Naypyidaw, Aug 25 China’s peace-making efforts often come in the language of harmony yet the result consistently supports Beijing’s business and political benefits rather than communities involved in conflict, a report in Myanmar’s leading media outlet has highlighted.
China has turned mediation into a tool not of reconciliation but of resource extraction and strategic entrenchment, Rishan Sen, a researcher focused on Chinese foreign policy and its strategic footprint across Asia, wrote in Myanmar-based The Irrawaddy.
During the recent Thailand-Cambodia border conflict, he writes, China came forward as an external mediator considering its deep economic ties with both nations. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi offered to help “objectively and fairly” to de-escalate tensions and promote dialogue between two nations. During trilateral meetings, he expressed support for deeper cooperation in energy, agriculture, environmental governance and law enforcement.
“While these moves were presented as stabilising efforts, they dovetailed neatly with Beijing’s interest in extending its investment footprint in infrastructure, rail, and surveillance. China did not act as a mediator in the impartial sense but was managing the relationship with a view to safeguarding its economic interests. Peacebuilding was not the priority. The priority was protecting Chinese investments, resource concessions, and infrastructure channels. Stability, in this calculus, became less an end in itself than a guarantee for Beijing’s long-term commercial reach,” Sen wrote in an opinion piece titled ‘China’s Mediation Is About Leverage, Not Peace’.
It added that, after Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, China presented itself as a bridge between Kabul and the international community, promising dialogue and regional stability. However, China’s offer continued to have a clear strategic agenda. Chinese firms have secured oil extraction deals in the Amu Darya basin and reopened negotiations over cooper and lithium reserves of Afghanistan.
In 2023, Iran and Saudi Arabia resumed ties following a deal brokered by China, a move described as a diplomatic triumph. However, China through this effort wanted to secure uninterrupted access to energy resources and projecting China as an indispensable power in the Gulf.
“In Africa, China has positioned itself as a facilitator in peace talks in both Sudan and South Sudan. Once again, the narrative was about stability, but the material reality was oil. Chinese state companies are heavily invested in Sudanese oil fields, and mediation served less to resolve deep-seated political conflicts than to protect the flow of crude essential to China’s economy,” Sen detais in ‘The Irrawaddy’.
Similarly, China’s role in Myanmar’s peace process with ethnic armed groups has been driven by self-interest. By showcasing itself as a broker, China has tried to protect its controversial Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects and cross-border trade routes from instability.
“This consistent pattern reveals a deeper problem. Mediation is being redefined not as an impartial effort to resolve disputes but as a transactional instrument that locks weaker states into asymmetrical relationships. In Southeast Asia, governments manage tensions in ways that keep Chinese capital flowing. In Afghanistan, a fractured state is pulled further into dependency on a single outside power, with little accountability for how resources are exploited or whether ordinary Afghans benefit at all,” the writer emphasised.
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