By Reuters 28 March 2017
BEIJING, China — China’s military carried out
drills along the border with Burma on Tuesday, in a show of force to
highlight its resolve to protect its people, state news agency Xinhua
said, following clashes between the Burma Army and ethnic rebels.
Fighting this month in Burma pushed thousands of people into China to
seek refuge, prompting Beijing to call for a ceasefire between ethnic
militias and the security forces.
Xinhua said the joint land and air exercises were part of planned annual drills, but did not say exactly where they took place.
It quoted a Chinese army colonel as saying the exercises showed “the
People’s Liberation Army’s resolute resolve” to protect the security of
the border and the lives of residents there.
In accordance with existing agreements, China informed Burma’s military ahead of the drills, it added.
China has repeatedly expressed concern about fighting along the
border that has occasionally spilled into its territory, for instance in
2015, when five people died in China.
The Limit of China’s Influence?
As the conflict between the Kokang army and the Burmese Military
subsides, two unexpected developments have unfolded -- The speed of
the Burmese military advance and the limit of China’s influence over the
course of the event.
Before the current clash began, the Burmese
military seized all reinforcement routes between the Kokang army and
its allies making speedy reinforcement difficult. A force of 2,000 Wa
soldiers had initially come to the assistance of the Kokang, but they
retreated Friday. The Karen army is now under Burmese attack and it was
also unable to send reinforcements. In addition, Bai Souqian, The
Kokang Army’s second in command, defected to the Burmese military with
200 troops and opened the town of Laogai to allow for Burmese
occupation. After a week of fighting with hit-and-run tactics and
mortar strikes from nearby hills, the 700-strong army fled when two
additional Burmese divisions (7000 troops) arrived in Laogai. After
reaching the safety of Yannan, they handed their weapons to the Chinese
authority and purchased civilian clothing. The Kakang Army suffered
minor causalities and is currently safe inside China. However, their
future viability is in question.
The Chinese government issued a
rare statement to the Burmese Government to "properly handle domestic
problems and maintain stability in the China-Burma border region." China
has taken care of the refugees but it seems they have done little
beyond that: there was no active support to the Kokang Army as others
have suggested. The failure of the Chinese Government in preventing
this conflict and the mass exodus of ethnic Chinese puts into question
China's capability of maintaining peace in this region. While China
supports the Burmese Government in preventing ethnic groups from seeking
independence, she failed to live up to the “quid pro quo” role of
protecting Burma's minorities
(here) All
in all, it was a well-planned and well-timed operation by the Burmese
Military in a classic divide-and-conquer move and so far they have
succeeded in their objective of routing the Kakang Army with minimal
casualties and without strong China interference. They've now moved
their attention to the next target, the Karen.
The real loser of
this battle might be the Kokang civilians as their lively-hood has been
looted by the advancing troops and their autonomy replaced by a “Kokang
Region Provisional Leading Committee” under the control of the Rangoon
government. Since the cease fire of 1989, the Kokang has become one of
the few economic “bright spots” and a busy regional trading center (the
planned route for Burma’s largest natural-gas pipeline from western
Burma to China runs near the Kokang region). Returning civilians can
only hope that their new Provisional Leading Committee does not kill the
goose the laid their golden egg.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/31/world/asia/31iht-myanmar.html?ref=asiaAugust 31, 2009
Myanmar Army Routs Ethnic Chinese Rebels in the North
By THOMAS FULLER
BANGKOK
— The Myanmar military has overwhelmed rebels from an ethnic Chinese
minority in the northern reaches of the country, the junta’s second
victory over armed opponents in three months.
The routing over
the weekend of the forces of the small, Chinese-speaking Kokang ethnic
group gives Myanmar’s governing generals momentum in their campaign to
quell armed opposition before elections and the adoption of a new
Constitution next year.
Several well-armed groups, notably the Wa
and Kachin, still stand in the way of the junta’s goal of complete
control over the country. But a recently announced agreement of
solidarity among the rebel groups, which had the potential to slow the
central government’s advance against the Kokang, may be fraying.
