China Sells Helicopter Gunships to United Wa State Army (UWSA)

China has allegedly sold helicopter gunships to ethnic Wa rebels who occupy areas of Shan State in eastern Burma, intelligence monitor Jane’s Information Group reported on Monday.

The report claimed China “delivered several Mil Mi-17 ‘Hip’ medium- transport helicopters armed with TY-90 air-to-air missiles to the Wa in late February and early March, according to both Myanmar ethnic minority and Myanmar government sources.”

Bertil Lintner, an expert on Burma and author of Great Game East: India, China and the Struggle for Asia’s Most Volatile Frontier, confirmed the accuracy of the Jane’s report.

Lintner said the Burmese government was moving to gain control of the Shan State Army-North’s mountainous bases on the western bank of the Salween River, for an eventual offensive against the Wa rebels.

“Since the Burmese government signed a ceasefire with the Shan, they haven’t withdrawn any troops, but rather they have reinforced their troops,” said Aung Kyaw Zaw, an analyst based on the China-Burma border. “That is not a good sign. So, the Wa wants to prepare [for a possible war].”

The purchase of the gunships is part of Wa moves to make the Wa region more like an independent state, able to project force if necessary.

The United Wa State Army is the largest ethnic armed group in Burma, with an estimated 20,000 well-equipped fighters, and advanced weaponry including surface-to-air missiles.

The Burmese government has carried out an offensive against the SSA-North and Kachin rebels in northern Shan State since mid-April, calling up troops from as far away as Karenni State to back up their forces in Shan State, according to Aung Kyaw Zaw.

Quoting a Wa rebel source, the Jane’s report said “the Mi-17s reached the Wa-administered area by flying across the Mekong River from Lao rather than direct from China.”

Jane’s said five helicopters had been bought, but the Burmese government, which confirmed the deal, said only two aircraft had so far been delivered.

The UWSA headquarters is in Panghsang, northeastern Shan State on the China border, but it has a secondary stronghold in southern Shan State on the border with Thailand.

Burma and the United States have long said the UWSA funds its activities through heroin and methamphetamine production, earning large sums of money through illegal activities.

If the government launches an attack on the Wa, it would be a big war, according to analysts. There have been unconfirmed reports in recent weeks that the Wa have been digging in for a protracted ground war, hollowing out tunnels and constructing fortified positions, according to the sources.

The Burmese government recently bought a number of Mi-24P ‘Hind’ gunships from Russia. The reported sale of the Mi-17s to the Wa, armed with TY-90 short-range air-to-air missiles, would provide a strong deterrent to Naypyidaw moving against the Wa.

Chasing The Dragon From Afghanistan

Tribal rebels in Burma are becoming more active, and this is largely because they have resumed producing heroin (along with methamphetamines, otherwise known as “speed” or “meth”). As a result of the 2010 elections (and fears that this would mean more attacks in the tribal north), six tribal armies from among the Karen, Chin, Kachin, Mon and Shan people in the north formed a defensive union. The tribes believe they would be attacked once the voting was over, and they were sort of correct. The tribesmen believed that the new "democracy" was a sham, and just the same old military dictatorship in new clothes. That’s not entirely true, but the tribes never really trusted the southerners. The tribes need cash, lots of it, to revive their rebellion and heroin has long been the solution to that problem.

 

In fact, the tribes in this area have been cultivating poppies and producing opium for centuries. But this was a luxury item, mostly for dealing with pain. But in the 18th century a growing number of affluent Chinese began using opium for pleasure (“chasing the dragon”) and the Chinese government banned opium and made war on the tribes to try and cut off the supply. The tribes scaled back production, but after World War II noted a growing interest in opium and heroin in the West. So the “fruit of the poppy” continues to survive in northern Burma. 

 

In Burma the new anti-government tribal alliance has become a real threat to the Burmese government by attacking the heroin operations of pro-government tribes. The growing (or returning) heroin trade was also a source of income for the old corrupt military government (who heavily taxed tribes it allowed to produce opium). The new government is unhappy with these revenue losses. To make matters worse, some of the heroin gangs are now paying the tribal rebels, instead of the government, for protection. Meanwhile, the government destroys poppy fields belonging to hostile tribes. 

