In August 2023, an article was published online that claimed Western intelligence agencies were secretly supporting armed elements of the opposition movement in Myanmar. That was one development long feared by the junta and identified by strategic analysts as a potential tipping point in the civil war. Yet the article cited no evidence and raised several questions that went unanswered, raising serious doubts about the validity of its claims.

For decades, Myanmar's generals have been convinced that they are under attack from foreign intelligence agencies, which they believe operate secretly within the country and around its borders to undermine military rule, encourage internal unrest and sow confusion among the population.

Given this conviction, it would not have surprised any member of the current junta to read an article republished in Eurasia Review earlier this month, claiming that “Western intelligence agencies are fuelling an armed rebellion against the Myanmarese [sic] generals in power from the hideouts in Thailand”.

If true, this would be an important development. However, the claim warrants closer inspection.

There is no doubt that successive governments in Myanmar have been the subject of foreign intelligence interest. During the 1950s, for example, the CIA supported Nationalist Chinese (KMT) remnants in northern Myanmar. Following the 1962 military coup, the CIA supported former Prime Minister U Nu's exiled Parliamentary Democracy Party in its struggle against General Ne Win.

During the 1970s and 1980s, Beijing secretly provided aid to Burma Communist Party guerrillas along the border separating Myanmar and China.

After the abortive 1988 uprising, the US assisted the pro-democracy forces in various ways. For example, the Congress-backed National Endowment for Democracy gave funds and training to opposition groups based in Thailand. The US embassy in Yangon reportedly provided secret support to those opposed to the regime's 2008 constitutional referendum.

Other embassies in Myanmar have been accused of conducting secret intelligence operations. Indeed, it has been suggested that the decision to move the country's seat of government from Yangon to Naypyidaw in 2005 was prompted in part by the large number of foreign spies believed to reside in Yangon, and the vulnerability of the regime's confidential communications to interception by local diplomatic missions.