmar and 2024 announcement of a 140 million dollars money bag. The aid enabled the national census, the first in a decade, to update the voter list but is likely to prevent intensive monitoring efforts track opponents. And it sponsored the federal elections, held in December 2025 to January 2026, with no real opposition and no real cooperation with politics. And some calculationsmore than half of Myanmar’s eligible voters were either excluded from voting or boycotted the election. Voting was held only in 260 out of 330 townships.
At the same time China is making small but strategic investments in elections around the world the vacuum left by the United States in strengthening democratic processes is comprehensive. Democratic systems, once displaced, are very difficult to revive. China is not buying peace but security, stability, and the ability to keep its investments and borders secure.
As analysts did considered for yearsBeijing’s preference is for a degree of instability in Myanmar, with a regime capable enough to quell chaos and organized crime – but not so much that it can question Chinese authorities or risk investments, which have increased in recent days. Report from as soon as at the end of 2025 (immediately before the election) showing that China was cooperating with ethnic militias in northern Myanmar to access scarce land underlines the serious weakness of Beijing-Naypyidaw relations.
As aid from Western allies dries up, Russia, India, and some Gulf states have been somewhat active in providing aid, but none present a viable alternative for Naypyidaw to confront China. Bangladesh and Thailand bear most of the burden of the inevitable effects of conflict, without international support. Japan spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help Myanmar in 2024, but most of it was directed to transport and energy projects carried out by Japanese companies. Only 10 percent of its aid was spent on humanitarian aid.
Furthermore, few democracies have misconceptions about the legitimacy of Myanmar elections. But it can prove a good investment with high returns nonetheless. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has been sorely tested in trying to take a firm stand on the conflict, and there are already signs of thaw against the law in bad condition the five-point agreement (a preliminary map of the regional bloc for post-revolutionary Myanmar). The junta uses this recovery, releasing a small number of political prisoners and printing copies Unverified photo of former elected leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.
The future of the fractured state of Myanmar is unclear. The conflict is protracted and multi-layered, and any lasting political solution will need to deal with the multiplicity of legitimacy and the generational rights implications of the conflict and past claims of genocide.
What can be clearly concluded, though, is that fraudulent elections, sponsored by external powers, are not the foundation of peace. And beyond lifting the government’s grip on domestic security and keeping the fraud center industry at bay, there is little incentive for Beijing to intervene further.
After a detailed budget cut from the United States and European countries, there is ample room for Chinese funding of governance, elections, and pseudo-democratic activities around the world. The institutions and systems that China can use are now in place. The pace is getting stronger in China’s leadership in the United Nations, through increasing financial contributions as well as implementing political plans. The China International Development Cooperation Agency is involved in aid projects in the developing world, and Beijing claims it has been instrumental in brokering recent peace talks between Thailand and Cambodia as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan.
With the launch of the International Governance Plan and the World Development Plan in 2025 and 2021 respectively, Chinese President Xi Jinping has begun to explain his vision of a new world order, one with the intention of integrating the Bretton Woods system led by the United States which was often criticized for its emphasis on democracy and human rights.
Interventions can take place outside the official election cycle, too, with the same effect on weak parliaments. In the Solomon Islands, a small island with a recent history conflictChinese money—supposed to be development aid– was used instead payments to politicians by supporting the then prime minister in a vote of no confidence in 2021. Solomon Islands will participate in the next general election in 2028.
More generally, there is no shortage of weak and post-war states facing Western isolation that can be tempted by electoral support that drives performance.
Democracy is faltering all over the world, and the era of the United States transportation of democracy it’s clear. What is taking its place in conflict-affected situations is the practice of shadow democracy that we have seen in Myanmar: one authoritarian actor creates the legitimacy of another, through religious invocations that neither side believes.
As the spirit of cooperation in the West declines, cooperation between authoritarian regimes flourish.
