RandAlThor

lol awesome. love it! haven't seen that one yet.

Caleb looks good.

Your nick has me curious. Are you from one of the hill tribes of Burma?

It depends on how much reading you want to do. I find the most insightful author on Burma's civil wars is Bertil Lintner, former journalist who covered Burma and Southeast Asia for decades. Thant Myint-U is the most extensively published historian on Myanmar. His 2019 book https://wwnorton.com/books/the-hidden-history-of-burma should cover the background on current conflicts and Chinese role in it (as I vaguely recall). Wikipedia is not fully reliable as it is but a location for information war on internet. I find some articles on Foreign Policy somewhat naive. Council on Foreign Relations has this brief backgrounder on Burma: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/myanmar-history-coup-military-rule-ethnic-conflict-rohingya. It devotes half a sentence to the source of ethnic wars since independence: "Divisions purposely created under British colonial rule...". Lintner and Myint-U will give the best insights. This report is succinct in covering China's role and influence in Burma: https://www.usip.org/publications/2018/09/chinas-role-myanmars-internal-conflicts

Reposting my comment in Myanmar here to answer. It isn't on charm offensive. This situation is interesting because China is the one arming both sides of the conflict. China is the chief arms supplier to the military Junta whose weapons have been killing civilians. It is with Chinese blessing and Chinese weapons that guerilla group Brotherhood Alliance launched its 1027 operation last year that’s been highly successful against the Junta.

China has in the past gone alone (while rejecting participation of regional and other global powers) in brokering peace in Burma forcing both the Junta and the guerillas to sit down at meetings in southern China without participation of other regional countries. China has been the one meeting with Burma’s current and former dictators in past two months, including Wang's visit to Myanmar 2 days ago.

In an about-face, China is now seeking greater regional cooperation in Burma’s internal affairs. It may well be that the situation is spinning out of control for China, and Chinese are worried their strategic interests are now poised to crumble in Myanmar.

This is interesting because China is the one arming both sides of the conflict. China is the chief arms supplier to the military Junta whose weapons have been killing civilians. It is with Chinese blessing and Chinese weapons that Brotherhood Alliance launched its 1027 operation last year that's been highly successful against the Junta. China has in the past gone alone in brokering peace in Burma forcing both the Junta and the guerillas to sit down at meetings in southern China without participation of other regional countries. China has been the one meeting with Burma's current and former dictators in past two months. It may well be that the situation is spinning out of control for China and is now seeking greater regional cooperation in Burma's internal affairs. Chinese are worried their strategic interests are now poised to crumble in Myanmar.

Milano and Bills are cursed man. This dude is the KEY to their defense. No superbowl this year for Bills.

Change may bring surprises. What we know all of these men are hand-picked by MAL into these positions and were supposed to be loyal to him. So they are all of the same cloth and philosophy. Not expecting change but they may bring a new approach to the civil war but not to governance.

There's been reports of discontent within the military due to successive and overwhelming defeat they've been suffering at the hands of resistance factions. Expectations had been that there would be some sort of a coup. Indicating some validity to these rumors, Min Aung Hlaing had placed his former mentors and bosses former generals Than Swe and Thein Sein under security surveillance monitoring them and their families' movements. Even if this is just a rumor, it certainly is indicative of MAH's precarious position (or commonly referred to by Burmese as MAL or Ma Aye Loe or motherfucker).

Damn. I don't understand most of what you said, but that's very interesting.

good eye. never seen those games before.

Now we know the real reason why Chinese are invading its neighbors in South China Sea.