Myanmar Update, June 2025
- Lex Rieffel
- Jun 19
- 7 min read
Since my December 2024 Update, the world has become dramatically more chaotic due to the unprecedented assault on trusted US institutions by President Donald Trump who began a second 4-year term in January. At the end of March, a 7.7-degree earthquake in the center of Myanmar created extensive structural damage in Sagaing Region, Mandalay (Myanmar’s second largest city) and in the new capital of Naypyitaw. Both of these events have shaken up Parami University.
The Battle Between the Military Junta and the Armed Opposition
At the end of 2024, the armed opposition was making small but steady gains on most fronts, while the military was pulling back to defend the major city of Yangon and the new capital of Naypyitaw. In mid-2025, however, there is more of a stalemate as the military has been able to launch some offensives and regain some ground, especially in Northern Shan State where pressure from China has forced key opposition forces to leave the city of Lashio and allow the military to re-establish control over the city (with some limitations).
The general pattern of warfare continued: the military is foregoing major ground attacks (until a couple of recent exceptions); its air force is terrorizing the population through random attacks on civilians in places considered to be sympathetic to the opposition; and it is launching targeted attacks on opposition forces when it finds them.
The biggest advances by opposition forces have been made by the Arakan Army that has effective control of Rakhine State (on the Indian Ocean coast), except for the capital city of Sittwe and the port area of Kyaukphyu where the pipelines carrying oil and gas to China begin. It seems possible that both Sittwe and Kyaukphyu will be in the hands of the Arakan Army before the end of 2025. The Arakan Army is also making incursions into neighboring Irrawaddy Region and Magway Region. The latter contains a collection of weapons factories that are prime targets for the opposition. The other area of significant opposition gains is in the Tanintharyi Region, the long and narrow strip of Myanmar territory between the Andaman Sea and the Thai border.
The March 28 earthquake did an impressive amount of damage in the new capital of Naypyitaw, including to the major government buildings that were mostly built by Chinese contractors 20-25 years ago. Much of the housing for civil servants was destroyed with many remaining essentially homeless. The amount of disaster relief from foreign countries and international NGOs has been minimized by the junta’s insistence that it be distributed through parties that it controls and not be delivered directly to opposition groups. Moreover, more than its share of this relief has been directed to Naypyitaw, leaving less for the more damaged city of Mandalay and for the Sagaing Region.
The Myanmar economy continues to sink due to mismanagement and the economic sanctions that are being ratcheted up. The IMF recently estimated inflation to be running above 30 percent in 2025. The World Bank has just issued an estimate that Myanmar’s GDP in the current fiscal year (beginning 1 April 2025) will be 2.5 percent smaller than in the previous year, mostly due to the earthquake.
Foreign trade has been disrupted by the economic sanctions. Foreign investment has dried up. The flow of foreign aid from the USA that was greatly diminished after the coup has effectively dried up under the Trump Administration, with adverse impacts on American NGOs that have been active in the country. The adverse effects have also been felt by the opposition. In particular, the exceptional support it was receiving from the US Institute of Peace stopped abruptly when Elon Musk’s DOGE executioners shut it down. The economic deprivation of the population is only mitigated by decades of experience in developing survival strategies under the growth-choking policies of military rulers.
The underground/informal economy has become more important for both the junta and the opposition. The junta, however, has the upper hand here through its control of the main seaports and urban centers. One source of revenue for the junta that has been receiving a lot of attention is the scam centers on the borders with China and Thailand. Together with centers in Cambodia and Laos, the annual revenue from their operations is estimated to be well above $20 billion.
Encouraged by the Chinese government, opposition forces last year shut down most of the centers on the border with China. This year, attention has focused on the centers on the border with Thailand. In each case, scammer revenue was flowing to the junta through Border Guard Forces aligned with the junta that provide “protection” for these centers. Unhappy with the media attention highlighting the ethnic Chinese criminals operating the Thai-connected centers, the Chinese government pressured the junta to begin dismantling them. Some operators, however, have found it possible to relocate to other parts of the border. In this, they can count on support from some elements in the Thai military for road access and sometimes electricity. For internet access, the scammers are using Starlink devices.
