Myanmar/Burma civil conflict

tamsen_ikard said:

Awesome writing. One interesting aspect about this situation is that most of the ethnic groups in Myanmar including the Bamar are speakers of Sino-Tibetan language family. So, they should be kinda close to Chinese language compared to Thai or Vietnamese, who are from a different language family.

So, it might be possible over time for China to takeover Myanmar. Or atleast make Myanmar a client state. Because of the closeness in Language family, it might be easier to control these lands. If China ever becomes the dominant power in asia then taking over myanmar could end China's Malacca Dilemma for good and allow China access to the Indian Ocean. A myanmar full of Chinese naval, air and army bases could be strong deterrent against any blockade attempts by US or India.

Again this is probably not happening in this century because China will be busy fighting the US in the eastern pacific for a long time. But in a long term scenario, Taking over Myanmar which is a weak country full instability might be easier than other countries in the neighborhood.

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Chinese and Burmese both belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family does not mean they're actually similar to each other. Can Iranians and Indians speak Italian or French? After all, Hindi and Farisi are also Indo-European languages.

Language families indicate historical relationships and descent. It has nothing to do with how close they are to each other today. And by historical relationship, it can be up to 5000+ years ago. For reference, there's national European languages that discovered writing only ~500 years ago.

Example: Vietnamese has closer grammar to Chinese than Burmese does. For example, just like all variants of Chinese, Vietnamese is an with no case or inflection. In contrast, while

The only reason there are Chinese speakers in Myanmar is because the Chinese speakers are literally Chinese. That's it. There's almost 0 Bamars who speak Chinese.

Burmese identify far more with India and Thailand than with China, and view their language, culture and ethnicity as having nothing to do with Chinese. This is in contrast to Vietnamese who often readily admit they're mixed with Chinese and their language is deeply influenced by Chinese to the degree where it's hard to even separate native Vietnamese from Chinese loanwords.

This isn't saying that Vietnam should be part of China but the absurdity of 5000 year old historical linguistics to estimate how easy it would be to "take over" a country.

China could annex Kachin and Shan provinces from Myanmar altogether, if it wanted, and there would probably not be too much resistance from the (somewhat) sinicized locals. But why bother? International coverage would be extremely bad, other neighbors would all get scared, and frankly there's not much worth the taking in those territories. Some timber, metals, minerals is all, and those commodities are easier to just import. Loads of criminals there too, many of whom were kicked out from Yunnan in the first place. You might as well talk about annexing Mongolia. It can be done, sure, but it's not worth it. Just developing the area to modern standards would cost more than it's worth.

Also, supporting the minorities in those regions is useful leverage against the central Burmese government (whomever that happens to be). Who can actually offer worthwhile gains, like access to the Indian Ocean.

Wrought said:

China could annex Kachin and Shan provinces from Myanmar altogether, if it wanted, and there would probably not be too much resistance from the (somewhat) sinicized locals.

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Not the whole Kachin and Shan state. Just the regions of Kokang, Wa and Mongla, which are inhabited by Chinese people in my opinion. The majority of the population there are just Chinese people born on the wrong side of a river, wronged by history.

Wrought said:

You might as well talk about annexing Mongolia. It can be done, sure, but it's not worth it. Just developing the area to modern standards would cost more than it's worth.

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Off topic but if it wasn't for the longer border with Russia and international hypocrisy, annexing Mongolia is totally worth. Mongolia is way more valuable compared to Kachin and Shan states, which have populations of 1.7 million and 5.8 million respectively. Mongolia has a population of 3.3 million. Do you think China can't manage 3.3m additional population? 3.3 million is a joke compared to the size of China's poverty alleviation program.

Just because Mongolia doesn't know how to develop that piece of land, doesn't mean China doesn't know how to do it either. Mongolia has lots of natural resources, wasted potential right now.

coolgod said:

Off topic but if it wasn't for the longer border with Russia and international hypocrisy, annexing Mongolia is totally worth. Mongolia is way more valuable compared to Kachin and Shan states, which have populations of 1.7 million and 5.8 million respectively. Mongolia has a population of 3.3 million. Do you think China can't manage 3.3m additional population? 3.3 million is a joke compared to the size of China's poverty alleviation program.

Just because Mongolia doesn't know how to develop that piece of land, doesn't mean China doesn't know how to do it either. Mongolia has lots of natural resources, wasted potential right now.

