A violent civil war between the China-backed military junta ruling Myanmar and a patchwork of pro-democracy rebels in the Southeast Asian nation is not getting much attention in the West, but is increasingly viewed by China’s leadership as a strategic “Cold War” frontline in its global competition with the United States.

The Biden administration is slow-pedaling in response, according to regional analysts, who say the White House lacks a clear strategy for halting Beijing’s growing influence in Myanmar, a vital land bridge between China and the Indian Ocean.

The lack of attention could translate into a clear strategic loss for the U.S. and its allies in an area of growing interest to China’s Communist leadership.

“China has been steadily expanding its influence in Myanmar for a considerable period,” said Ye Myo Hein, a leading pro-democracy scholar from the country and visiting fellow with the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.

He told The Washington Times that China views Myanmar “as a strategic hot spot at the intersection of its borders, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean.”

Beijing’s increased focus contrasts with the administration’s “traditional view of Myanmar as strategically unimportant,” said Mr. Ye Myo Hein, who is pressing U.S. officials to “develop a clear strategy to enhance [Washington’s] strategic influence in the country.”

His comments come amid China-U.S. geopolitical competition globally, with successive U.S. administrations having scrambled to shore up alliances with countries across the Indo-Pacific to counter China’s rise economically and diplomatically in the region, offering a model of development sharply at odds with the U.S. support for free markets and democratic government.

The assessment also comes at a sobering moment in Myanmar, where the country’s ruling junta is pulling no punches in its effort to violently crush a pro-democracy insurgency. Mr. Ye Myo Hein said the junta has carried out “more than 700 airstrikes, primarily in civilian areas” since 2021.

“These airstrikes have been largely indiscriminate, resulting in significant casualties to innocent civilians,” he said, pointing to one strike in April that killed nearly 170 people in a central area of the country.

A recent Peace Research Institute Oslo report said at least 6,000 civilians have been killed since 2021, with more than a million people internally displaced.

Evolving civil war

The conflict has spiraled since a military coup overthrew Myanmar’s elected civilian government led by Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and head of the country’s largest political party. Despite complaints about her government before it was ousted, Myanmar under Ms. Suu Kyi was well regarded by U.S. policymakers, who often refer to the country by its old name, Burma.

The 2021 junta takeover was tacitly backed by Beijing and sparked widespread protests. That in turn sparked a harsh military crackdown, the arrest of Mrs. Suu Kyi and top government officials, and an armed resistance to the new military leadership that continues to this day.

Anti-coup militias, known as the People’s Defense Forces (PDFs), have since banded with smaller separatist groups long active in the country to wage a guerrilla war against the junta-controlled army and air force across Myanmar’s seven ethnic states.

The military government has imported more than $1 billion worth of arms and raw materials to manufacture its own weapons since 2021, according to the United Nations. The U.N. says that China, Russia, Singapore, India and Thailand are the most prominent suppliers.

How the anti-junta rebels acquire arms is less clear.

In a complex twist, Mr. Ye Myo Hein said a key avenue is through the pro-democracy movement’s ties to ethnic armed groups along China’s border, many of whom also fall under China’s sway — a reality that suggests Beijing has been wielding influence on both sides in the brutal civil war.

But dynamics within the insurgency are murky, particularly amid rebel efforts to lure some sectors of the military to shift allegiance and switch to the side of the pro-democracy movement.

Units of one ethnic militia in eastern Myanmar that are nominally part of the military switched sides in June. The Associated Press reported that the units, from the country’s Border Guard Forces, are believed to be the first military-affiliated militia units to change sides since the junta took power.

Several U.S. lawmakers are pressing the Biden administration to develop a more robust strategy to back the rebels. In April 2022, the then-Democratic-controlled House passed the “Burma Act” calling on the White House to engage with Myanmar’s rebels.

While the Senate has yet to take up that bill, the FY 2023 National Defense Authorization Act signed by President Biden in November incorporated language from the Burma Act, including a requirement that the administration clarify its policy and an authorization for expanding U.S. sanctions against the junta.

