Myanmar Spring Chronicle – October 9: Scene
(MoeMaKa) October 10, 2025
Malaysian Foreign Minister’s Naypyitaw Trip; Night Curfews Imposed in Hpakant and Myitkyina
Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan, serving as ASEAN’s rotating chair, visited Naypyitaw with his delegation, met coup leader Min Aung Hlaing and newly appointed Prime Minister Nyo Saw, and departed on October 9.
The visit was framed clearly as a trip in his capacity as ASEAN chair, not a bilateral Malaysia–Myanmar engagement. Malaysia’s press release highlighted ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus in five bullet points and was worded so as not to imply diplomatic recognition of the junta. It described the trip as a working visit aimed at efforts to help restore peace and stability in Myanmar.
Although Min Aung Hlaing received him with the protocol styling of “acting president,” the meeting took place at the military’s guest house.
ASEAN’s current Special Envoy on Myanmar accompanied the Malaysian foreign minister; no other members of the Malaysian cabinet took part. According to the junta’s statement, the minister urged that everyone be included in the planned election in Myanmar. The junta’s release portrayed the visit as supportive of holding an election and even mentioned the possible dispatch of election observer groups. The statement also amplified the junta leader’s talking points about election preparations, as well as purportedly constructive cooperation with ASEAN and on humanitarian assistance—yet it did not actually enumerate ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus.
Assessing this visit, it appears ASEAN’s stance toward Myanmar’s junta is less stringent than in previous years. While Myanmar’s junta representatives still have not been allowed to take up political seats within ASEAN, the fact that a sitting foreign minister holding the rotating chair undertook an official trip to Naypyitaw gives the junta an opportunity to promote the optics of diplomatic recognition.
Secondly, ASEAN no longer seems to hold a categorical position of non-recognition regarding the election the junta plans to stage by year’s end. This allows the junta to claim not only China and Russia but also ASEAN as tacitly accepting its election plan—something the junta will surely tout as a success.
ASEAN’s apparent lack of a pathway to oppose a military-run election will inevitably dishearten the National Unity Government (NUG) and the ethnic armed organizations fighting the junta.
Separately today, the junta’s General Administration Department announced on October 8 that Section 144 orders—banning assemblies and imposing nighttime curfews—were issued for Hpakant Township and Myitkyina Township, where fighting has been taking place.
A few months ago, junta columns re-entered the Hpakant area, but there were no major battles with the KIA at the time. After Operation 1027, only a few junta outposts remained in Hpakant Township, and for months the military could not conduct operations, leaving the area under KIA control. However, starting in late April 2025, the junta sent forces numbering in the hundreds and later close to a thousand back into Hpakant, reaching the town itself after roughly two months.
While the KIA—locked in battle with the junta over the capture of Bhamo—did not mount large-scale resistance to the junta’s re-entry into Hpakant, the motives were evident: beyond reclaiming territory, the junta aimed to cut off the KIA’s tax revenues from jade mining.
Having re-entered Hpakant for these two aims, the military has now issued curfew and assembly bans. Notably, Myitkyina, where no open clashes are currently occurring, was included alongside Hpakant in the Section 144 orders.
In a township like Hpakant, where armed clashes continue and civil administration has effectively broken down, Section 144 orders are unlikely to have significant practical impact on the ground. Some observers believe the orders are intended to counter the KIA’s current recruitment drives in Hpakant. In Myitkyina, which remains firmly under junta control, Section 144 may lead to tighter checks and more arrests.