Sino-Myanmar Border Conflicts

Blitzo

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Regardless of the geopolitics, China should act as the adult in this situation. The first thing is to establish the facts because there seems to be rather conflicting news as to where exactly the bombing and related deaths occurred. It ranges from 100 km inside to very near the border like within 1km. The facts changes the narrative completely. A dumb bomb falling within 1 km of a border is well within error of location and basically the nature of a dumb bomb.

At a minimum, China should at least release some official statement regarding the facts of the case. This would stop a lot of war mongering.

I think the way China has acted is perfectly within reason so far. Its military response and public statements have been well measured, and some would even call underwhelming.
Whether the bomb was 1km or 100km into chinese territory doesn't change the fact that it was still four chinese citizens that had died on chinese soil.

I mean sure, the distance from the border will interest us military watchers, but in regards to Sino-Myanmar relations, whether it was an accidental crossing of the border or a deliberate crossing doesn't justify the lack of apology or expression of regret from Myanmar at the loss of life on the Chinese side. Then they deny that their aircraft had crossed the border in the first place, and now we have possible physical evidence that makes that previous statement appear to be a blatant lie.


edit: I should add that I'm not saying China shouldn't thoroughly determine the incident such as its location, time, type of bomb or what not, I'm just saying that those facts do not change the underlying situation of chinese deaths on chinese soil, and that Myanmar's response has been unapologetic if not verging on hostile. If in the unlikely event both sides figure out it wasn't a myanmar plane that did the bombing then sure, we can reconsider Myanmar's response right now as almost justifiable. But at the moment Myanmar's stance is concerning and insulting.
 
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advill

Junior Member
This is another serious crises in the Southeast Asian Region. It is time for the countries concerned to really sit down and seriously discuss the difficulties and problems they face and find a diplomatic solution. It's an Asian problem, hopefully to be solved by the Asian countries themselves, and only as a last resort should the UN be involved. Neither a big country like China or a smaller country like Myanmar should try and win "points" over the unfortunate incidents. Diplomats (the Owls - using heads & hearts "thinking hearts") of both countries should negotiate and find peacefully solutions. There's no outright winners in hostilities. Innocent civilians (the young, the old, the women and men) suffer during conflicts. The decisions lie in the leaders of the countries concerned.
 

dingyibvs

Junior Member
Regardless of the geopolitics, China should act as the adult in this situation. The first thing is to establish the facts because there seems to be rather conflicting news as to where exactly the bombing and related deaths occurred. It ranges from 100 km inside to very near the border like within 1km. The facts changes the narrative completely. A dumb bomb falling within 1 km of a border is well within error of location and basically the nature of a dumb bomb.

At a minimum, China should at least release some official statement regarding the facts of the case. This would stop a lot of war mongering.

Where did you hear 100km inside?

I agree with you largely regarding the importance of facts, but we just don't have a lot of it right now. For one, Myanmar is denying that they were responsible while official Chinese news agencies are specifically naming them as the perpetrator. I find this rather odd. First, what would be the purpose of allowing Xinhua, et al. naming the Burmese as the perpetrators before knowing what their response would be? The national backlash would only be stronger when the alleged perpetrators are denying all involvement. I had figured that the Chinese did so because they knew that the Burmese would in turn apologize and pay reparations, but now it's a mess. Second, if the Burmese really did it, why wouldn't they just apologize and pay reparations? There's no love lost between China and Peng Jiasheng, the Chinese government would gladly accept these actions and move on. Myanmar can then go right back to eliminating Peng and his rebels without having to deal with pressure from China.
 

Brumby

Major
I think the way China has acted is perfectly within reason so far. Its military response and public statements have been well measured, and some would even call underwhelming.
Whether the bomb was 1km or 100km into chinese territory doesn't change the fact that it was still four chinese citizens that had died on chinese soil.

There is no suggestion that China is not acting maturely. I think so far China is acting very maturely and should continue to do so. The facts does change the narrative from being belligerent to an accident and so would be the appropriate corresponding response.

