How an Academic Became Collateral Damage to China’s Interests in Myanmar

On June 3, Burmese-American scholar U Min Zin disappeared in China’s southwestern province of Yunnan, where he was set to attend an academic conference. On June 12, shortly before Myanmar’s ruler, Min Aung Hlaing, arrived in China for a state visit, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian confirmed that Zin had been arrested and accused of endangering Chinese national security. No further details were provided. On August 20, the U.S. State Department officially classified Zin as “wrongfully detained.” Assistant Secretary of State for Global Public Affairs Dylan Johnson pledged that the U.S. government “will continue to advocate for Mr. Zin and call for the release of all U.S. citizens who are arbitrarily detained or exit banned in China.” Zin runs the Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar, a think tank in Thailand that is critical of Myanmar’s military government and the 2021 coup that brought it to power. Initially, the arrest of Zin, a U.S. citizen, may seem like another attempt by Beijing to engage in hostage diplomacy and gain the upper hand in any potential negotiations with the United States at the September summit between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump. But Beijing’s arrest of Zin actually has more to do with Myanmar itself. China wanted to remove a potentially destabilizing variable from the already unsteady foundations of Chinese investment in Myanmar, which is key to Beijing’s economic strategy in Southeast Asia. For China, its core strategic interests in Myanmar are the stability of its shared border, the safety of its economic investments, and the closure of scam centers that ensnare and enslave Chinese nationals. To that end, Beijing supports the military junta that seized power from Myanmar’s democratically elected government. China has provided the new regime with $3 billion in economic assistance, as well as selling it military weapons. Beijing also applies diplomatic pressure on Myanmar’s ethnic armed organizations. Beijing has not been shy about detaining leaders of these resistance groups to force ceasefires between them and the military leaders in Naypyidaw and protect China’s infrastructure projects. If a person or organization is deemed a threat to China’s interests in Myanmar, Beijing is willing and able to use its full suite of tools against them, including forced detention. China especially wants to protect the stability of the newly elected Burmese government. Though the election was widely condemned as a sham, the nominally civilian Parliament can sign contracts and negotiate agreements that the junta cannot. The veneer of civilian administration allows for continuity in China’s projects and legal leverage should the junta’s leadership change. Since the launch of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Myanmar has been a key to China’s economic strategy in Southeast Asia. Of particular importance is the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), which connects China to the Indian Ocean and provides a much-needed economic infusion in China’s less-developed southwestern provinces. As technological competition with the West intensifies, Myanmar has only grown more important. Beijing sources rare earth minerals from Myanmar’s northern Kachin State to meet its defense and clean-energy needs. Such processing involves using toxic chemicals to extract precious elements from the soil. Residents, outraged by the damage, protested the continuous harm to their environment, but by all reports, the extraction continues. Residents of Kachin State allege that China’s rare earth mining has threatened water sources, putting their health and food supply at risk. The United Nations has reported that numerous mines have forcibly displaced civilians and received financial support from the military junta for their operations. According to the outlet Frontier Myanmar, since 2024, junta troops working with Chinese mines have routinely arrested and killed civilians at random. The public opposition is having real consequences. In February 2022, a Chinese oil and gas pipeline was attacked by a civilian militia opposed to Chinese support of the junta. In 2024, the Burmese and Chinese governments reportedly were working together to assemble a joint security company to protect Chinese projects and personnel from attacks. The backlash against Chinese projects endangers the vast sums of wealth that public and private enterprises have poured into Myanmar. If infrastructure investments falter, China will lose access to vast amounts of critical minerals, harming its ambitions to develop defense and other high-end technologies domestically. China’s interests in Myanmar are not limited to critical minerals. In 2016, Chinese state-owned firms reached agreements with the Burmese government to develop a deep-water port in the town of Kyaukpyu along the Bay of Bengal. This port, in which both China and Myanmar have agreed to invest a collective $7.3 billion, would provide China with direct access to the Indian Ocean, allowing ships ferrying oil and other vital goods to bypass the Strait of Malacca. The Strait of Malacca accounts for over 22 percent of international maritime trade; if there were a conflict involving China, Beijing fears that its foes could close the strait to harm China’s economy and defense deployments. The deep-sea port could also serve as a staging area for People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) vessels. While previous experts asserted that deployment of PLAN ships was unlikely due to Burmese political and legal restrictions, the financial and political leverage Beijing now holds over Naypyidaw means that if China wants it to happen, it will. An estimated 20,000 people, mostly farmers and fishermen, will lose their land and be displaced by development of the port and its attached special economic zone. Farmers expressed frustration over a lack of consultation with the local government and a belief that the special economic zone and port will bring in Chinese workers instead of hiring locals. If backlash halts the projects or militia attacks endanger the lives of Chinese workers, the Chinese and Burmese governments would lose billions of dollars, and China would lose access to a strategic port. Burmese activists and academics, such as Min Zin, serve as the central node informing people about Chinese investments and projects in Myanmar, including their negative impacts. In fact, Zin’s ISP-Myanmar runs a dedicated China Desk that maps and outlines China’s infrastructure investments in the region, specifically highlighting China’s influence in northern Kachin State and its development in Kyaukpyu. While the observations and analysis of Zin’s organization were relatively benign and did not engage in fear-mongering, the simple act of shining a spotlight probably set off alarm bells in Chinese leadership circles. Burmese civilians, armed with knowledge of the negative impacts of Chinese development in their area, could make life much more difficult for Chinese investors by protesting and, more worryingly for the Chinese, encouraging civilian militias to attack the projects. This, combined with Zin’s history of activism, likely made Zin a target. Why he decided to travel to Kunming at the invitation of a Chinese university is unknown – especially as China has previously detained scholars who are in the nation to attend academic conferences, give university lectures, or visit family members. In 2019, a Japanese professor of modern Chinese history from Hokkaido University, Nobu Iwatani, was arrested and accused of spying for the Japanese government. Nobu had been invited to give a lecture at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Chinese authorities claimed Nobu had collected classified and illicit documents relating to the Second Sino-Japanese War, a topic especially sensitive to Beijing and central to its official narrative. Beijing released Nobu after relentless pressure from the Japanese government. Professors Fan Yuntao, Hu Shiyun, and Yuan Keqin, Chinese nationals based in Japan, also disappeared while visiting China. While Fan and Hu returned to Japan in 2025 with little explanation, Yuan was convicted of espionage in 2024 and released in 2026. While Zin’s ISP-Myanmar did not necessarily pose a serious risk to China’s infrastructure projects, Beijing likely found that its analysis and Zin’s connections were inconvenient to Chinese interests. China used the opportunity of Zin’s travel to Kunming to remove him from the equation. Min Zin’s arrest signals that civilians who are inconvenient to China’s international growth and ambitions are subject to forced arrest and arbitrary detention. An active threat to the regime or its relationships is not required; even the perception of a threat is enough to result in arrest and an accusation of espionage. While the belief that Zin’s analysis and activism may endanger Chinese investments likely motivated his detention, it also sends another message: foreigners who criticize Beijing’s policies should think twice before visiting China, lest the long arm of the state find them.