Myanmar is heading for an election that begins on 28 December. The military junta announced the planned vote just weeks after its air force bombed a school in Oe Htein Kwin village, killing 22 children and two teachers and injuring over a hundred more. The youngest victim was seven years old. The military junta, in power since its February 2021 coup, denied the slaughter happened. The murderous government presents the upcoming election as an exercise in democracy – but really it’s an attempt to gain the international legitimacy it lacks.

When the coup happened, almost all states refused to recognise the military government, and to this day a representative of the deposed, democratically elected administration speaks for Myanmar at the United Nations (UN). But authoritarian states quickly moved to do business with the regime. China backs the junta with billions in aid and advanced weapons. Russia supplies the fighter jets that drop bombs on civilians. India quietly sells arms and promises cooperation. The three give the junta diplomatic cover and shield it from international accountability.

Now, in a reversal of policy, the US government has lifted sanctions, cut independent media funding and eliminated the protections it formerly gave to Myanmar’s refugees, moves the junta welcomed. Trump is effectively moving toward recognising a regime the UN says is committing war crimes.

The junta, which is fighting pro-democracy forces and ethnic armed organisations, barely controls around a fifth of Myanmar’s territory and has acknowledged that voting won’t be possible in much of the country. With key parties excluded, there’s no chance the election will be anything but a farce. But while it’s losing the war on the ground, a sham election may help the junta win the diplomatic battle.

Bombing civilians with impunity

The school bombing in Oe Htein Kwin wasn’t an isolated incident. It was part of a systematic campaign.

The Assistance Association for Political Prisoners has confirmed 6,231 civilians have been killed by the military since the coup, although true figures could be much higher. Airstrikes are estimated to have caused almost half of civilian deaths. 2024 was the bloodiest year since the coup, with at least 1,824 people killed, including 531 women and 248 children.

In March 2025, after a devastating earthquake killed over 3,700 people, the junta declared two temporary ceasefires, but resumed bombing shortly afterwards. Between March and May, over 108 airstrikes hit Sagaing region in central Myanmar alone, killing at least 89 people. The military has started using motorised paragliders to drop heavy munitions on civilian areas, a cheap and effective way to spread terror.

These aren’t attacks where civilians are collateral damage: civilians are the targets. Analyses of attack patterns show most targets have been sites with protected status under international law, often with no nearby armed resistance fighters, including camps for displaced people, churches, clinics and schools. In August, a single attack in Karenni state killed 32 civilians, many of them children.

Even before the earthquake hit, it was estimated that over 3.5 million people had been displaced, a third of them children, and around 20 million – over a third of Myanmar’s population – were in need of humanitarian assistance. Then the earthquake made things worse. Tens of thousands were left homeless, facing the monsoon season without shelter, while the junta continued to block humanitarian access. At the same time, relief efforts were crippled by the Trump administration’s destruction of its foreign aid programme.

To break resistance to military rule, the government has combined bombing with repression. It has arrested over 27,000 activists and protesters, usually on fabricated charges, subjecting them to systematic torture in detention. On top of numerous summary executions during ground operations, the junta has sentenced over 120 people to death in secret military trials, and has executed several high-profile pro-democracy activists.

To feed the killing machine and break opposition, the junta has implemented mass forced military conscription, dragging thousands of young people to the frontlines. Many have refused to serve, instead fleeing Myanmar or going into hiding. The drainage of working-age adults has worsened the country’s economic collapse. The war and the economy speak of a failing regime resorting to terror – but shifting international alliances portray a different story.

International alliances

While initial responses from China, India and Russia differed, all have intensified their backing over time, providing the junta with the funding and military supplies that have enabled its brutal military campaign. All have consistently given the junta diplomatic cover, making up for its lack of international legitimacy and shielding it from scrutiny.

In February 2021, China and Russia initially blocked a UN Security Council statement condemning the coup and calling for the release of Myanmar’s deposed leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, before allowing a heavily diluted version to pass. In June 2021, China and Russia abstained from a UN General Assembly vote on a non-binding resolution calling for states to cease all arms transfers to Myanmar. And in May 2022, China and Russia again blocked a Security Council statement expressing concern over the escalating humanitarian crisis. The only successful Security Council resolution on Myanmar came in December 2022, with China, India – serving as a non-permanent member – and Russia abstaining. The draft had called for an immediate end to arms sales to Myanmar, but the provision had to be removed to get the resolution passed.

Russia, the only major power to acknowledge the military regime immediately after the coup, has since tightened its links. A 2023 UN report showed that almost all military supplies were coming to Myanmar from entities operating in five countries, with Russia leading the pack, followed by China, Singapore, India and Thailand. Within two years of the coup, Russian entities had supplied at least US$406 million in military equipment, including fighter jets and helicopters. In April 2023, 170 died in a massacre in Pazi Gyi Village, and the bombs and planes that killed them came from Russia.

Over time, the relationship between the two regimes has grown increasingly personal, with junta leader Min Aung Hlaing making multiple trips to Moscow, most recently in March for his fourth post-coup visit. This time he met Vladimir Putin, discussing a deal for Russia to provide six fighter jets. Russia has also signed deals to build a nuclear power plant and develop infrastructure projects in Myanmar, and Myanmar has reciprocated by sending workers to Russia, as well as ammunition and spare parts to support Russia’s war in Ukraine.

China was initially more cautious, with concerns about border security and scam centres that conduct industrial-scale online fraud with the junta’s complicity. China first downplayed the coup as ‘a major cabinet reshuffle’, caught between its investments linked to the ousted government and its long-term strategic interests. But its position has since evolved to decisive backing. By mid-2021, after the junta crushed protests with extreme violence, China began shifting toward full recognition of the military regime, and in April 2022, the Chinese foreign minister declared China’s support ‘no matter how the situation changes’. The decisive shift came in November 2024, when Min Aung Hlaing made his first post-coup visit to China and met Premier Li Qiang, who expressed support for the junta’s planned election.