Sadly, the ASEAN community has been unable to put effective pressure on the junta to commit to a ceasefire and begin negotiations with the opposition, as intended under the Five-Point Consensus the junta agreed to four years ago. Nor has ASEAN been able to deliver more than token amounts of humanitarian aid to Myanmar after the earthquake.
Looking forward, there are no obvious ways to stop further weakening of the Myanmar economy and continued impoverishment of its population.
The Highs and Lows of Parami University
We have now completed the third year of teaching at Parami University. For those reading this for the first time, Parami U was formally established in 2020 to be Myanmar’s first private, nonprofit, residential liberal arts college, modeled on Bard College in Upstate New York. I became a member of its inaugural Board of Trustees in September 2020. The February 2021 coup forced us to leave Myanmar a few weeks before breaking ground on a campus an hour north of Yangon and to reinvent Parami U as an online higher education institution licensed in Washington DC.
At the end of the 2024-25 academic year, our enrollment in the Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior classes totaled around 200 students. One piece of good news is that applications for our next class of students have been strong. We are on track to admit about 100 Freshmen, which will raise our total enrollment in the next academic year to around 330 students.
Another piece of good news is that we held a graduation ceremony on June 10 in Chiang Mai, Thailand, for 70 students being awarded their 2-year Associate of Arts (AA) degrees. The ceremony was well attended and included a prior day of presentations and panel discussions.
In response to the March 28 earthquake, Parami U suspended classes for a couple of weeks to concentrate on earthquake relief. While none of the 150+ students living within the borders of Myanmar were killed or injured, several of them lost family members and suffered the destruction of their homes. A fund-raising appeal to the Parami U community yielded twice the initial goal of $25,000. Half was spent for victims who are students and their families. Half was donated to highly regarded local relief organizations.
There are two pieces of bad news. First, the Board of Trustees at its Spring meeting directed the Administration to cap total enrollment at 300 instead of growing to 400 as originally planned. This decision was made reluctantly and provisionally due to uncertainties about funding going forward. These uncertainties mean that Parami U sees no prospect of getting funding from the US State Department or the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in the foreseeable future. It also seems clear that during the four years of this second Trump Administration the competition for funding from private philanthropic sources in the USA will be intense, making it less likely that Parami U will find “angel investors” here. Fortunately, Parami U has been successful in obtaining some new foundational support from charitable sources in Europe and Asia.
The other piece of bad news is that we are not able to repeat the summer internship program in Washington DC that was an outstanding success for nine rising Juniors last year. Because sponsoring organizations from last summer, including the US Institute of Peace and The Asia Foundation, were axed or defunded by the Trump Administration we were only able to obtain sponsorships from four organizations for this summer. Then we were able to get visas for only two of the students who applied for the internship program. With some dramatic action by our administrative team in Thailand, we were able to bring these two students to Washington DC less than 24 hours before the cutoff for people from Myanmar decreed by President Trump with little advance notice. These two students will be doing their 8-week internships at C4ADS and NAFSA. Parami U is committed to having a strong summer internship program and we have begun looking for sponsoring organizations in Asia and Europe for next year. Any suggestions from readers of this Update will be greatly appreciated.
For those who wish to know more about the mess in Myanmar, here are some pieces published in the past six months that are worth reading:
--A good analysis of Chinese pressure on the opposition:
--A very granular description of the current situation in Northern Shan State
--A 40-minute podcast from the International Crisis Group (ICG) on the impact of the March 28 earthquake
--An analysis from ICG on India’s relations with Myanmar
--A description of the earthquake destruction in Naypyitaw, Myanmar’s new capital
--A mind-numbing description of the scam centers in Myanmar
--A long and detailed description of the Arakan Army advances into the Burmese heartland
--The most recent report found on the USIP website. Unfortunately, other reports published since this Fact Sheet came out in February seem to have been deleted in the process of shutting down USIP launched by Elon Musk’s DOGE team
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