China's Strategic Interests in Myanmar Behind U.S. Citizen Arrest: Sources
An American arrested by the Chinese authorities in June on suspicion of espionage was taken because he was too effective in revealing China’s growing interests and influence, even interference, in war-torn Myanmar, people with close knowledge of the situation told Newsweek.
The shock disappearance on June 3 of Min Zin, who had been invited to speak at a China state-sponsored conference in the southwestern city of Kunming that is a hub for China’s Southeast Asian activities, also raised fears more broadly about the ability of foreign scholars safely to travel to China for work.
And it led to calls for the U.S. State Department to do more for the release of the U.S. citizen who is the Executive Director of the Thailand-based Institute for Strategy and Policy-Myanmar (ISP-Myanmar). The institute publishes detailed geopolitical analyses of the war-torn Southeast Asian country that has been compared to Syria for its violence and military complexity.
Last week marked 30 days since Min Zin’s detention, meaning formal charges could be imminent under Chinese law. It is unclear if they will be laid. The Chinese embassy in Washington D.C. did not reply to a request for comment.
“The question everybody should be asking is why him, why now?” said Laura Harth of the human rights organization Safeguard Defenders, that is trying to raise awareness and get the scholar freed.
“There are many reasons why the Chinese would want Min Zin off the table in Myanmar,” said another person, who has close knowledge of the situation but who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
“It’s about what he was doing to complicate their efforts in Myanmar, which is strategic for China,” the person said.
China announced Min Zin’s arrest just three days before the Myanmar President and former military leader Min Aung Hlaing paid his first state visit to Beijing on June 15. He had traveled to China twice previously since seizing power in a coup in 2021.
Myanmar’s leader also visited India, shortly before his China trip, on a first visit since the coup. India, like China, borders Myanmar and has strategic interests in the region.
An analysis by ISP published late last week that compared the two visits said that while the government increasingly was looking to New Delhi for political and military leverage, it remained “tethered to Beijing's inescapable influence.”
Titled “Between Two Giants: How China and India Maneuver in Myanmar for Security, Economy and Influence,” the study said that about 70 business-to-business MoUs were signed during the visit and 18 state-level agreements.
It said that Beijing had a “clear emphasis” on securing Myanmar's “formal cooperation” with its series of political visions known as the Global Development Initiative, Global Security Initiative, Global Civilization Initiative, and Global Governance Initiative. These are broad roadmaps for a China-led world order.
“China’s influence isn’t waning. It’s the dominant actor by far in Myanmar and getting more dominant, I don’t see that changing,” said Joshua Kurlantzick, Senior Fellow for Southeast Asia and South Asia at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations.
“The regime owes China its survival. There’s no threat that another external power would surpass China,” Kurlantzick said.
“[C]learly Min Zin was arrested to stop his work, and also to test whether the U.S. was going to do anything about it,” Kurlantzick said. “And the U.S. has done very little.”
Newsweek has previously reported that Min Zin has written widely on China’s economic and strategic interests in Myanmar, including on the surge in illegal and unregulated rare earth mining operations that followed the 2021 coup. Chinese companies are deeply involved in rare earth mining in Myanmar.
Designate Min Zin as ‘Wrongfully Detained’
Calls on the U.S. State Department to designated Min Zin as “wrongfully detained” have so far not been met, including one from Randall G. Schriver, the chairman of the Institute for Indo-Pacific Security and a former assistant secretary of defense, who issued a strongly worded statement in June.
“Min Zin is also a long-time friend of the Institute for Indo-Pacific Security and its predecessor, the Project 2049 Institute,” said Schriver, naming two institutes that have worked to highlight China’s growing regional and global influence.
China should immediately release him, but the U.S. for its part should designate him as a wrongfully detained individual and push for his release, Schriver said. The spying allegation was “baseless: Min Zin and ISP-Myanmar conduct independent academic research on governance and human rights issues in Myanmar,” Schriver said.
The arrest by China disrupted an agreement reached between China and the U.S. when President Donald Trump visited Beijing in May, Schriver said: “The PRC has acted egregiously and in a manner entirely inconsistent with the ‘constructive relationship of strategic stability’ on which Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump agreed this spring.”
The State Department told Newsweek that it “has no higher priority than the safety and security of Americans,” and that “the Department reviews all detentions of U.S. nationals individually as each case involves unique facts and circumstances.” It noted that U.S. consular officials had visited him and were “providing all appropriate consular assistance.”
But the U.S. had so far done little, “as the priority is the relationship with Beijing and some in the White House also want to re-engage with Myanmar,” said Kurlantzick. Myanmar has been internationally isolated since the coup, though that was weakening with this year’s India and China visits.
Analysts say the U.S. is losing ground to China in terms of influence across Southeast Asia, including in Thailand, with which the U.S. has defence agreements.
Chinese Interests in Myanmar
The Myanmar section of China’s geoeconomic Belt and Road Initiative is one of the most important in Beijing’s massive global development and influence scheme. Billions of dollars have been spent or earmarked for the “China-Myanmar Economic Corridor” (CMEC).
For China, a key goal of CMEC is access to Myanmar’s Kyaukpyu port on the Indian Ocean as it is anxious to bypass the U.S. patrolled chokepoint Strait of Malacca, according to a former American diplomat in Myanmar, Dan Swift, writing in Asia Times. The article spoke of “China’s Malacca panic.”
Concerns over maritime chokepoints and who controls them have deepened worldwide since the U.S.-Iran war led to the shuttering of the Strait of Hormuz, causing global energy disruptions.
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China's economic interests in Myanmar
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Crucially, China wants to finish construction of a railway to Kyaukpyu from Kunming, through Mandalay, in order to connect China to the Indian Ocean and project strategically outwards, according to Burmese analysts at the Development Media Group.
However, that ambition has been complicated in recent months by advances on the port by the local Arakan Army, threatening China’s “critical” interest, said the person with close knowledge of the situation.
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The Battle of Kyaukpyu approaches China's megaprojects
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Tit for Tat?
Not everyone believes that Min Zin was arrested to remove a thorn in the side of China’s and Myanmar’s rulers.
“I don't think Min Zin's visit is a reflection of China's policy on Myanmar, but a reflection of issues between China and U.S.,” said Yun Sun, a Senior Fellow and the Director of the China Program at the Stimson Center in Washington, D.C. “Myanmar might have played a role, but only a secondary and minor one,” Sun said.
“Although Min Zin has been working on the issue of Myanmar, he carries [an] American passport. Arresting an American scholar is a very serious step that the Chinese do not take lightly. That is why this is primarily a reflection of issues between U.S. and China,” Sun said.
What those could be was less clear, however.
“It could be Chinese retaliation against recent U.S. denials of entries to Chinese scholars at the border, or the U.S. [revocation] of Chinese scholars’ visas,” she said referring to external events. “Or it could be some acts that are not yet made public. We will not find out until there is an announced linkage,” she said.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Frances Mao, Cristina Diciu and John Feng.
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This story was originally published July 5, 2026 at 1:00 AM.