Myanmar Spring Chronicle – December 5 Snapshot
(MoeMaKa) December 6, 2025
Two Scandinavian embassies in Myanmar announce closures; Silent Strike call for December 10
A few weeks ago, the Embassy of Finland in Yangon, which handles affairs related to Myanmar, announced that it would be closing. Shortly afterwards, on December 5, the Danish Embassy in Yangon also announced that it would be closing.
Both embassies are to be shut down sometime in 2026. In explaining its decision, Finland cited “operational and strategic reasons.” News reports note that Finland has decided to close not only its embassy in Myanmar, but also its missions in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The term “operational reasons” can be understood as referring to the growing restrictions and constraints in bilateral engagement following the military coup—limitations imposed by the junta that make it very difficult for the embassies to carry out development cooperation and joint programs.
As for the “strategic reasons,” while the exact meaning is not spelled out, one could say that Myanmar, Pakistan, and Afghanistan are all politically unstable countries under authoritarian rule, with very limited prospects for positive change in the near future.
Regarding Denmark’s decision, the explanation given was that cooperation had significantly declined since 2021, and that there are currently no signs of improvement on the horizon.
After President Thein Sein’s government took office in 2011 and Myanmar appeared to be entering a period of political opening, Scandinavian countries such as Finland and Denmark opened embassies in Yangon and posted ambassadors.
However, following the 2021 military coup, Myanmar’s security, economic, and social conditions deteriorated sharply, and cooperation with the junta essentially ceased. In this situation, one can conclude that the Scandinavian countries have now decided to close their embassies.
Another important factor is that Western Europe and Scandinavian countries are facing increased perceived risks of military aggression from Russia, which has led to a visible rise in defense spending. As a consequence, it is likely that they are looking to cut costs in other areas, such as overseas aid and diplomatic engagement.
During the period after 2011, which many saw as Myanmar’s democratic transition phase, Scandinavian countries—Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Denmark—actively supported peace talks aimed at ending Myanmar’s decades-long civil wars, capacity-building for civil society organizations, and human rights education programs.
When the 2021 coup abruptly halted that transition, these democracy-support programs did not completely disappear, but many could no longer be implemented effectively. Hopes for democratic reform and nationwide peace faded, and the country slid back into a new phase of civil war.
Now, five years after the coup, these countries have likely assessed that, for the foreseeable future, there is little positive to expect from Myanmar’s political trajectory.
At the end of this news about the closure of some Scandinavian embassies, I would also like to touch on the December 3 flash protest at Mandalay’s Zay Cho morning market and the subsequent destruction of stalls by the regime.
In the early morning of December 3, Dr. Tayzar San—who led Mandalay’s protests in the early days after the coup—together with Yangon protest leader Ko Nyan Linn and Sagaing protest organizer Ko Khant Hwe Phyo, staged a surprise flash protest at the fresh-produce market strip near Zay Cho in Mandalay. They called on the public to boycott the junta’s planned election and urged everyone to join a Silent Strike on coming December 10.
Because this flash protest showed that high-profile protest leaders, whom the junta is eager to arrest, were able to slip into Mandalay and demonstrate at an unexpected place and time, the regime retaliated by interrogating market vendors in the protest area, demolishing stalls, and blocking them from trading.
Reports say that, frustrated by their failure to arrest the protest leaders, the junta punished the shopkeepers instead, and even arrested one woman vendor whose “three-finger salute” of support was captured during the protest.
The theme of the December 10 Silent Strike called for by Dr. Tayzar San and others is to oppose and invalidate the upcoming election that the junta plans to hold late this month and early next year.
How widely the public will participate and express their will on December 10’s Silent Strike remains something to be watched.