CETRI
On 1 February 2025, Myanmar will enter a fifth year under military rule. Will 2025 bring change to Myanmar’s current woes ?
As 2025 began, more people and members of the resistance against the military in Myanmar were hoping for and expecting the fall of the State Administration Council (SAC) junta. The junta is intent on holding on to power, despite an unprecedented loss of two regional commands to ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) in 2024. The SAC continues to insist on elections as a step towards political transition. Some external actors have taken this ‘election-as-transition’ rhetoric at face value, though key political stakeholders are excluded – mainly the National League for Democracy, deposed in the 2021 coup. The SAC may pursue polls in late 2025 despite some resistance actors indicating they will deter junta-orchestrated elections by any means.
For the region, Myanmar’s capacity to function as a state has become a point of heightened concern. ASEAN foreign ministers at their annual retreat stressed to the SAC representative that ending violence in Myanmar is the priority, not holding elections.
Domestically, 2025 began with several Myanmar political actors calling for dialogue between the military and the resistance. Some view the military as part of finding sustainable solutions, while others emphasise it must withdraw from politics. Several resistance groups, though determined to continue fighting to topple the junta, remain fragmented. In Rakhine State, Rohingya militias and the Arakan Army (AA) are locked in fighting. Though tallies vary, the authors’ informal calculation from various reports finds that military airstrikes have increased from 49 in 2021 to 1,217 in 2024, displacing and killing civilians, and destroying residential areas and infrastructure across Myanmar. The SAC has neither halted airstrikes — a precondition for dialogue set by resistance groups — nor recognised that EAOs and resistance groups control over 40 per cent of the country’s area.
For the region, Myanmar’s capacity to function as a state has become a point of heightened concern.
The AA now controls most of Rakhine State, except state capital Sittwe, Munaung Island, and Kyaukphyu, home to China’s strategic deep-sea port. The military’s loss of its Western Regional Command to the AA in December 2024 means EAOs and resistance forces may be able to access Myanmar’s defence industry complex in Magway. Additionally, the AA’s capture of Gwa in southern Rakhine opens access to the Ayeyarwaddy delta, Myanmar’s main rice-bowl.
Ongoing conflict and the SAC’s policies geared primarily toward regime survival will continue to weigh down Myanmar’s economic prospects. Myanmar’s economy fared poorly in 2024, with GDP declining by one per cent, while prospects for 2025 look weak. Economic activity is constrained by conflict and SAC policies, notably money printing, forex restrictions and price controls, that are geared primarily toward regime survival. These policies undermine incentives for economic activity and will not promote growth. Inflation remains high, with food costs through mid-2024 up over 40 per cent year-on-year. Foreign investment, which fell dramatically post-coup, remains low. Trade was down modestly in 2024 and will remain weak due to migration, economic policies, and conflict on key overland trade routes. Economic revitalisation is unlikely in 2025. Poverty and out-migration will remain elevated, and an illegitimate election will not meaningfully reduce conflict or alleviate political challenges at the root of Myanmar’s economic decline. Technical policy changes cannot restore confidence in the regime’s economic governance.
2025 will be pivotal for EAOs, who have emerged as Myanmar’s non-state authorities, given their significant gains in territorial control last year. Demonstrating their ability to govern in areas under their control would bolster their claim to be a viable alternative to SAC rule. If not, the EAOs risk undermining their legitimacy and stoking frustrations among people living in these areas.
The same may apply to the parallel National Unity Government (NUG), now flexing its administrative capacity. The NUG has announced an imminent administrative headquarters in Sagaing Region to coordinate military, political, and administrative matters.
The NUG and EAOs will face dire humanitarian need. The SAC is struggling to regain ground lost to EAOs and resistance forces, which means protracted conflict. Additionally, the impact of natural disasters arising from climate change, socio-economic hardship, growing inter-ethnic tensions on territorial demarcation, and potential violence surrounding the junta’s election will exacerbate Myanmar’s already fragile humanitarian situation. The international community’s fragmented response to Myanmar’s humanitarian needs will not be adequate, especially for internally displaced persons (IDPs), ethnic minorities, and women and children, who will bear the brunt.
In 2025, the SAC will likely keep playing up these humanitarian challenges and the need for external partners to ‘cooperate over isolate’, when its representatives appear at international or regional forums. Since 2021, the SAC and NUG have competed in asserting legitimacy, mostly around ASEAN attendance and representation at the UN. The SAC recently sought observer status in BRICS, after being accepted as a dialogue partner to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. It initially rejected ASEAN’s restriction of the SAC’s attendance at Summits and foreign ministers’ meetings since 2021 but has sent non-political representatives to such meetings starting in 2024. The junta continues bilateral diplomacy with countries such as Russia, China, India and Thailand.
Though the SAC will continue to go through the motions of governing, public confidence in such moves changing the status quo is low. The current focus of either side in Myanmar’s conflict on a military solution means that its population’s suffering will likely worsen in 2025, without significant or constructive developments.
