An anti-coup protester flashes the three-fingered salute as others play instruments and sing in Yangon, Myanmar
Credit: AP
The chorus of banging pots and pans begins in Chinatown at about 8pm.
The district in Myanmar’s commercial city of Yangon is normally festooned with bright red lanterns to celebrate Chinese New Year.
But when the Year of the Ox arrived in mid-February, the usual festive atmosphere was gone — replaced by a tension in the air.
Here, and across the country, swelling ranks of young ethnic Chinese protesters are joining mass rallies against the brutal junta that abruptly deposed Aung San Suu Kyi’s government.
Many are united by rumours, circulated widely among the protest movement, that China is helping the regime install a repressive new internet system akin to one across the border that severely restricts online freedoms behind a ‘Great Firewall’.
Eager to show opposition to Beijing meddling, they gather outside the embassy, some displaying bilingual posters reading “Myanmar-born Chinese oppose the military coup.”
“They want to show all Myanmar people: we stand together," said Yang Chung-ching, among the crowd at a recent demonstration.
“It’s not just here, but everywhere. Ethnic Chinese are actively taking part in these protests,” said Mr Yang.
Moe Thein, a young financial services professional, told The Telegraph during an embassy protest that he believed China was continuing to back an “illegitimate regime.”
Considering Beijing’s strict controls on freedom of speech, the suspicion of its involvement in internet blackouts was “worrying,” he said.
Protesters of all backgrounds are concerned that China is secretly supporting army chief General Min Aung Hlaing’s hated coup.
The perception was exacerbated by China’s early block of condemnation of the coup at the UN Security Council and rumours that Chinese internet specialists had been flown in to help strengthen internet censorship.
Protesters take part in a demonstration against the military coup in Yangon
Credit: YE AUNG THU /AFP
The Chinese government, which cultivated strong ties to ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and which wants to avoid instability that will disrupt its own economic ambitions, has denied reports of political support or assistance to build Myanmar’s own version of their restrictive internet.
In rare comments last week, Chen Hai, China’s ambassador to Myanmar denied reports that cargo planes had sent teams of Chinese Communist Party web technicians to assist, and said the current political situation was “absolutely not what China wants to see.”
But the daily rallies outside the Chinese embassy in Yangon continue, with protesters carrying banners demanding that it “stop interfering with our affairs of state”.
The history of ethnic Chinese in Myanmar is complex. Much of the older generations, in particular, remain scarred by the deadly anti-Chinese riots in 1967 that marked a dark chapter in China’s complex relationship with neighbouring Myanmar.
Dozens of Chinese were killed and Chinese-owned properties looted by Myanmar’s Bamar majority when unrest was triggered by economic insecurity and fears that the minority was promoting the China’s Cultural Revolution.
Economic and ideological divides, as well as ethnic conflicts in border regions have since fanned tensions with Myanmar’s 1.7-million-strong Chinese minority, which makes up some 3 per cent of the population.
Demonstrators hold placards as they rally against the military coup in Yangon
Credit: REUTERS
In recent years, controversial Chinese-backed investment projects linked to an ambitious infrastructure plan coined the ‘China-Myanmar Economic Corridor’ have created new flashpoints of resentment.
Recent Chinese efforts to revive the deeply unpopular Myitsone hydropower project have been particularly unwelcome.
Given the history, some ethnic Chinese feel compelled to join the protest to prove their loyalty amid a febrile atmosphere.
Some fear the junta would prey on anti-Chinese feelings among the protest movement to deflect from its own troubles. Others worried that a failure to stand up now would only make Myanmar’s Bamar majority more suspicious of them.
“It’s not just here, but everywhere. Ethnic Chinese are actively taking part in these protests,” said Mr Yang.
Say Nay Nay Win, 22, has lived in Myanmar all his life. Like millions of ethnic Chinese born and raised there, his ancestors moved to the north of the country from neighbouring Yunnan province in southwest China over half a century ago.
Children hold National League for Democracy (NLD) flags during a protest against the military coup
Credit: Shutterstock
But he said that has not stopped people from questioning his loyalties in the wake of the putsch.
The suspicions have helped galvanise his own protest activities in the city of Lashio, in the northern Shan state.
After seeing negative social media posts about his community, he revived his Burmese Chinese Youth Association, which has since helped organise mass rallies and promoted the country’s mushrooming civil disobedience movement.
“People confuse anti-CCP feeling with anti-Chinese feeling. [But] Because everyone can see ethnic Chinese standing up and protesting, they are slowly getting clearer,” he said.
But the minority are still facing an uphill battle for acceptance that reaches far beyond the realm of the coup.
An annual survey in early February by the ISEAS-Yushof Ishak Institute in Singapore revealed that 64% of Myanmar respondents were worried about China’s economic influence and 47% about its political clout. From 2019-20, China and Hong Kong were Myanmar’s biggest source of foreign direct investment.
“The Myanmar public, or particularly the Myanmar nationalist public, never liked China,” said Enze Han, associate politics professor at the University of Hong Kong.
For much of the 20th century, the ethnic Chinese, an economically visible and prosperous group, were a familiar target for the Bamar majority’s nationalist anger, he said. After China’s communist revolution, concerns also grew over their political loyalties.
Mr Han said that the coup was a new headache for Beijing, which had invested heavily in warming ties with the now overturned National League for Democracy government – a more predictable partner than the secretive ranks of the junta.
Any move to pivot that support to the military could very easily trigger anti-China feeling, he said.
Than Aung, 26, is among the many ethnic Chinese to have joined the protests, hoping his community’s more visible presence on the streets will mitigate any hostility.
“If China genuinely wants to enhance the friendship between the two countries… all they have to do is to stand in solidarity with the people of Myanmar," he said.
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