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Border conflict no match for Sino–Myanmar relations

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Rebel soldiers of Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) patrol near a military base in Kokang region, Myanmar, 10 March 2015. (Photo: Reuters/Stringer).

In Brief

Conflict has flared up again in the Kokang region along the Sino–Myanmar border, leading to the deaths of at least 30 people and the outflowing of more than 20,000 refugees from Myanmar into China’s Yunnan province.

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For some months in Myanmar’s troubled ethnic minority regions, sporadic clashes have been heating up between Myanmar government troops and the Northern Alliance — a military alliance of several ethnic rebel armies, including the Kachin Independence Army, Arakan Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army.

The borderland area between Myanmar and China has a torturous history of military insurgency. Ever since Myanmar’s independence, the more than 2000 kilometre long borderland has witnessed prolonged conflict between government troops, communist guerillas, ethnic rebels and various militias.

China has had its fair share of involvement in these insurgencies, not least because of its past support for the Burmese Communist Party. Many ethnic rebels in Myanmar have co-ethnics living on the Chinese side of the border and the borderland economy is deeply tied to China’s economy. The Kokang is essentially an ethnic Chinese group, while the Kachin in Myanmar share strong kinship ties with the Jingpo minority in China. Many of the rebel-held areas dotting the border use the Chinese yuan instead of the Myanmar kyat.

Since 2011, China’s relations with Myanmar have been tested by Myanmar’s domestic political changes and its gradual foreign policy reorientation toward the West. Intensified international media scrutiny of conflict taking place from Kachin State to Shan State has brought to the fore China’s potential role in assisting the peace process, and how such conflict affects overall bilateral relations.

Geopolitical changes and domestic nationalism explain historical variations in China’s foreign policy approaches to Myanmar. The strategic uncertainty created by the sudden thawing of relations between Myanmar and the United States highlighted the urgency for Beijing to effectively communicate its resolve to protect China’s national interests in Myanmar, as well as to demonstrate its capacity to monitor ethnic politics along the border. This explains China’s relatively hard-handed diplomatic approach to Myanmar at the turn of the decade.

For the Kokang, their being ethnic Chinese was not enough to generate a response from the Chinese government during conflict in 2009. Beijing was willing to let the issue slip without offering the minority group much support, so long as its relationship with the Myanmar military government was solid. In contrast, during the Kokang conflict in 2015, domestic nationalist sentiment spiked in China, which conditioned the Beijing government’s diplomatic pressure on Myanmar.

On the other hand, because the Jingpo is an ethnic minority group in China, the Kachin conflicts failed to solicit interest from the nationalist Chinese netizen. Beijing mobilises the issue of overseas Chinese — as in the case of the Kokang but in contrast to the Kachin — to signal its concerns over border security between the two countries.

But Beijing’s previous anxiety over uncertain relations between the two was largely dispelled after Aung San Suu Kyi’s visit to China in August 2016. Since then, it seems Beijing has concluded that it is possible to work with the National League for Democracy government, since the latter has indicated its interest in securing a stable relationship with its northern neighbour. Recent international media attention has focused squarely on the Rohingya issue and Buddhist–Muslim conflict in Myanmar, while Myanmar’s domestic nationalist furore has been directed at the West instead.

In the aftermath of the most recent clashes in Kokang, a spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs unexpectedly condemned both the ethnic rebels and the Myanmar government troops for jeopardising the peace process. This was in clear contrast with comments in the past few years that were mostly levelled at the Myanmar military. In good stead, the Chinese government has also been pushing hard how a stable Myanmar is crucial for its Belt and Road Initiative. .

Although there are analyses claiming Chinese complicity in the Kokang conflict, one cannot dismiss the possibility that the Chinese government is willing to secure a deal with the Myanmar government at the sacrifice of these ethnic rebels — particularly if continuing insurgency is going to bring trouble for President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road dream.

Enze Han is Senior Lecturer at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.

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