By Isolde Doubell
22/05/2025
China’s President Xi Jinping has been standing with Myanmar after the deadliest earthquake in a century hit the Southeast Asian nation on 28 March this year. China sent more than 30 rescue teams, including dozens of medical workers, earthquake experts, and rescue dogs to Myanmar following the disaster. Xi has also pledged to support the country’s rebuilding process and met with Myanmar’s junta chief, Min Aung Hlaing, in Moscow to discuss several initiatives.
Many countries including India, Russia, Japan, and the US, have also sent support teams and aid, as have many international NGOs, the United Nations, and the European Union. However, China provided the most expensive relief support. Yet China’s interests go beyond mere humanitarian compassion. The economic superpower is heavily invested in Myanmar. The strategically important Kyaukpyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ) connects the Rakhine region in Myanmar to the landlocked southwestern province of Yunnan in China, providing China with direct access to a deep-sea port in the Indian Ocean, as well as a gas pipeline running from Myanmar to Yunnan.
China has thus promised an additional one billion yuan ($136.6 million) in emergency humanitarian relief assistance, including prefabricated houses, surgery rooms, medicines, and vaccines. Chinese medical and epidemic prevention experts, disaster assessment teams, and cultural relic protection teams will also be dispatched to provide on-site assessment and assistance. These teams will be working in Myanmar for longer periods than the initial first response units.
The people of Myanmar have been subjected to widespread conflict, displacement, and deprivation since the coup of February 2021 and the subsequent civil war. The military junta regime, rebel forces, and ethnic militias have since been locked in a battle for control of the country. The civil war has displaced more than three million people, with at least 6,000 civilians killed. Over seventy churches have been firebombed in the Christian-majority Chin State alone, with pastors killed and Christian villages reportedly earmarked for bombing, according to Global Christian Relief. Unfortunately, the earthquake and its hundreds of aftershocks did not result in a ceasefire, but instead further compounded the trauma of the war.
We, as the global Church, can pray that the foreign nationals spending time in Myanmar to help rebuild the country will include Christians who can also serve the local population. Local believers sorely need comfort, encouragement, physical supplies, and reassurance that they are not forgotten. Christians in Myanmar are fiercely persecuted and the country ranks 13th on Open Doors’ World Watch List. Christians form 8.5% of the 55 million population, with two-thirds being Protestant, in particular Baptist. More than 77.2% of the population is Buddhist. Since the coup, Christians have faced increased violence and tighter restrictions. Believers have been killed and churches indiscriminately attacked—especially in predominantly Christian states such as Chin, Kayah, and Kachin, as well as in areas with significant Christian minorities, including Karen and Sagaing Division. Additionally, international aid that has been streaming into the country must pass through the military, and Christians and ethnic minorities have reportedly faced discrimination in receiving life-saving essentials.
The underground Church in China has braved decades of persecution. They have remained resilient and have continued to grow amid suffering. Thousands form part of a missionary movement called Back to Jerusalem, which focuses on sending Chinese missionaries to sacrificially give their lives to bring people to Christ in the countries between China and Jerusalem. We can pray and trust God to create opportunities for these missionaries—as well as others from different nations—to come and minister to the people of Myanmar. They may not strengthen local believers but also, as God leads, build relationships and serve non-Christians with the Gospel, leading them to Christ.
We can pray Isaiah 52:7 over the aid workers going to Myanmar:
“How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’”
Please join us in prayer for the following:
- For the civil war to end and for peace for Myanmar.
- For a nation that has been hard hit on every side. Pray that its people will call out to Christ in their distress and get to know Him as the Prince of Peace, the Bread of Life, and the Spring of Living Water.
- For Christians to receive God’s favour in accessing aid and provisions, and that they will experience His love and kindness in new and tangible ways.
- For Christian workers from countries involved in the reconstruction to have the opportunity to minister to the people of Myanmar.