I mean sure, the distance from the border will interest us military watchers, but in regards to Sino-Myanmar relations, whether it was an accidental crossing of the border or a deliberate crossing doesn't justify the lack of apology or expression of regret from Myanmar at the loss of life on the Chinese side. Then they deny that their aircraft had crossed the border in the first place, and now we have possible physical evidence that makes that previous statement appear to be a blatant lie.

Authoritarian authorities is never good at admitting mistakes or handling PR - unfortunately as in the case with Myanmar.
 

Blitzo

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There is no suggestion that China is not acting maturely. I think so far China is acting very maturely and should continue to do so. The facts does change the narrative from being belligerent to an accident and so would be the appropriate corresponding response.

Okay, the first sentence in your reply left some room for doubt -- "continue acting like the adult" might have been less ambiguous.

And there have been multiple border crossings by myanmar aircraft, as well as a previous bombing as well. This is just the first time that there were actual casualties. Apparently there have also been previous PLAAF patrols that had warded off some Burmese planes as well prior to this bombing. If this is the case then I doubt this was an accident


Authoritarian authorities is never good at admitting mistakes or handling PR - unfortunately as in the case with Myanmar.

Yes but they also tend to be relatively candid in private talks between governments behind closed doors and it seems whatever explanations they've given is not acceptable to Beijing, making me wonder what possible ulterior motive they have and what they're going to do once this small house of cards falls down.
 

Blitzo

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Where did you hear 100km inside?

First post of the thread. But as mentioned before, lincang encompasses quite a large area and we don't where the actual sugar cane field in question is in relation to the actual city.

Shen says the bomb fell in gengma county, which is actually quite close to the border. I think that makes the PLAAF inability to intercept this particular incursion as slightly more reasonable, however the frequency of incursions by Myanmar planes remains unacceptable even if it they "only" intrude a few dozen km into chinese territory.

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Blitzo

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Some updates from Chinese forums:

1) The Burmese jet responsible for the attack was a Q-5, not a MIG-29 as previously reported (my bad).

2) Chinese Air Force conducted air patrols over the border area with Burma since March 12th according to a PLAAF spokesperson.

How come they failed to intercept the attack jet?

Like shen said, apparently the bomb fell in gengma county which is quite close to the border (in pink below)
bjkmxLb.png


If the closest regiment previously only had J-7s for patrols, then they lack the weapons and endurance to patrol for a long duration, and they cannot respond to an incursion if they are beyond visual range, especially if the incursions are dart in/dart out only entering chinese airspace for a limited distance.
Or it could have just been that there weren't any fighters in the air at the time and by the time PLAAF had scrambled fighters it was already too late.
The Myanmar border was/is also not considered that important, so previous to the deaths, I suspect radar surveillance wasn't as intense or long range as that facing say, the taiwan strait or the east, south and yellow seas. Low flying jets could definitely conceivably cross the border if old J-7s with older, less powerful radars are too far away to detect and track them against the clutter (and with no AEW&C support to make up for it).

And I believe the PLAAF had warded off previous Burmese planes, but on occasion some got through as we can see. A result of insufficient funding and bad luck imo. If every fighter regiment had J-10s then I bet this would never have happened.
 
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dingyibvs

Junior Member
First post of the thread. But as mentioned before, lincang encompasses quite a large area and we don't where the actual sugar cane field in question is in relation to the actual city.

Shen says the bomb fell in gengma county, which is actually quite close to the border. I think that makes the PLAAF inability to intercept this particular incursion as slightly more reasonable, however the frequency of incursions by Myanmar planes remains unacceptable even if it they "only" intrude a few dozen km into chinese territory.

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That's a mistake by the OP, who clearly misread the rather misleading map and/or doesn't know just how large a Chinese municipality is. I think we should get the 100km thing out of our minds, that's just so extremely low on the probability scale that it's not worth considering.
 

Blitzo

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I don't have a PLA blog, but if I did, this would be my write up on how the Myanmar jet managed to enter Chinese airspace and drop bombs unopposed:

---------

Some comment threads for articles on this piece of news are questioning just how capable the PLA actually is if even a measley jet from the Burmese air force could enter Chinese air space and bomb Chinese territory.

Those observations, while justified, miss a few important pieces of information.

