Elliot Brennan, a former colleague at the Myanmar Peace Center, wrote in an email that Mr. Min’s “unique background allows him to inhabit two worlds: part U.S.-educated academic, part Myanmar peacemaker.”

Mr. Min said he was able to succeed in negotiations like this because of his combination of military and academic training. “It was being book smart and street smart,” he said. His recounting of a relatively insignificant incident shed light on his unusual and, some say, ingenious methods of resolving disputes.

Having heard “there was some issue” between the Shan State Progressive Party, an ethnic political party with an armed wing, and the military, he said, he invited representatives of both sides on an excursion to a local waterfall.

“On the way to the waterfall, we had a chance to talk,” Mr. Min explained. “It’s just informal chitchat, but informal chitchat is very important to prevent life from being lost.” Later, after a formal meeting on the matter, the generals and rebel leaders exchanged phone numbers, providing a channel for defusing future tension.

“Soldiers have less baggage than politicians,” Mr. Min explained. “I met one government official who was shot 14 times by the leader of the K.N.U.,” an ethnic political group. “When they met they were like brothers.” Mr. Min laughed, recalling their conversation. “ ‘Oh, yeah, I remember you shot me!’ ‘Oh, yeah, I remember!’ ”

The life experiences that built Mr. Min into that effective negotiator began in adolescence. His father, a prosperous Chinese-Malay businessman and immigrant, had always encouraged his bookish son to avoid politics. But when Mr. Min was a teenager he defied his family and joined the student protest movement, concerned that the Burmese military government was strangling the country.