The TNLA is not the only ethnic army which is retreating. In April, after strong Chinese pressure, another of the groups in the Brotherhood Alliance, the MNDAA, abandoned Lashio, previously the headquarters of the military in Shan State and a much-heralded prize when the insurgents captured it last year.
The MNDAA has now agreed to stop fighting the junta. And the most powerful and best-armed of the Shan insurgent groups, the UWSA, has also buckled to Chinese demands and agreed to stop supplying weapons and ammunition to other opposition groups in Myanmar.
These groups operate along the border and need regular access to China to function. All China needed to do was close border gates and detain a few of their leaders to get them to comply with its demands.
Further south, in Karen State, the junta has regained control of the road to its second most important crossing on the border with Thailand.
The insurgent Karen National Union, which overran army bases along the road a year and a half ago, blames the new conscripts, new drones and betrayal by other Karen militia groups for its losses. It has even lost Lay Kay Kaw, a new town built with Japanese funding in 2015 for the KNU, at a time when it was part of a ceasefire agreement with the central government.
In neighbouring Kayah, where a coalition of resistance groups has controlled most of the state for two years, the military has retaken the town of Demoso, and the town of Mobye, just inside Shan State. It is also advancing in Kachin State in the north, and in contested areas of Sagaing and Mandalay.