On top of supplying drones and warplanes, in late 2024 China pledged US$3 billion in aid to prop up Myanmar’s collapsing currency. China also wields enormous leverage over ethnic armed organisations along its border, which it has used in the junta’s favour. In January it brokered a ceasefire between the junta and one of the groups, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, and in April it pressured the group to hand back the capital of Shan state.

Over the past few months, China’s foreign minister has repeatedly endorsed the sham election, calling it necessary for domestic peace and national reconciliation. President Xi Jinping conveyed the same message when he met Min Aung Hlaing at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit held in August. On that occasion, Chinese state media referred to the junta leader as Myanmar’s ‘acting president’.

India has maintained a more quiet and pragmatic stance, but it’s also supportive. At the SCO summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi also met Min Aung Hlaing and later called Myanmar a ‘vital pillar’ of India’s regional policy, promising cooperation on energy, rare earth minerals and security.

India has sold the junta at least US$51 million in weapons and dual-use goods since the coup. But it seems driven primarily by border security concerns and the goal of preventing insurgent groups in India’s northeast using Myanmar as a safe haven, as well as its long-running reluctance to cede influence to China. According to Myanmar’s official media, India may send election observers, lending legitimacy to the sham process.

USA changes direction

Following the coup, the Biden administration imposed targeted sanctions on Myanmar’s military leadership, junta-controlled businesses and arms dealers supplying the regime. It blocked Myanmar’s access to over a billion dollars in government funds held in US banks and isolated the regime diplomatically while supporting calls for the release of detained leaders and a return to democracy. Military equipment imports to Myanmar dropped significantly between 2023 and 2024 as suppliers faced the risk of US secondary sanctions.

The Trump administration has abandoned this approach. In July, the Treasury Department lifted sanctions against arms dealers and junta cronies, and as part of his mass mailing to world leaders Trump sent a letter to Min Aung Hlaing about tariff rate increases. It was the first time a US president had addressed him by name, and the general seized on the opportunity, thanking Trump for cutting funding to Radio Free Asia and Voice of America operations in Myanmar, effectively eliminating independent media coverage.

In November, the US Department of Homeland Security terminated protected status for around 4,000 Myanmar nationals, falsely claiming the junta had made ‘improvements’ in ‘governance and stability’ and its planned elections would be ‘free and fair’.

Trump’s shift is likely linked to Myanmar’s status as the world’s third-largest producer of rare earth minerals, used in the production of defence equipment, electric vehicles and wind turbines. This fits with the administration’s transactional approach that prioritises economic interests over human rights commitments. By July, proposals to access Myanmar’s rare earths were on Trump’s desk, and the junta had given the DCI Group, a lobbying firm with ties to former Trump officials, a US$3 million a year contract to promote bilateral dialogue on trade and resources.

ASEAN’s failed consensus

While the US has shifted its position, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has consistently maintained its ineffective approach. Under Malaysia as the 2025 chair, it continues to pursue the Five-Point Consensus it agreed with the junta in April 2021, although the junta has failed to fulfil any of the commitments.

The consensus called for an immediate cessation of violence, but the junta has only escalated it. It demanded constructive dialogue among all parties, while the junta has imprisoned the democratically elected government and arrested thousands of activists and protesters. It required full humanitarian access, yet the junta has systematically blocked aid as a form of collective punishment. Adding insult to injury, the plan was negotiated exclusively with the junta without input from the in-exile National Unity Government, ethnic armed organisations or civil society, effectively treating the military regime as Myanmar’s legitimate government.

In February, Malaysia appointed a Special Envoy to facilitate dialogue between the junta and opposition forces, and its foreign minister said ASEAN should prioritise a ceasefire rather than elections. But the October ASEAN Summit spent more time discussing Timor-Leste’s admission than Myanmar’s crisis, and ASEAN continues to ignore civil society’s calls to engage with the National Unity Government as Myanmar’s legitimate representative, instead insisting on its failed Five-Point Consensus.

The concern now is that given China’s backing and the Trump administration’s accommodation of the junta, ASEAN member states, many of them deeply authoritarian, may use the sham election as justification to normalise relations with the military regime. Some have started moving in this direction, with Min Aung Hlaing already invited to regional meetings.

What next

Despite the deteriorating international situation, Myanmar’s pro-democracy forces continue to resist. The People’s Defence Forces and ethnic armed organisations maintain coordinated operations across most of the country and still control vast areas, although the military has recaptured some territory thanks to Chinese backing. Civil society is documenting violations, providing aid to displaced people and advocating for international action despite systematic targeting.

The international community’s response to the election will show what it’s prepared to legitimise. Recognition would mean treating as an elected government a military regime that controls under a quarter of national territory, bombs civilians and detains the government people chose in a genuine election. The message would be that overthrowing democratic institutions and maintaining power through force doesn’t preclude international acceptance.

The alternative requires sustained pressure. The US government should reinstate protections for Myanmar nationals, restore sanctions and support democratic forces. Asian states should make clear to China that backing a regime that’s conducting systematic attacks on civilians undermines regional stability. The Security Council should move from statements to comprehensive arms and fuel embargoes and targeted financial sanctions, and refer the Myanmar regime to the International Criminal Court. ASEAN should engage directly with the National Unity Government rather than stick to a discredited framework the junta has consistently violated. States should expand sanctions, ban imports that fund the regime and provide safe haven for refugees.

The junta’s control on the ground remains tenuous, but its diplomatic position has strengthened considerably in 2025. Whether that consolidation continues will depend on how the rest of the world responds to the sham election.

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