What role is Japan playing in the US-Myanmar talks? The answer is not yet known. The US administration held two secret meetings with Myanmar’s junta within a month. According to Reuters, the first meeting in Naypyidaw in mid-September addressed the release of an American businessman and the closure of scam centers targeting Americans. A second meeting was held in Tokyo last week. The agenda of the meeting was not clarified.
The talks were led by Michael Vance, head of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR). More than 12 American officials attended the meeting. Who represented the Myanmar side could not be determined. In September, Vance met with junta leader Min Ang Hlaing, who came to power in the 2021 coup and became head of state in April. Hlaing is on the US sanctions list over the massacres of Rohingya Muslims in 2016-2017. The State Department stated that contacts had been established with all groups in the country on issues concerning US interests.
According to analyses, these contacts could pave the way for wide-ranging negotiations between the US and Myanmar, including access to rare earth elements. The scope of the contacts could expand. Hunter Marston of the Lowy Institute describes the Trump administration’s approach as “entirely interest-driven.”
Japan’s role in the talks is unknown. Tokyo had condemned the coup but had not imposed sanctions. According to JETRO, the number of Japanese companies operating in Myanmar has fallen from over 400 in 2020 to around 300.
Why it matters
These contacts mean the US is sitting down at the table directly with a junta leader who is on its own sanctions list, and they signal a rapprochement that stands in the same frame as the sanctions policy pursued since the 2021 coup. This line, which analysts describe as interest-driven, lays the groundwork for interpretations that the US is reordering its priorities in the region. The emergence of rare earth elements on the agenda shows that the talks could go beyond the files discussed at the first meeting and shift toward a commercial and strategic axis. Japan’s hosting is a separate question mark: with the number of Japanese companies in the country having fallen from over 400 to around 300, the role in the process of Tokyo, which condemned the coup but did not impose sanctions, is unknown. The fact that who is representing the Myanmar side and the agenda of the second meeting have not been disclosed makes it difficult to follow from the outside what stage the negotiations have reached.
Background
The US is not a new name in the FikirPilot archive: we have published 41 stories mentioning this name in the last 90 days; the most recent is dated October 17, 2026.