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Annexation of land for land's sake is an archaic perspective. Doklam is two thousand times smaller than Mongolia (~300 km2 vs ~600,000 km2), and a thousand times more valuable. Land matters for strategic reasons only. Resource extraction is what FDI is for.

Just like Myanmar. The land is not valuable. Access to the Indian Ocean is valuable.

tamsen_ikard said:

Awesome writing. One interesting aspect about this situation is that most of the ethnic groups in Myanmar including the Bamar are speakers of Sino-Tibetan language family. So, they should be kinda close to Chinese language compared to Thai or Vietnamese, who are from a different language family.

So, it might be possible over time for China to takeover Myanmar. Or atleast make Myanmar a client state. Because of the closeness in Language family, it might be easier to control these lands. If China ever becomes the dominant power in asia then taking over myanmar could end China's Malacca Dilemma for good and allow China access to the Indian Ocean. A myanmar full of Chinese naval, air and army bases could be strong deterrent against any blockade attempts by US or India.

Again this is probably not happening in this century because China will be busy fighting the US in the eastern pacific for a long time. But in a long term scenario, Taking over Myanmar which is a weak country full instability might be easier than other countries in the neighborhood.

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We have hundreds of thousands Myamar people of various ethnic here, many have been here fo decades. They are practically living and working in every towns and cities here. They certaintly do not speak like Chinese, most of them learned to speak Malay rather than Chinese.

lcloo said:

We have hundreds of thousands Myamar people of various ethnic here, many have been here fo decades. They are practically living and working in every towns and cities here. They certaintly do not speak like Chinese, most of them learned to speak Malay rather than Chinese.

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What is their religion for most of them?

broadsword said:

What is their religion for most of them?

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Basically there are 2 groups, Muslim Rohinya refugees, and Buddhist ethnic Bamar people who are mainly immigrant workers working in non-Muslim restaurants.

Wrought said:

Annexation of land for land's sake is an archaic perspective. Doklam is two thousand times smaller than Mongolia (~300 km2 vs ~600,000 km2), and a thousand times more valuable. Land matters for strategic reasons only. Resource extraction is what FDI is for.

Just like Myanmar. The land is not valuable. Access to the Indian Ocean is valuable.

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Such shortsightedness, good thing you aren't a decision maker. Doklam is only important strategically right now cause China has a imperial empire to the south west. Historically speaking, China's dangers were always from the north, if relations between China and Russia/post Russia states becomes tense in the future, you'll know how strategically valuable Outer Mongolia is.

Indian Ocean is overrated, after the ice melts further in this century, the northern passages are way more valuable than than the Malacca Straight.

It's not as if China has a great need to use Myanmar coastline right now. They could always have forced the issue.

Straits of Malacca is a place where China has great defensive firepower in. In peacetime, the straits are a well functioning route that allows partial transit to ASEAN at the same time. In wartime, the tight areas of the strait can allow China to set up a decisive engagement there, as enemies may be tempted (or politically forced) into attacking an obvious chokepoint.

coolgod said:

Such shortsightedness, good thing you aren't a decision maker. Doklam is only important strategically right now cause China has a imperial empire to the south west. Historically speaking, China's dangers were always from the north, if relations between China and Russia/post Russia states becomes tense in the future, you'll know how strategically valuable Outer Mongolia is.

Indian Ocean is overrated, after the ice melts further in this century, the northern passages are way more valuable than than the Malacca Straight.

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Lol just give up on this parroting of western propaganda. Russia is our Germany or Canada at this point. They will never defy us. They have shown neither the will or the means.

Russia will get carte blanche to expand westwards.

Putin is the nail house in the Russian establishment that insists on pursuing "multipolarity" (read:Russian status as a France-like "independent" ally). While likes of Medvedev just want to fuck the west at any cost and win. That's a much more healthy attitude, and once old age takes Putin, we will see ever greater developments for the Russian people.

coolgod said:

Historically speaking, China's dangers were always from the north, if relations between China and Russia/post Russia states becomes tense in the future, you'll know how strategically valuable Outer Mongolia is.

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The Russians are not going to invade past the huge line of mountains between them and Mongolia. Not even the most antagonistic moron would be that stupid given the huge risks if China responses. Then they would be forced to either escalate by starting a war in North East China (where it is more flat) or pour vast resources to support a war effort across the mountains.