Myanmar Spring Chronicle – December 21 Scene
(MoeMaKa) December 22, 2025
The real likelihood of restarting the Myitsone project, and a new order allowing lawsuits against project opponents
Myanmar’s coup regime has issued an announcement empowering authorities to take action against objections to state projects—and to activities related to implementing those projects—when the objections are deemed to lack solid evidence or a valid connection to the matter. The National Defense and Security Council published this announcement in the State Gazette on December 16.
While the public was still debating whether this announcement was meant in a general sense for all regime projects or was primarily aimed at the Myitsone project (with similar projects also covered), the regime mouthpiece newspaper The Global New Light of Myanmar ran a lead editorial about the announcement that explicitly referenced the Myitsone project.
The editorial cited WikiLeaks-related disclosures and claimed that, during the administration of President U Thein Sein, the United States supported and organized activists, well-known public figures, and experts who opposed the Myitsone project. It further alleged that the U.S. encouraged opposition because it did not want China–Myanmar mutual interests to flourish.
The coup regime has moved to restart the Myitsone project only more than four years after the February 2021 coup, and it is doing so at a time when it does not firmly control large parts of Kachin State. After the visit to Naypyitaw by China’s foreign minister in August 2024, China’s policy toward the various actors in Myanmar’s civil war reportedly shifted. In this context, the coup regime is portrayed as having reached a point where it “owes” China—given China’s increased diplomatic backing and pressure applied on border-based ethnic armed organizations.
Against that backdrop, one can conclude that the regime’s renewed talk of restarting the Myitsone project—suspended during the eras of President U Thein Sein and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi—and its reinforcement through announcements like this, are part of that effort.
The Myitsone project would benefit China, where electricity demand is rising. For Myanmar, however, the arrangement is that it would receive only 10% of the electricity generated free of charge. The remaining 90% would be exported to China, meaning China—the investor in the dam and hydropower project—would receive the principal benefits.
From Myanmar’s perspective, even that 10% share is not a particularly large amount when compared with nationwide electricity consumption.
For construction of the Myitsone dam to realistically proceed, the coup regime would need to dominate Kachin State. At present, the KIA controls areas along the China border and the Panwa area previously dominated by the former border guard force turned NDAK/Kachin peace group. The military, meanwhile, controls only certain towns such as Myitkyina, Waingmaw, Mohnyin, and Hopin, and cannot control much of the wider territory.
In this situation, talking about restarting the Myitsone project appears—quite clearly—to reflect the regime’s intention to push China to increase pressure on the KIA.
China had closed border trade gates on the Chinese side adjacent to KIA-controlled areas in the latter part of last year and the early part of this year, and only reopened them in recent months. It would not be surprising to interpret the coup regime as using the Myitsone project to “set the agenda” between the KIA and China.
For China, issues such as imports of globally important rare earth minerals from Kachin State—and now the Myitsone project—could become factors that prompt Beijing to reassess its broader strategy toward the KIA.
It is also evident that the coup regime may be entertaining plans to rely on China’s help to keep the KIA in check—and to present the “Myitsone card” to China as part of an effort to regain control over territory in Kachin State.