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Jun 16, 2026

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High-Stakes Visit to Beijing

Min Aung Hlaing landed in Beijing for a five-day state visit, his second foreign trip in about a fortnight, and by far the more consequential one or the two. The India stop in late May was mostly a photo op with geopolitical cover; this visit is where the real business will get done. Xi Jinping is hosting him with Premier Li Qiang and top legislator Zhao Leji, and he’s getting the full reception package that China normally reserves for heads of state it intends to keep. Beijing wants security guarantees for its oil and gas pipelines and for the Kyaukphyu deep-sea port in Arakan State, where the Arakan Army now controls 15 of the region's 17 townships. Bilateral trade is almost $20 billion a year, and Beijing wants the infrastructure that moves it to stay intact.

Read more: The Irrawaddy (civilian president), DVB (Min Zin), Arab News (rare earths), AA (trade), DVB (Modi)

Beijing Jails Man Who Watched Beijing

Min Zin, executive director of ISP-Myanmar and a Ph.D. candidate at UC Berkeley, was held at Kunming airport after flying in for a conference at a Chinese academic institution's invitation. China's Foreign Ministry confirmed the arrest, saying that he was suspected of "engaging in espionage and endangering national security." Min Zin had spent years tracking Chinese investments, border politics, and Myanmar's rare-earth exports to China through ISP-Myanmar, the think tank he co-founded and moved overseas after the 2021 coup. Beijing announced the detention publicly and promptly by notifying the U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou. Min Aung Hlaing's state visit to China started two days later (previous story).

Read more: NPR (1988 activism), DVB (ISP move), The Guardian (asylum), NBC News (Trump)

Eighty-Five Percent Go Straight to the Front

Eighty-five percent of the junta's newly conscripted soldiers are going directly into active combat zones, with no real training, according to the Myanmar Defense and Security Institute. The numbers are shocking because more than 60,000 people were drafted in 2025, (that’s six times the 2020 number, at roughly 4,700 a month plus another 400 basic militia recruits). The MDSI has been tracking 25 separate conscription cycles over a little more than 24 months. Recruitment throughout the year averaged around 25,000 between 2005 and 2010, then fell below 15,000 after political reforms as voluntary enlistment slowed down.

Myanmar Air Campaign Intensifies (Again)

At least 15 mass-casualty airstrikes have hit civilian sites across Arakan State since November 2023, as the junta's map continues to shrink. On International Human Rights Day last December, a strike on Mrauk-U Public Hospital killed more than 30 patients, caregivers, and bystanders. A September 2024 strike on a Maungdaw facility holding prisoners of war killed about 50. A private school in Kyauktaw Township was bombed in September 2025, killing students and teachers. The Arakan Army is now running governance, taxation, and policing over most of the state; the military still holds Sittwe, Kyaukphyu, Manaung, and a handful of physical installations.

Kyat's Phantom Value

The Central Bank has held the official kyat at 2,100 to the dollar since August 2022, a rate that is now more than double what the street trades it at. The unofficial market settled at 4,245 kyat per dollar at end-May; exporters are forced to convert at a 15/85 blend of official and platform rates and so therefore pocket only 3,423 kyat of every dollar earned abroad. Garment manufacturers, allowed to convert entirely at the platform rate, get 3,658. The gap reduces profit margins and shrinks the amount of money available to pay wages and buy crops from farmers. The junta's 100-day plan, introduced after it took power (post-election) in April, focuses on agriculture and rural lending but makes no mention of the exchange rate.

Jakarta Joins Naypyidaw Pilgrimage

Indonesian Foreign Minister Sugiono went to Naypyidaw on June 8, the first Indonesian minister to make the trip since the coup, and described his meeting with Min Aung Hlaing as "cordial, positive, open and constructive." Jakarta spent years as one of ASEAN's most vocal voices for holding the junta to account, which made the scene particularly notable. Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak was there in April, Malaysia's Mohamad Hasan in May, and now Indonesia has joined the throng. That’s three consecutive ministerial visits from the bloc's core members, since the election cleared Min Aung Hlaing's path to the presidency in April.

AmCham Dispute Leads to Arrest

Adam Castillo, former AmCham Myanmar president and author of a memoir on surviving the 2021 coup while confronting White House sanctions policy, was detained at Yangon International Airport and remanded to custody for two weeks. The arrest came after a complaint from the chamber's current leadership involving more than $300,000 that a former board representative allegedly collected from a Washington PR firm in November 2024, on a contract that exceeded individual board signing limits and was never shared with the auditors. Castillo, who founded security firm AGS Myanmar and led the chamber from 2023 to 2025, faces a criminal breach of trust charge involving property, punishable by up to a decade in prison.

US Embassy Employee Found Dead in Yangon

A US embassy employee was found dead at the Sakura Residence + Hotel in Yangon, roughly a kilometer (~half a mile) from the US mission and a residence hotel used by diplomats and expats. Police are treating the case as a possible homicide and have a Thai woman in custody, according to rumors in the city's diplomatic community. The State Department confirmed the death of a government employee assigned to the Yangon embassy but said nothing more. Thailand's foreign ministry won't say whether it has provided consular support to the suspect, and the hotel manager isn't talking.

Kokang's New Bosses Speak Mandarin

The MNDAA's "Kokang Special Region 1" now controls the Lashio-Muse Road, the main artery for border trade with China, and is running it like a Yunnan county. Ta'ang village names have reportedly been changed into Chinese script, Shan flags have been banned, and ethnic Chinese from Yunnan are moving on in.

A Crackdown With Limits

The junta announced that it had destroyed 56 high-rises used for “cyber scams” in Shwe Kokko, and it has 21 more to go. Locals say the targets were riverbank shells that had long ago been abandoned and stripped of anything valuable in advance of the cameras showing up. Compounds that are currently active in Shwe Kokko, Myawaddy town, and four other sites are still operational, and new buildings still under construction.

An Uneasy Return to Normal

Yangon’s curfew is gone, but many residents behave as if it is still in place. Clubbers in Sanchaung doze on sofas until dawn rather than risk a ride home, even as music in warehouse venues get as loud as 150 decibels (Ed.: yikes), yet much of the city remains unusually quiet after dark. The junta uses claims of the lifted restrictions and last year’s widely panned elections as proof of normality but almost half of young people say they feel unsafe walking alone at night. Chinatown's 19th Street fill up on weekends but is mainly emptied by midnight.

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