 

Currently most heroin is produced in Afghanistan. It wasn’t always that way. After a major military campaign against heroin producing tribes Burmese opium and heroin production declined nearly 90 percent in the decade after 1996, but has been making a comeback the last few years. The government has encouraged some tribes to switch sides, and oppose the rebel tribes, by giving them permission to grow poppies (which produces opium and, with a chemical transformation, heroin). In the last three years, Burmese heroin went from five percent of the world's supply, to nearly 20 percent. That’s big money and even the farmers who grow the poppies do very well, earning seven times more (about $3,500 a year) growing poppies instead of legal crops. Even after paying 10-20 percent of that for protection (bribes or a fee to the local rebels) poppies are far more profitable than food. 

 

The government has sent troops to cope with, or defeat, all these new tribal insurrections. The army always had the advantage in that they can hurt the tribes (by attacking villages, crops and families), while the tribal rebels have never been able to get an equivalent terror campaign going in the more densely populated (and heavily policed) south. But the army operations are expensive. The fuel, ammo and additional supplies of all kinds are costly. Then there is the medical care for soldiers who are killed or injured (or become sick). Operating in that rough country is dangerous, and expensive. 

 

Decades of fighting have created much misery for those who live up north. Frequent use of landmines by the rebels has kept about half a million tribal people from using their ancestral lands. Those mines won’t be cleared until there is a permanent (or at least long-term) peace deal. Many tribes have found the drug money more attractive than being able to farm and hunt in peace, and that’s become a hard habit to break. All that drug income allows the tribes to buy more weapons and political allies. If the heroin trade in Afghanistan is badly hurt, the tribes of northern Burma are ready to take up the slack.

Burma (Myanmar) - Violent Religious Bigots Seek Shelter

Fighting continues in the tribal north. For the last decade, there have been ceasefire deals that tend to collapse into a period of heavy combat followed by another ceasefire. The Shan, Kachin, Wa and some smaller tribes maintain armed and organized militias which can delay, but not stop army movements in the sparsely populated north. The militias do prevent the government from maintaining regular control of the tribal north. This pattern has persisted since the 195os because of corruption and ethnic tension between the northern tribes and the more numerous lowlanders. About a third of 58 million Burmese belong to various minorities and most of them are in the rebellious tribes of the north. The current ceasefires in the north are still broken when the army moves troops around and tribal militiamen open fire because they suspect the soldiers are up to no good. The troops have, in the past, regularly entered villages and engaged in looting and rape. The tribes don't forget this sort of thing.

 Decades of Burmese broken promises makes negotiations difficult, but the tribes are anxious to get access to teachers and medical care, as well as trade with the south. So the peace negotiations regularly alternate with periods of violence. The lowland Burmese have never had control of the tribal uplands. In fact it was the British colonial troops that gained some control over there tribal areas, and then made them part of post-colonial Burma in 1947. Britain had taken control of Burma in 1885, ending a thousand years of independence. During that thousand years the lowland kingdoms did not control the tribal areas most of the time. The British policy up north was to keep the peace and not exercise a lot of control over. That suited the tribes, who retained a lot of autonomy and were able to trade with the more advanced (in terms of economy, education and so on) south. The British encouraged trade with the tribes and brought peace and prosperity for over half a century. After 1947, the lowland Burmese sought to impose the control of their corrupt government which was eager to exploit, and not help, the independent minded tribes. That led to over half a century of perpetual rebellion.

Ethnic and religious violence, that was particularly intense last month, continues in the northwest ( Rakhine State, the northwestern coast just south of Bangladesh) but at a reduced level. There have been several hundred casualties, most of them Moslem and thousands of buildings destroyed. This has displaced over 40,000 people. The Moslems and Buddhists have never gotten along and there's always been some tension. Until recently, the military government suppressed any open talk of these tensions. But since the elections last year, there's been more freedom of the press and that has included more public discussion by Buddhists about how much they dislike the Rohingyas.

