Myanmar Spring Chronicle – View from November 27
(MoeMaKa) November 28, 2025
PDF Forces Withdraw from Mogok and Moe Meik – Strategy Beyond Operation 1027
News outlets that focus on Mandalay Region and northern Shan affairs are reporting that PDF units inside Mogok and Moe Meik have now withdrawn from those towns.
Under the ceasefire agreement reached between the TNLA and the junta’s forces in late October, Mogok and Moe Meik are to be handed back to the military by the end of November.
For the PDF groups that took part in the urban offensives to capture these towns in alliance with TNLA, the fact that towns they helped seize are now being handed back to the junta has been extremely hard to accept. At the end of October, the “Mogok Strategic Group” PDF even publicly declared that they would not allow junta forces to re-enter and would continue to defend the town.
However, because TNLA, which has been the lead force in controlling these towns, agreed to bring junta troops back in under a security arrangement as part of the ceasefire, PDFs have now pulled out in order not to damage their relations with TNLA and the broader alliance.
For MDY PDF and other groups, having to hand Mogok back “without firing a single shot” in its defense has put them in a position where they risk losing the trust of the public that has supported them.
After losing Naung Cho, Kyaukme and Hsipaw within a few months, TNLA then agreed to a ceasefire and to hand back two towns.
TNLA has cited two main reasons for its decision to stop fighting the junta:
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Airstrikes
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Pressure from China
The airstrikes did not only hit the towns being handed back now, but also places like Namtu and Namhsan, which lie inside TNLA’s own autonomous administrative area.
As for “Chinese pressure,” it remains unclear exactly what issues Beijing leaned on TNLA over. What is apparent is that the type and weight of Chinese pressure on the Kokang region is not the same as that on the Ta’ang region.
In Kokang, the armed group’s leaders and their economic interests—property, trade in basic commodities and consumer goods, etc.—are heavily dependent on China. But for the Ta’ang area, there is no clear sign of that same structural dependence on China for essentials such as food, arms and ammunition.
One important point is this: a few months before the ceasefire, UWSA publicly announced that it would no longer be able to provide arms, ammunition and financial support to its ally ethnic armed groups.
Given these factors and pressures, TNLA’s decision to agree a ceasefire with the military and return two towns has undoubtedly damaged both political and military cooperation among the anti-junta forces.
Even before TNLA’s ceasefire, cooperation had already been shaken when the MNDAA in Kokang agreed a truce and handed back Lashio, undermining in part the joint momentum created during Operation 1027.
Throughout Operation 1027 there were already criticisms and feelings of being sidelined regarding:
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the level of participation by PDF groups from Dry Zone areas,
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and the involvement of Kayin (Karenni) and southern Shan PDFs in coordinated offensives.
Some felt that the strategic goals of the northern Shan ethnic armed groups did not fully align with those of resistance forces in other regions.
Those earlier doubts and criticisms that emerged after the Kokang ceasefire have now broadened and deepened with this second ceasefire agreement between TNLA and the junta.
TNLA, as an armed organization, did not openly and frankly consult its PDF allies before making these decisions, and this has created a perception that it does not fully value or prioritize its alliance relationships.
Now, a little over a year after the launch of Operation 1027 in 2023, we find ourselves in a situation where, following ceasefire deals between two key northern allies and the junta, the resistance forces must once again reforge and reframe how they cooperate.
Taking into account the reality of ongoing Chinese pressure as one of the underlying factors, it has become necessary to rethink and rebuild a grand military and political strategy for:
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northern Shan,
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southern Shan,
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Sagaing, Mandalay and Magway Dry Zone areas,
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and Kachin State in the north,
—through the lens of regional strategic alliances and joint operations.
In shaping such a framework, it seems to me that it will be essential for:
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the National Unity Government (NUG),
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the Northern Alliance groups,
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the KIA,
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non-NUG-aligned PDFs in Sagaing and Magway,
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and armed groups from southern Shan and Karenni State
to take a leading role in discussions and in building this new pattern of cooperation.