The language notably also authorized funding for “non-lethal assistance” for armed PDF rebels in Myanmar, as well as “technical” support for them and for the broader pro-democracy movement.

It remains to be seen how such support will be conveyed and how much impact it will have on the struggle. The administration thus far has expanded sanctions that it had already begun imposing following the 2021 military coup.

The Treasury Department sanctioned a group of Myanmar arms dealers in March 2022. A press release at the time made no mention of China or other foreign providers of weaponry.

More recently, the Treasury Department sanctioned Myanmar individuals and entities involved in importing jet fuel for the junta, as well as two junta-connected banks — measures that freeze their assets in the United States.

“The United States will not waver in its support for the people of Burma as they seek peace, justice, and a genuine democratic future for their country,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said upon targeting the banks on June 21.

Critics are skeptical.

The group Justice for Myanmar praised the financial sanctions, but asserted that for sanctions to be effective, “far more needs to be done to systematically target the junta’s financial and arms procurement networks.”

The group specifically urged sanctions against Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise, “which continues to bankroll the junta’s ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

But the gradual sanctions approach has been overshadowed by the administration’s focus on countering Russia in Ukraine, all while China’s backing for the junta in Myanmar has been quietly expanding.

“With the world distracted by the war in Ukraine, and having little bandwidth to focus on the brutality and bloodshed in Myanmar, China has…dramatically ramped up support for Myanmar, further entrenching a growing split between the world’s autocracies and democracies,” Joshua Kurlantzick, a Southeast Asia fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations wrote for the think tank’s website last year.

China’s growing influence

Identifying the true parameters of Chinese support for the junta can be difficult, although there are clear indications that Beijing is profiting both strategically and economically from business with Myanmar’s hardline military rulers.

An analysis by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace noted that while many multinational corporations withdrew from Myanmar following the 2021 military coup, the Chinese state mining company Wanbao has continued to invest in the country.

An August 2022 report by London-based Business & Human Rights Resource Center said Wanbao Mining, a subsidiary of Chinese arms manufacturer NORINCO, has been operating a controversial copper mine in Myanmar’s Sagaing Region in partnership with the military-owned Myanmar Economic Holdings Company since 2010.

Others, including Jason Tower, the country director for Burma at the U.S. Institute of Peace, have suggested China’s support may be conditioned on a pledge from the junta to back Beijing’s sovereignty claims over disputed islands in the South China Sea, claims rejected by the United States and China’s smaller neighbors throughout the region.

Mr. Tower tweeted last year that the Chinese government is “propping up” the junta by vowing to work toward implementing a China-Myanmar Economic Corridor and expand cross-border electrification, connectivity and industrial zones — with Beijing providing the junta with a roughly $90 million grant for such last year.

Mr. Ye Myo Hein, meanwhile, told The Times that the recent inclusion of Burma Act language in the NDAA was “perceived by Beijing as an increased U.S. involvement in Myanmar and a threat to China’s interests.”

“China responded by actively supporting the junta as a countermeasure to the U.S.’s actions,” he said, adding that “recent actions by China in Myanmar clearly serve as clear indication that Beijing perceived the crisis in Myanmar through a Cold War lens.”

“It appears that U.S. policymakers may not be fully aware of such development, as Washington has not yet recognized Myanmar as a strategically significant hot spot and has yet to formulate a comprehensive policy and strategy in line with the Burma Act,” Mr. Ye Myo Hein said.

“The administration has exhibited a clear reluctance to fully and effectively implement the Burma Act, appearing more focused on mitigating the associated risks,” he said. The White House, he added, should “emphasize the shared interest between the United States and China in promoting regional stability” in a way that “implies that the military junta in Myanmar must be removed as it undermines this shared objective.”

The administration should also convey to Beijing that U.S. assistance to the PDFs is “not a threat to China, but rather in line with Beijing’s own goals,” as the junta “will only consider a peaceful negotiated settlement if it sees no path to military victory, making U.S. assistance an avenue to support this objective.”

• Guy Taylor can be reached at gtaylor@washingtontimes.com.