A small blast in Myanmar’s second-biggest city damages Chinese Consulate

BANGKOK (AP) — The Chinese Consulate in Myanmar’s second-largest city has been slightly damaged by an explosive device, but there were no casualties, the military, independent media and a city resident said Saturday.

No public claims of responsibility were made for the attack on Friday in Mandalay. China is a major ally of Myanmar’s military, which came to power after ousting the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021 but is now fighting fiercely against resistance forces challenging its rule.

The military said in a statement sent to journalists on Saturday evening that roof tiles on the two-story Chinese Consulate were damaged by a explosion Friday afternoon.

The security forces are investigating in order to arrest the “terrorists” behind the blast, it said.

The army is engaged in nationwide fighting against pro-democracy guerrillas and ethnic minority militias. It was forced onto the defensive late last year when ethnic armed organizations dealt it major defeats in the country’s northeast, seizing important territory along the border with China.

Those gains, made by armed ethnic groups who separately maintained their own good relations with China, have weakened the army’s position all over the country, causing Beijing concern about the military government’s stability.

China has reportedly sought to have some of the more powerful ethnic minority groups with which it maintains good ties to discourage the groups that seized territory in the northeast from continuing their offensive, which they launched in October last year.

China was widely believed to have initially given its tacit approval to that offensive, which was seen as a way of curbing rampant criminality, particularly large-scale online scamming carried out in enclaves, which also involved human trafficking. The criminal enterprises were largely run by ethnic Chinese, embarrassing Beijing.

China, along with Russia, is a major arms supplier to Myanmar’s military. It also is Myanmar’s biggest trading partner and has invested billions of dollars in Myanmar’s mines, oil and gas pipelines and other infrastructure.

The military government is shunned and sanctioned by many Western nations for its 2021 takeover and for major human rights violations.

Myanmar’s independent media have reported that Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the head of the ruling military council, would travel to China in the coming weeks for the first time since taking power

Independent online media including The Irrawaddy and Khit Thit, on Saturday also reported the attack with an explosive device on the Chinese Consulate in Mandalay’s Chanmyathazi township.

A Chanmyathazi resident living near the consulate told The Associated Press that the already strict security around the site has since been tightened, with nearby roads closed after the explosion. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he feared being arrested by the military.

The shadow National Unity Government, the main group coordinating opposition to military rule, condemned the attack on the consulate in a statement, saying that it will persistently oppose any action that may cause racial and religious conflict.