Influx of Myanmar’s refugees poses dilemma for China
Tens of thousands of refugees crossing into China to flee renewed fighting in northern Myanmar risk catapulting Beijing into the country’s fractious political scene as it gears up for national elections late this year.
China views its southern neighbour as an important source of natural resources and energy, as well as a vital partner in its strategic goal of maintaining access to the Indian Ocean.
Its desire for stable national government in Myanmar, after decades of support for quasi-independent armed groups along the border, is further fuelled by its hefty investment in hydropower dams and pipelines.
Meantime Myanmar’s many armed groups and armed forces are jostling for position ahead of the elections, chipping away at a stalled national peace process after decades of internal conflict.
Hence the flood of refugees and Chinese businesspeople into China’s Yunnan province from the border region of Kokang this month, as 85-year-old guerrilla leader Peng Jiasheng attempts to reclaim territory lost six years ago. Myanmar’s central government declared three months of martial law over the region this week.
“For China, the strategic importance of Burma significantly outweighs China’s interest in the border ethnic groups,” wrote Yun Sun of the Henry L Stimson Center, a Washington-based think-tank.
The influx of refugees “aggravates China’s negative outlook for the prospects of security and stability in the region” and plays into the fears of those in China who worry about growing American influence in Myanmar, she added.
The situation puts Beijing on a fine balancing rope. Perceived Chinese influence and national outrage over the planned Myitsone Dam, which would have blocked the Irrawaddy River to generate power for China, set the stage for an abrupt political relaxation and opening to the west by Myanmar’s ruling junta in 2010.
Complicating the picture for Beijing is an online appeal by Mr Peng, an ethnic Chinese, for support from his compatriots across the border. “I ask all the Chinese around the world to remind themselves of our common race and roots and give money and efforts to rescue our people,” Mr Peng said in an statement that has circulated widely in China.
An editorial this week in the Global Times, one of the few Chinese newspapers to cover Myanmar closely, shows the extent of Beijing’s concern that Chinese nationalists could push for greater intervention.
“Varied forces in Chinese society should stay sober and avoid any premature stance or interference in northern Myanmar affairs, so as not to affect the government’s diplomacy,” the editorial said.
Mr Peng was once a conduit for Chinese intervention in Myanmar’s many ethnic conflicts, in his former role as commander of the military wing of the Beijing-backed Communist Party of Burma which fractured in 1989. He abruptly lost Kokang to a Myanmar military offensive six years ago, amid a broader effort to exert central government control along the border, and some analysts believe he and his troops retreated across the porous border into China.
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