News analysis

Myanmar junta’s defeat at border trading hub will truly test Thailand’s neutrality

Thai military personnel keeps guard along the Moei river on the Thai side, under the 2nd Thai-Myanmar Friendship Bridge in Thailand’s Mae Sot district on April 11, 2024. Myanmar junta troops have withdrawn from a major trade hub near the Thai border following days of clashes, an ethnic armed group told AFP on April 11, 2024, dealing a further blow to the embattled military. (Photo by MANAN VATSYAYANA / AFP)

Thai military personnel keeps guard along the Moei river in Thailand’s Mae Sot district, on April 11.

PHOTO: AFP

Tan Hui Yee

BANGKOK - Resistance forces comprising the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and allied groups said they captured the last junta outpost in the strategic Myanmar border town of Myawaddy on April 11, in one of the biggest setbacks for the military regime since the 2021 coup.

But this merely marks the beginning of what is expected to be a fraught period along the Thai-Myanmar border, and also one of the greatest tests of Thailand’s declared neutrality in the Myanmar crisis.

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