Rakhine State has a population of 3.8 million, with about 800,000 of them Moslems, mostly Rohingyas. These are Benglais, or people from Bengal (now Bangladesh) who began migrating to Burma during the 19th century. At that time the British colonial government ran Bangladesh and Burma, and allowed this movement, even though the Buddhist Burmese opposed it. Britain recognized the problem too late, and the Bengali Moslems were still in Burma when Britain gave up its South Asian colonies after World War II (1939-45). Bangladesh has refused to take these Moslems back as Bangladeshis, and the Rohingya have come to consider themselves a separate group. Burma never let the Rohingya become citizens, which helped stoke tensions between the Moslems and Buddhists. Bangladesh has long had too many people, and illegal migration to neighboring areas has been a growing problem. In the 1990s, an outbreak of violence led to over a quarter million Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh. Some 28,000 are in refugee camps in Bangladesh, another 200,000 live outside the camps in Bangladesh and some are in Thailand, where they are considered economic migrants, and thus illegal. This year Bangladesh changed its refugee policy and refused to accept any more Rohingya, considering the refugee camps an unfair burden caused by Burmese refusal to absorb the Rohingya in their territory. This has led to Burma creating heavily guarded camps for these displaced Rohingya. Aid workers call these camps prisons, but the Burmese want to limit the movement of Rohingya who consider themselves at war with Buddhists. No Hindus, Christians or Buddhists in this region have fond memories of Moslems, who have been around for over a thousand years as invaders and violent religious bigots. These memories are sustained by the current wave of Islamic terrorism around the world. The UN is trying to get Burma to absorb the Rohingya, but the Burmese believe that absorption is not practical and these Moslems must move to a Moslem country (preferably Bangladesh, where they came from.) The Burmese resent the UN interference and have arrested some aid workers who are helping the Rohingya.

As part of a deal with India, Burmese troops moved into areas near the Indian border where Indian rebels groups have long maintained camps. But none of the camps have been shut down yet. When the camps are shut down, India will respond with economic aid and investment deals.

China continues to expel tribal refugees (Kachin) from Burma. The Chinese do not want a lot of these refugees because their refugee camps tend to become bases for armed Kachin and smugglers.

July 10, 2012:  The United States has lifted some of the economic sanctions imposed on Burma (because of its decades of military rule). The new elected government is showing signs of dismantling many aspects of the military dictatorship. That said, the new government is still full of retired generals. While these guys talk of changing their old dictatorial ways, the reforms are not coming quickly. The U.S. lifted some sanctions because the government replaced some hardline generals with some less hardline ones. The problem is that all these senior army officers stick together and the new democracy initiative is seen by many as an army scheme to get out from under all the sanctions and revive the economy while not threatening the wealth and power the army leaders have built up in the last half century. Burmese reformers are pressuring the retired generals to allow more change. This sometimes irritates the generals, like the growing tendency among Burmese to call their country Burma. The generals have insisted, for decades, that the country be called Myanmar. But because the generals were so hated, most Burmese saw "Myanmar" as another name for oppression and military dictatorship. Most Burmese prefer "Burma", which harkens back to better times.

July 9, 2012: Police and soldiers raided a methamphetamine lab in Shan state, seizing $3.7 million worth of meth (in pill form) and raw materials. This included 73 kg (161 pounds) of the pills ready to be smuggled into China or Thailand. Heroin and meth production has increased in the last few years as a way for the tribes to raise money for weapons and other military supplies. The government has pledged to shut down drug production by 2014. That is unlikely to happen, but the police and soldiers can do a lot of damage. 

July 4, 2012: In the south, along the Thailand border, police arrested 80 Thais and accused them of illegal logging. There's a lot of this going on along the border, and those arrested belonged to a gang that apparently did not pay bribes to the right people. Police also seized bulldozers (for creating roads) and heavy trucks (to carry out the logs), as well as heavy duty saws.

China has territorial claims to nearly 20 countries

Chinese leader Mao Zedong not only built a strong country but also outlined a global goal: "We must conquer the globe where we will create a powerful state." Today, China has territorial claims to all its neighbors. Naturally, the U.S. is dreaming of becoming a mediator in resolving disputes in the region. But it seems that Beijing absolutely does not care about their opinion.

Burma, Laos, Northern India, Vietnam, Nepal, Bhutan, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Ryukyu Islands, 300 islands of the South China, East China and Yellow Seas, as well as Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Taiwan, South Kazakhstan, the Afghan province of Bahdashan, Transbaikalia and the Far East to South Okhotsk - here is the complete list of areas that, according to Zedong, were lost due to the fall of the Qing empire. All of these countries and regions combined exceed the territory of modern China. Not all complaints are voiced by the Government of China in the international arena, but within the country the imperialist ambitions have not been lost, but rather, are actively promoted.