First, the actual site of the bombing was very close to the border between China and Burma. Some news outlets have described it as Lingcang city, which on the map is 100km from the border, but it actually occurred in Gengma county, which is the pink piece of land within the yellow in the map below. As we can see, it is quite close to the border but even then it is a big piece of land.

bjkmxLb.png



Second, the geography and more importantly, the dispersal of PLA air bases and air defenses on a national level means it actually wouldn't be very difficult for a low flying Burmese jet to enter that airspace and proceed for some kilometers without being challenged. The area is hilly cluttered with forest, limiting the utility of ground based radar for lower altitude targets. And despite maintaining one of the largest AEW&C fleets among the world's air forces, the PLA has sensibly based them mostly on the eastern side of the country facing the biggest threats to the PRC; Taiwan, Japan, and the US out to sea. The southwest of inland China until now has generally not been considered a very high profile border to be monitored, compared to the East China Sea, South China Sea, Yellow Sea, border with North Korea, border with India, etc.

The closest airbases to the area according to scramble are Luliang and Mengzi, but remain quite far away even from Lingcang -- Luliang is 380km away, while Mengzi is slightly closer at 330 km away Accordingly to scramble, Luliang operates a J-10 regiment and a J-7 regiment, whereas Mengzi only operates a J-7 regiment.
I would expect patrols of the border to have been divided between J-10s and J-7s. J-10s naturally have longer range, endurance, and much more capable avionics and weapons, but at the same time their numbers are limited in the area and placing all the burden onto a single regiment would be a poor operational decision.

It is easy to envision a scenario where a Myanmar Q-5, flying at low altitude above the hills and clutter of trees manages to elude the limited ground based radar coverage as well as the aged and short range radar of any J-7s patrolling near Lingcang, and manages to slip past the border, pop in a dozen or two kilometers into China's soil and conduct a bombing run before speeding out of there.
It is worth noting that the PLAAF had supposedly been conducting patrol operations for some days prior to this, and it is likely that there had been previous encounters where Myanmar aircraft were successfully intercepted and warded away, but two instances of bad luck and limited equipment due to limited budget allowed such incursions to occur.

U7f9Zpm.png



Fundamentally this incident likely resulted from insufficient aircraft and equipment positioned in the location close to the Myanmar border. The incursion would most likely have not occurred had all regiments been made up of longer ranged fighters like J-10s and flankers, supported by AEW&C, and more advanced ground based radar and even SAMs.
These limitations can only be solved through time and budget, because despite China's large budget and large number of modern fighters and AEW&C, they still don't have enough to fully secure all their borders with modern equipment. The newest equipment and capabilities tend to go where they are needed -- facing east. This leaves inland regions and areas facing lesser threats relatively underarmed. China is simply too big with too many borders, for their limited budget to fully arm every military unit to a modern standard.
That isn't to say the PLA as a whole is not combat capable, it just means that some units of the PLA are far more capable than other units which may be forced to make do with older equipment due to their geography, and may only receive support from other more modern units when they're deployed based on transient need. We can see this with photos of PLA deploying more troops, medium range SAMs, advanced surveillance radars, and even rocket artillery closer to the Myanmar border now that the need has presented itself. News that the PLAAF has expanded air patrols near the border may also indicate increased numbers of modern fighters supplementing the local regiments, possibly even with other air elements such as AEW&C although this is merely speculation.

In hindsight, the biggest mistake the PLA has made in the last month since fighting in Myanmar intensified, was not supplementing the local air and army units with more modern elements as a precautionary bulwark. They've made the right decision now, but it is too little too late for those four innocent villagers working in their sugarcane field.
 

antiterror13

Brigadier
I don't believe it was deliberate by Myanmar air force, it was most likely an accident of the Myanmar pilot who was flying the "warplane" due poor training . The pilot most likely made a mistake in his navigation (or navigation didn't work at all) and ended up flying into Chinese territory. It happened even to US air force during Vietnam War who had and still have some of the most advanced navigation equipment and training in the world, accidentally flying past North Vietnam and into China, and then getting shot down by the Chinese military.

I wouldn't be surprised the pilot and even the commander would get fired by Myanmar junta militar very soon if not fired already
 
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