Junta’s war on ethnic rebels alarms China

Writer: LARRY JAGAN

Military operations by the Burmese junta along its border with China in the past few weeks have sent tensions soaring, after thousands of ethnic minorities from Burma fled for their lives.

The Burmese army’s recent offensive against the ethnic rebel group Kokang, who call themselves the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (or MNDAA), has also shocked Beijing and rocked their normally very close relations.

Fears that the fighting could spread and explode into renewed civil war has led to a flurry of urgent diplomatic actvity by Beijing, as the Chinese government tries to stabilise the situation before it gets out of hand.

Senior Chinese security officials, including Meng Jian, the powerful minister for public security, have just toured the border area to assess the situation and plot the Chinese reaction.

But the whole affair casts a long shadow over what has been taken by many to be a rock-hard relationsip. It is now increasingly evident that a significant rift exits between the two countries that could have crucial implications for other countries in the region, and for any approach which the international community may take to encourage the Burmese military regime to introduce real political change.

The implications of this growing divergence could have a significant effect on the border region, as the most powerful of the ethnic groups – especially the Kachin, Kokang and Wa – in this area have ceasefire agreements with the Burmese junta, but also have traditionally close ties with the Chinese authorities.

Economically and culturally the area is closer to China than to the Burmese regime. Thousands of Chinese businessmen and workers have migrated into northern Shan State over the last decade, seeking employment and economic opportunities. Many of these ethnic leaders go to Chinese hospital across the border for medical treatent and send their children to school in China. The Chinese language and even the Chinese currency, the renminbi, are used throughout the Kokang and Wa areas in Burma’s northern Shan State.

Anything which forces Beijing to choose between their ethnic brothers inside Burma – the Kokang and Wa are ethnically Chinese – and the central government in Naypidaw will cause the superpower immense problems. And in the end will bring into sharp focus the real nature of the Burma-China axis.

Alarmed and surprised by the Burmese military offensive, Beijing has already sent hundreds of extra troops and armed policemen to the area to quell any potential violence. The Chinese central authorities are very upset by the effect of the Burmese military action along the border, and are furious that they were not informed before-hand, according to a senior Chinese government official who requested anonymity.

A senior diplomat flew last week to Naypidaw, the Burmese junta’s headquarters and the country’s new capital, to convey Beijing’s displeasure. Burma has apologised for the instability caused across the Chinese border region, according to Burmese foreign ministry officials. But the Chinese authorities remain anxious about further fallout from the offensive against the Kokang.

The operations were aimed at capturing a Kokang arms factory, the Burmese leaders told their Chinese envoys. But analysts remain sceptical and believe this was, at best, a pretext.

“The junta knows it must move to disarm these ethnic rebel groups, and the Kokang are the weakest militarily,” said Win Min, the Burmese academic and military specialist at Chiang Mai University in Thailand.

The Kokang are ethnically Chinese and speak a Mandarin dialect, but have lived for many decades inside Burma. They have their own armed militia and had been fighting the Burmese army for several decades demanding autonomy until they agreed to a truce with the Burmese military regime in 1989.

Tensions have been rising in Burma’s border areas for months, as the military junta pressurred the ethnic cease-fire groups – particularly the Kachin, Kokang and Wa – to surrender their arms before the planned elections next year. The Burmese government wants to integrate them into a Border Police guard but these key ethnic groups along the Chinese border have been resisting the move.

At the weekend, international NGOs reported more than 30,000 refugees had fled to China in the part week to escape the fighting. Since then the fighting seems to have subsided and refugees have begun to trickle back to the Kokang capital of Lougai which is on the border and which is firmly under the control of the Burmese army. Once a bustling border town full of bars, discos, karaoke clubs, massage parlours and gambling dens, the town centre is still virtually deserted and many buildings have been damaged.

“More confrontation and military encounters are expected in the following days and thousands of villagers are fleeing across the border [into China] to avoid the war, and subsequent human rights abuses,” said a statement from the Kokang group, sent to the Bangkok Post. The 23-year-old cease-fire agreement between the Burmese junta and the Kokang seems to be effectively ended, according to Burmese dissidents based in the Chinese town of Ruili not far from where the Kokang refugees crossed the border.

“This does not augur well for the other ceasefire groups like the Kachin and Wa,” said Mr Win Min. “This may be a preview of what is to come.”

If the Burmese try the same tactics against the Wa, they will inevitably fight back, Mr Win Min believes. There is a very strong risk of a return to armed conflict along the Chinese-Burmese border, according to a Chinese government official who closely follows events in Burma. “The problem is that the Wa are very close to the Chinese government, and it would be very hard for Beijing to desert them at this crucial point in time,” he added.

Beijing now has a major quandry to deal with. They want to stabilise the border area as soon as possible and restore peace to the region. They have advised the Burmese to stop the fighting, or risk a rift between the two governments. They have suggested that the only option is to negotiate a new peace settlement with the Kokang, and offered their support as intermediaries, according to Chinese government sources.

Beijing wants the refugees to return to Burma as soon as possible, but have no intention of pushing them back, said the government official. For the time being they are taking care of them, but are making sure they do not travel further inland.

The latest move by the Burmese only strengthens suggestions that there has been a growing disenchanment within the Burmese regime towards China. Over these past few months the Burmese junta has become disillusioned with Beijing, largely because of the latter’s failure to enthusiastically back the Burmese authorities’ attempts to disarm the rebel groups, especially those which enjoy a special relationship with China.

The enthusiastic reception for the US senator Jim Webb last week – usually only reserved for heads of state, and only the most important at that – was a clear sign of the winds of change in Naypidaw.

In another indication of the Burmese rift with Beijing, this week’s Myanmar Times ran a short agency news story on Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama visiting Taiwan, after it was approved by the censors, according to diplomats in Rangoon. This is the first time the media in Burma has mentioned the Dalai Lama’s name in more than 20 years: anything to do with the Tibetan leader makes Beijing bristle.

So China is currently wondering to what to do. Diplomats in both countries are running round like headless chickens, according to Western diplomats in both capitals. In the meantime the fear is that the situation on the border could explode into renewed civil war at any moment.

“The majority of the Kokang troops have surrendered to China,” said US-based Burmese activist Aung Din.

Once the situation calms, the Burmese junta is expected to turn its attention to other ethnic minorities along the border, Aung Din said.

“There will be more fighting, more tension and more conflict because the regime will continue to try to force these groups to surrender their arms ahead of the elections.”

Much now depends on how much infleuence Beijing still has with its ally and whether China will try to pressure the Kokang and Wa to come to some accommodation with the Burmese government.