   

The PRC authorities talk out loud only about the areas that, at least theoretically, can be taken away from Japan and Korea. Tokyo is regularly frustrated not only because of the travel of the Russian leaders to the Kuril Islands, but also about the Chinese ships freely entering the disputed Senkaku Islands waters. Beijing believes that the Islands are called Diaoyu, and they belonged to China, but the malicious Japanese tricked the U.S. into giving them to Japan because after World War II the uninhabited archipelago was in the US jurisdiction.

Significant reserves of natural gas were found on the islands. For the growing industry of China and stagnant Japan it is more than a serious argument in favor of the struggle for the archipelago, no matter what it is called. Not to mention the fish that is found there in large quantities. To date, the only agreement the parties have reached in the negotiations is on the joint development of oil fields. In addition, if the Japanese behave more or less decently, the Chinese are regularly caught for illegal fishing in the area.

Any territorial dispute, but rather, its resolution, is a serious precedent. If China's claim in respect of at least one territory from the list of the "lost" is satisfied, the Chinese machine would be unstoppable. Despite the fact that the Chinese are very pleased to partner with Russia and have always supported Russia in the UN Security Council, in person, on the sidelines, its diplomats supposedly jokingly hint to their Russian colleagues: you must understand that soon you will have to share the Far East? China has more than a billion people, while Russia's vast territory barely has 150 million.

These dangerous trends - demographic, and as a result, geopolitical - must sound scary to the Russian government, but so far it seems that it is happy with the fact that Beijing makes territorial claims only to Seoul and Tokyo. In 2005 Russia had already given China a bounty in the form of 337 square kilometers of land in the area of ​​Big Island (upper Argun River in the Chita region) and two sites in the vicinity of the islands Tarabarov and Big Ussuri near the confluence of the Amur and Ussuri.

However, none of the leaders of the military departments of ASEAN that includes all debating countries agree to recognize, for example, the fact that Diaoyu belongs to Japan. Instead, the defense ministers of Vietnam, Indonesia, Australia, Thailand and Singapore urged the Japanese authorities to proceed with caution and within the framework of the international law. These countries certainly do not need a resolution to the dispute because in that case their territory will be separated from China only by perseverance of the latter.

They are silent about the "Iodo island" (the Chinese version is Suenchzhao. - Ed) in the East China Sea. The sneaky Chinese took the principle of dividing the Arctic as an example and now claim that the underwater ridge of this tiny piece of land is under close control of the Chinese. Since the Iodo is closer to Korea, in 2003 the Koreans built an uninhabitable marine research station there. From the standpoint of the international law, this rock in general should not be the subject of a debate.

In any case, the controversy continues, Japan and South Korea remain to be supported by their all-time ally - the United States. For the US, the unification of Southeast Asian Nations is a chance to save their own economy, because in that case the World Trade Center will move there, where currently there are no transnational corporations in the amount sufficient for the U.S. 

The success of the White House in the region does not depend on the strength that America loves to show any chance it has, but rather, diplomacy, as the countries of ASEAN and Asia-Pacific region do not trust each other or anyone outside the regional boundaries. However, Washington is trusted here because of the support of Seoul and Tokyo. However, China has already pushed Japan out of the ranks of the largest economies in the world, and the structure of the region is no longer formed on spatial basis.

Therefore, territorial claims of China, and not Russia, India or, for example, Australia are so important for Washington. Beijing is the only capital of the world, ready to use force in the struggle for the sake of expansion. During the last ten years, while America was blowing up its financial bubble, China has not only developed the industry, but also equipped its area of ​​interest with military equipment. China has placed 38 new diesel and nuclear submarines in the region, purchased four destroyers of class "Modern" from Russia and built another dozen on its own, and has launched a network of ground-based ballistic missiles to destroy naval targets.

Only one other country has done this before - the Soviet Union during the "Cold War". It is no wonder that the Americans are very concerned with the regular quarrels between China and its major allies. Construction of a naval base on Hainan Island does not add confidence to the U.S. The proximity to the Malacca Strait poses a threat to the smooth supply of Washington's main allies in the region - Japan, South Korea and Taiwan - this is the way the US sees the situation. The American senators have already decided that such behavior is a threat to Beijing's regional peace and stability, economic development and even "food security". The international community is well aware what usually follows such wording.