9. März 2026
The idea of publicly staged trials may appear grotesque or outdated to citizens of modern, functioning states. Yet, for non-state armed actors in contested environments, the power of judicial procedures may lie precisely in their visibility. By staging justice in open spaces and circulating images widely, ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) in northern Myanmar turn punishment into a public performance of order. Such visibility helps construct local legitimacy while signaling responsibility to China, whose leverage over border stability is decisive. In a fragmented frontier, being seen to govern is often as important as governing itself.
Public Trials as Performances
Northern Myanmar has long been characterized by armed conflict and fragmented authority involving multiple ethnic armed organizations (EAOs), some of which have governed territory for decades and command tens of thousands of fighters. For example, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and the United Wa State Army (UWSA) have not signed the national ceasefire agreement and control territories along the China–Myanmar border. Within this landscape of de facto governance, rebel-initiated trials are not new. They have long constituted an important justice and rule-of-law strategy through which rebel groups seek to gain legitimacy. In northern Myanmar, trials are frequently conducted in a highly public manner. Yet public trials in this context do not simply refer to proceedings open to observers. Rather, they are deliberately staged outside formal courtrooms, typically in large open spaces such as town squares or airports, to enable mass participation. Defendants are often transported in highly visible ways so that detention can be publicly witnessed. Crucially, the emphasis is on public sentencing rather than adjudication. Hearings are typically followed immediately by public sentencing announcements, and in capital cases, by public executions, turning judgment and punishment into a single, continuous performance.
How should we understand this phenomenon that may seem crude and anachronistic to external observers? We argue that public trials function as strategic performances of order, in which visibility is central. By making authority, rules, and punishment publicly observable, these trials communicate with two key audiences: local populations living under fragmented sovereignty, and external actors, especially China, whose influence is crucial for the survival of rebel groups in northern Myanmar.
Making Order Visible for the Local Population
The visibility of public trials is, for one part, directed at local audiences. As Michel Foucault famously argued, punishment is an expression of power. Highly visible forms of punishment publicly declare who holds authority and where its limits lie. In northern Myanmar, such practices become especially salient in newly captured areas, where they are often among the first governance measures introduced. For example, seven months after the MNDAA consolidated control over Lashio during the second phase of Operation 1027, it held a public trial on April 10, 2025, sentencing eight defendants accused of serious violent crimes. These crimes were framed as violations of the legal “bottom line” of the territory under the MNDAA control, thereby establishing authority and signaling that new territorial control comes with enforceable rules. Public trials thus allow rebel authorities to present their rule as grounded in law rather than arbitrary wartime violence, portraying themselves as capable and disciplined governors. During trial rallies, for example, rebel officials routinely emphasize the leadership’s commitment to public security and highlight the coordinated work of police and judicial institutions under rebel governance.
Public trials also provide an opportunity to demonstrate legal institutionalization. In rebel-controlled areas, verdicts are frequently justified through explicit reference to specific articles and clauses of rebel legal codes. Although the level of legal detail varies, such references convey the impression that punishment follows codified rules rather than personal discretion. For instance, in a recent case by the UWSA, a defendant convicted of intentional homicide and desecration of a corpse was sentenced to death explicitly under Articles 191 and 260 of the Basic Law of Wa State. Given resource constraints, rebel authorities cannot provide comprehensive or routine justice. Local legitimacy is therefore built selectively through decisive punishment of heinous crimes such as murder, rape, or weapons trafficking, while minor offenses rarely become the focus of public trials. This selective severity offers civilians a minimal but tangible sense of protection in an otherwise insecure environment.
For local communities, public trials thus transform abstract rules into concrete, collective experiences. Beyond spontaneous attendance, rebel authorities often actively mobilize participation by inviting students, teachers, civil servants, community representatives, and military personnel. Carefully assembled audiences turn punishment into a shared social event. In a region long shaped by armed conflict, illicit economies, and pervasive fraud, public visibility becomes a substitute for trust. By making order visible, rebel authorities seek to construct local legitimacy, which in turn provides a foundation for their longer-term rule.
Signaling Visible Responsibility to China
Acts of visibility in judicial proceedings also function as signals to China. EAOs in northern Myanmar heavily rely on China for basic supplies, such as food, fuel, pharmaceuticals, electricity, and internet connectivity. This dependence gives China a lever to put pressure on local authorities to protect its security and economic interests. Rebel groups, therefore, are attentive to actions likely to be viewed favorably by Beijing.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, northern Myanmar, especially the Shan state, has become notorious for scam centers that primarily target Chinese victims, and Chinese authorities came to believe that large numbers of Chinese citizens had been kidnapped or trafficked into these centers to carry out related crimes. In early 2023, China’s special envoy to Myanmar urged local EAOs to combat cross-border crime. The MNDAA visibly responded. In June 2023, as its plan to regain territory in the Kokang region was brewing, it held a public trial of four members of a human trafficking gang. The case named 13 trafficking incidents, with all victims identified as Chinese nationals. The trial also publicly alleged collusion between the trafficking network and police units under the State Administration Council (SAC). The message sent out by the MNDAA is clear: it presents itself as a trustworthy guardian of law and order capable of protecting Chinese citizens, while portraying the SAC and aligned militias as complicit in cross-border crime.
By publicly demonstrating responsiveness to Chinese security concerns, the MNDAA advertised its governing capacity and reinforced the legitimacy of its armed campaign against the SAC. This act of visibility helped create conditions for China’s initial tolerance on the first wave of Operation 1027 and the eventual reconquest of the Kokang region in 2024.
But there are also situations in which public trials function as visible acts of repentance when relations with China become strained. After the retake of the Kokang region in early 2024, the MNDAA drew fighting inland, escalating clashes across northern Shan State and eventually capturing Lashio, one of the region’s major cities. As China’s principal concern shifted back to border stability, these advances began to run directly counter to Beijing’s preferences.
In June 2024, China decided to keep the MNDAA on a short leash. It cut electricity, water, and internet access to the Kokang region, shutting down border trade. In August 2024, China’s special envoy to Myanmar met with senior leaders of the UWSA, which controls a domain adjacent to Kokang, and asked it not to supply the MNDAA. This request was imperfectly implemented and triggered further pressure from China. Against this backdrop, the UWSA staged a highly visible act of correction. In November 2024, the Wa State Judicial Committee staged a large public trial at Pangkham Airport, during which nine public officials were dismissed from office and sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for “the illegal transportation of goods to conflict zones,” meaning the Kokang. By publicly punishing its own officials, the UWSA signaled its willingness to desist from any activities that could undermine China’s border management priorities.
In this sense, public trials are not only instruments of punishment, but key technologies through which rebel authorities seek to remain responsible, visible, and tolerable to China, which has the capacity to restrict supply lines or to urge the SAC for increased military intervention on the China-Myanmar border. Lacking institutionalized channels of high-level engagement, EAOs rely on visibility. They not only stage those trials but also disseminate them through Chinese-language media outlets, such as Weibo, Douyin, and WeChat, ensuring that Beijing sees them as trustworthy partners capable of maintaining order in the frontier region.
Conclusion: Visibility as a Technology of Rule
In both frameworks, targeting the local population or China, public trials in northern Myanmar function less as mechanisms of adjudication than as technologies of visibility. They transform punishment into a public performance through which rebel authorities make order observable and demonstrate responsibility. In a fragmented frontier marked by conflict and deep dependence on China’s political and economic leverage, such visibility is central to how rebel groups construct legitimacy locally and remain tolerable to Beijing, all while sustaining their rule.
