Beijing says Myanmar rebel leader in China for 'medical care'

Beijing said Tuesday the head of a Myanmar ethnic minority armed group had come to China for "medical care", after news reports in its war-torn neighbour said he had been arrested on Chinese orders.

China is a major ally and arms supplier of Myanmar's ruling junta, but is also thought to maintain ties with ethnic minority armed groups that hold territory along the countries' shared border where fighting often flares up.

Local media in Myanmar reported this week that Chinese authorities had arrested Peng Deren, the head of the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), one of the strongest Myanmar rebel groups.

Asked to confirm the reports at a regular press conference on Tuesday, Beijing's foreign ministry said Peng had "previously applied to come to China for medical care, and is currently undergoing treatment and recuperation".

Ministry spokesman Lin Jian gave no further details of Peng's condition or whereabouts.

Peng -- who is also known as Peng Dashun -- keeps a low profile, typically declining media interviews.

The MNDAA is one of dozens of rebel groups in Myanmar that has battled the military for decades for autonomy and control of lucrative resources including jade, timber and opium.

Myanmar's current junta chief Min Aung Hlaing made a name for himself as a regional commander in 2009, pushing the MNDAA out of Laukkai, a town near the border with China.

But in January last year, the MNDAA recaptured Laukkai after more than 2,000 junta troops surrendered there in one of the military's biggest defeats in decades.

In August, the MNDAA pushed even further, capturing the Shan state city of Lashio -- around a hundred kilometres (62 miles) from its traditional homeland, the Kokang region, around Laukkai.

Lashio is the largest urban centre to fall to any of Myanmar's myriad ethnic minority armed groups -- who have been fighting the central authorities on and off for decades -- since the military first seized power in 1962.

Analysts say Lashio's fall was a step too far for Beijing, which is worried about the possibility of the junta falling and suspicious of Western influence among some pro-democracy armed groups battling the military.

China has since cut electricity, water and internet services to the Kokang region, on the border with Yunnan province, a source close to the group earlier told AFP.

Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing met Chinese Premier Li Qiang this month, saying the military was ready for peace if armed groups would engage, according to Myanmar state media.