By Poppy McPherson and Antoni Slodkowski
BANGKOK/BEIJING (Reuters) – After a 7.7 magnitude earthquake shook Myanmar on Friday, killing more than 2,800 people, international rescuers rushed into the devastated Southeast Asian country.
The most ubiquitous among them have been Chinese relief workers, whose blue and orange uniforms appear across videos circulating on social media.
The posts are often accompanied with expressions of gratitude toward Beijing, whose first responders – as well as their Indian and Russian colleagues – have pulled dazed survivors and bodies out from the rubble of hotels, schools, and monasteries.
The reaction marks a change in the negative reception China often receives on Myanmar’s social media because of its support for the unpopular military junta.
America’s chief geopolitical rival has so far pledged to deliver 100 million yuan ($13.76 million) worth of supplies. The first batch of aid, including tents, blankets and first aid kits arrived in Yangon on Monday, Beijing has said.
The United States, which was until recently the world’s top humanitarian donor, has offered a relatively modest $2 million. Washington also said it would send a three-member assessment team, though their arrival has been delayed by problems obtaining visas from the military regime.
In past years, when tsunamis, earthquakes and other disasters struck around the world, the U.S. had regularly and rapidly deployed skilled rescue workers to save lives.
The American absence shows how President Donald Trump’s moves to slash the size of the U.S. government has hobbled its ability to act during disasters, three current and former U.S. officials told Reuters.
With Trump’s blessing, billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has enacted huge funding cuts and contractor terminations across the federal bureaucracy in the name of targeting wasteful spending.
Trump has also moved to fire nearly all U.S. Agency for International Development staff, who oversee Washington’s disaster response efforts overseas.
A functional USAID would have activated urban search-and-rescue teams that were capable of being deployed to Myanmar in 48 hours, said Marcia Wong, formerly a top humanitarian official at USAID.
But most of the people who would have coordinated the response have been let go, while third-party partners have lost contracts, she said.
“We have created a vacuum which can allow other actors to step in,” Wong said.
Former U.S. ambassador to Myanmar Scot Marciel told Reuters that while it was unlikely the junta would have allowed big U.S. military teams to enter, Washington could still have “responded more quickly and robustly” were it not for the cuts.
The State Department, which administers the remaining USAID programs, did not immediately return a request for comment. The junta and China’s foreign ministry also did not respond to questions.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X that the cuts targeted programs that “did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed)” U.S. interests. His spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters Monday that disaster relief experts were monitoring the situation.
CHINA ON FRONT FOOT
Hours after the quake, the Trump administration told Congress in a pre-planned move that it was firing nearly all remaining USAID personnel and closing its foreign missions.
Meanwhile, Beijing dispatched first-response teams, including dozens of medical workers, earthquake experts, field hospital workers and rescue dogs.
Those teams have been some of the main visible signs of official assistance in affected areas like Mandalay and Sagaing, where residents said they received no help from the military.
India’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday its aircraft and ships had delivered 625 tons of aid, while rescue workers had recovered 16 bodies from Mandalay and treated 104 patients. Russia and India have also set up mobile hospitals.
China has used its state media machine to broadcast its relief efforts.
English-language state broadcaster CGTN was one of the few international media outlets with reporters sending on-camera dispatches from Mandalay, the epicentre of the disaster.
State-run news agency Xinhua has also run extensive reports showing China’s relief efforts.
Some rescue teams entered Myanmar from China’s Yunnan province, travelling overland through areas held by rebels which are opposed to the junta but have a complex relationship with Beijing.
The decision to send rescuers by road as well as air was seen by analysts like Sai Tun Aung Lwin as a signal from Beijing that it had influence with both the rebels and the junta.
China appears to have opened a “humanitarian corridor” that effectively stretches through rebel and junta territory, said the researcher, who studies China’s role in Myanmar. “On social media, the anti-China sentiment (is in) significant decline.”
The junta said Wednesday it had fired warning shots at a convoy from the Chinese Red Cross because it had not asked permission to drive from Yunnan through to Mandalay, including through areas where junta troops have been clashing with opposition armies.
Beijing later said there were no casualties.
‘PROFOUND GRATITUDE’
Myanmar sits between China and India and is of crucial strategic importance to both countries.
Washington also enjoyed warm relations with the Southeast Asian nation under a brief quasi-democratic period before the military seized power in 2021, toppling the elected government led by Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
The junta has brutally quashed dissent and sparked a spiralling civil war. However, it remains backed by Beijing, which sees the junta as a guarantor of stability though rebel forces now control most of the borderlands.
Many in the opposition regard China negatively for its role propping up the military. A 2024 poll of regional decision-makers by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, a Singapore-based think-tank, found 65% of Myanmar respondents distrusted Beijing.
A spokesperson for Myanmar’s National Unity Government, a parallel administration that includes members of Suu Kyi’s deposed government, said in a statement that it had “profound gratitude to the international rescue teams who have arrived without delay to assist and save the people of Myanmar.”
Washington has retained influence, especially among the opposition to the junta, through humanitarian aid and funds for the democracy movement. The recent Trump-directed cuts, however, have largely erased both.
At least 28 USAID and State Department programs supporting Myanmar have been terminated, according to documents shared with Congress and reviewed by Reuters.
Marciel said Washington’s relations with Myanmar should matter to U.S. citizens because winning international backing for matters of national concern, including “the willingness to stand up to China at times – all depend heavily on the extent of U.S. influence”.
(Reporting by Poppy McPherson in Bangkok and Antoni Slodkowski in Beijing; Additional reporting by Shoon Naing, Mei Mei Chu, Jaimi Dowdell, Tom Bateman and Shivam Patel; Writing by Poppy McPherson; Editing by Katerina Ang)
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