China expressed its support to the new “government of Myanmar” in “maintaining national peace and stability,” and “achieving development and prosperity,” said Mao Ning, a Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, at a press briefing in Beijing on Friday.

Min Aung Hlaing, 69, won ‌a parliamentary vote on April 3 to become the president, formalising his grip on power in Myanmar five years after he ousted the country’s democratically-elected government led by Aung San Suu Kyi and sparked a nationwide uprising against a return to military rule. 

Aung San Suu Kyi, 80, and President Win Myint, 74, have been held in detention by Min Aung Hlaing since the military coup on Feb. 1, 2021. 

The journey from senior general to civilian president follows polls in December and January that were won in a landslide by the military-proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which was derided by critics and Western governments as a sham to perpetuate military rule behind a veneer of democracy.

“Min Aung Hlaing is a wanted criminal evading an arrest warrant in Argentina for his role in genocide against the Rohingya,” said Tun Khin, President of the Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK (BROUK), who filed a case in 2019 under the legal principle of universal jurisdiction in a court in Buenos Aires that led to arrest warrants for 25 senior Myanmar military and government officials, including Min Aung Hlaing.

“Just months ago, his military was forced to defend itself at the International Court of Justice. Any government that believes he can bring reform or change to Burma is deluding itself,” Tun Khin added.

The Myanmar military denied allegations of genocide during legal hearings in January at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ case, brought by Gambia in 2019, accuses Myanmar of carrying out genocide against the Rohingya in Rakhine State during a military “security clearance” operation in 2017.

“If Min Aung Hlaing thinks that an official civilian title will shield him from prosecution… that is not how international justice works,” Joe Freeman, an Amnesty International researcher on Myanmar, said in a statement on April 3. 

Amnesty International and fellow advocacy group Burma Campaign UK warned that the appointment of Min Aung Hlaing as Myanmar’s president will not shield him from ongoing efforts to seek his arrest from the International Criminal Court (ICC). 

The ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan requested a warrant on Nov. 27, 2024 for Min Aung Hlaing on crimes against humanity committed against the Rohingya in Rakhine State in 2016-17. 

“Those cases in the ICC and the ICJ are very slow, but they are actually moving in the right direction,” said Chris Gunness, the director of the Myanmar Accountability Project (MAP). “[We have ongoing] cases in the Philippines, in Timor-Leste, in Indonesia, and Turkey.”

The universal jurisdiction cases allow MAP and Myanmar civil society organisations to pursue justice for the people of Myanmar in national courts for serious international crimes such as genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, regardless of where the crime was committed or the nationality of the perpetrator and the victims. 

Amnesty International called on the U.N. Security Council to refer Myanmar to the ICC, warning that failure to prosecute Min Aung Hlaing and other senior military officials would prolong the “cycle of impunity” that has lasted since the military first took power in 1962.

Min Aung Hlaing was replaced by Ye Win Oo as commander-in-chief on March 30. This allowed him to ascend to the presidency since the 2008 constitution stipulates that a military leader cannot legally hold the position of president of Myanmar at the same time.

All of these efforts at international justice aim to hold Min Aung Hlaing accountable for alleged genocide and other war crimes committed by the military under his command from 2011-26.