China has recently sent a team to Myanmar to monitor a ceasefire it brokered between the country’s ruling military regime and an anti-regime resistance group, China’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday, signalling its deepening involvement in an expanding civil war.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since 2021 when its powerful military deposed an elected civilian government, sparking a nationwide protest movement that has morphed into an armed rebellion against the regime.

The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), mainly made up of ethnic Chinese, last year seized control of a major military headquarters in Lashio near the border with China, as part of an offensive in the country that has wrested territory out of regime control.

In January, following talks between the regime and the MNDAA in China’s Kunming, Beijing said the warring sides had signed a formal agreement for a ceasefire.

In recent days, some retgime officials have returned to Lashio, with military vehicles also seen in the northern city on Tuesday, Myanmar media reported.

Reuters could not independently verify the information.

“The two parties appreciate and thank China for its constructive role in safeguarding peace and stability in northern Myanmar,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun told a regular press conference.

“Going forward, China will continue to push forward the Kunming peace talks.”

The MNDAA is part of the so-called Brotherhood Alliance, three ethnic armed groups that launched an offensive against the military in late October 2023, gaining control of wide areas on the border with China and pushing the regime out of northern Shan State.

The MNDAA-regime agreement is separate from a broader ceasefire that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been pushing for to allow delivery of more humanitarian aid into Myanmar, which was ravaged by a devastating earthquake on March 28 that has killed over 3,700 people.

REUTERS