The
Myanmar government’s strategy, analysts say, appears to be to challenge
the groups one by one and to try to capitalize on the many factions
within each group.
In June, the military defeated ethnic Karen
insurgents along the border with Thailand, aided by a local militia of
Karen Buddhists who led an attack on forces that were largely made up of
Karen Christians.
To defeat the Kokang, the small ethnic group
in the north, the junta allied itself with a defector and chased out
troops loyal to the Kokang’s chairman, Peng Jiasheng.
A force of
2,000 Wa soldiers had initially come to the assistance of the Kokang,
but they retreated Friday, according to Aung Kyaw Zaw, a former rebel
based on the Chinese side of the border. This appeared to undercut a
mutual-assistance agreement that the rebel groups reached several weeks
ago.
Late on Sunday, Myanmar’s official media broke their silence
on the fighting with a television broadcast announcing that clashes had
ended and providing what appeared to be a preliminary death toll of 26
members of government security forces and 8 Kokang militiamen, The
Associated Press reported. “The region has now regained peace,” the
official announcement said.
Chinese state media said that two Chinese citizens had also been killed in the fighting.
News
services reported from southern China that Kokang forces were
continuing to flee across the border into China on Sunday on the heels
of what United Nations and Chinese officials estimated were as many as
30,000 civilian refugees. Nearly half the estimated 1,500 members of the
Kokang militia have crossed the border and handed their weapons to the
Chinese authorities, according to Mr. Aung Kyaw Zaw.
The central
government’s assaults on the Kokang, which began last week, have put
other ethnic groups on alert, according to Brang Lai, a local official
in the Kachin headquarters in Laiza, along the Chinese border.
“People
are very concerned,” Mr. Brang Lai said in a telephone interview. On
the Chinese side of Laiza, residents have put Chinese flags on their
roofs in the hope that they will be able to avoid any additional
fighting. Officers from the Myanmar military’s Northern Division were in
Laiza over the weekend to call for calm, Mr. Brang Lai said.
Followers
of Mr. Peng, the Kokang’s chairman, were spotted by reporters on the
Chinese side of the border buying civilian clothes to replace their
militia uniforms.
“There was no way we would win,” Ri Chenchuan, a Kokang rebel, said as he shopped for new clothes, The A.P. reported.
The
Myanmar government has signed more than a dozen cease-fire agreements
with ethnic groups over the past two decades, but the fighting with the
Kokang raised questions about the military’s intentions.
Aung
Din, executive director of the United States Campaign for Burma, an
advocacy group that opposes the junta, said the generals apparently had
adopted a more aggressive posture, partly influenced by the Sri Lankan
government’s military victory over Tamil rebels in May.
Sri
Lanka’s president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, met with Myanmar’s generals in
June in what was his first overseas trip after the defeat of the Tamil
Tigers. The visit might have inspired Myanmar’s senior general, Than
Shwe, who has spent much of his military career battling ethnic groups,
Mr. Aung Din said.
“It was an encouragement to the regime to do
away with the insurgency once and for all,” Mr. Aung Din said. “Their
thinking has changed.”
The motives and strategies of Myanmar’s
leaders have long been difficult to divine. General Than Shwe is a very
secretive man and the state-run media are highly selective in their
reporting. The report on Sunday evening was the first time they had
mentioned the campaign against the Kokang.
The fighting appears
to have strained Myanmar’s relations with China, especially since the
Kokang are ethnically Chinese. The Chinese Foreign Ministry warned
Myanmar on Friday to “properly handle domestic problems and maintain
stability in the China-Myanmar border region.”
Analysts said that
the Chinese government had asked Myanmar’s generals to refrain from
initiating military campaigns before the celebration of the 60th
anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic on Oct. 1.
In
that light, China could view Myanmar’s campaign as provocative,
especially since China is a large investor in Myanmar and plays the role
of the junta’s protective big brother in the United Nations and other
international forums.
Mr. Aung Kyaw Zaw said he suspected that
the Myanmar generals wanted to demonstrate their independence to Chinese
leaders. Their message, he said, is that “if we want to fight along the
border, we can fight.”
“This is a political game,” he added.
