Sino-Myanmar Border Conflicts

At this point, I dont even believe that the Chinese goverment wants to do anything about it.

I mean, they are censoring most reports for as long as they could, detained people wanting to help the Kokang and purged that one PLA officier who did aid the Kokang.
China's actually interested in a Myanmar Goverment victory against the Rebels, it seems, despite what they say.

I would rather believe that even a third or fourth incursion into China, with new civilian casaulties, will go unpunished yet again.
Rather would the chinese ambassador to Burma plead the Junta to 'give China some face infront of their own people' and stop these incursions.

To be fair censoring the reports isn't actually indicative of anything apart from the Chinese government wanting to control the narrative of a potentially inflammatory topic. They do this for everything.

And purging the officer made sense as he was acting outside of his chain of command.

The problem is that many Chinese netizens seem to think not supporting the rebels in Burma are indicative of weakness. They're not considering the idea that overt Chinese action against the Burmese government may drive them towards the US even more. China would like to play a balancing game instead.

That said, in response to the killing of those civilians, I think the government and military do have the justification and need to act in a manner to ensure safety on their side of the border.

report by CCTV



March 13, 2015
Four Chinese have been killed and nine wounded by bombs dropped by a Myanmar warplane in southwestern Yunnan Province.

China strongly condemned the incident. Vice foreign minister Liu Zhenmin summoned Myanmar ambassador Thit Linn Ohn in Beijing Friday night, urging Myanmar to fully investigate the deadly incident, update Beijing on progress of the investigation, and punish those responsible.

The victims have been identified as villagers in Lincang City of Yunnan Province who were farming their sugarcane fields at the time the bombs exploded.

Friday’s incident is the second in one week. The Chinese foreign ministry said that stray fire from a fight that occurred on Sunday between Myanmar’s government forces and a local ethnic army had damaged a house in China.

Tens of thousands of refugees fled across the border into China’s Yunnan Province as Myanmar declared a state of emergency and imposed martial law in the area.

Well, at least CCTV reported it.

Maybe something will be done now.

Chinese netizens can be like a pack of rabid animals that will give any hardcore conservative fire-breather a good run for their money.

Yes, Chinese territory was bombed, and it looks like civilians were killed.

But those seems to be accidents, and China has done the right thing by proceeding with normal channels and responding proportionately.

China's initial response was to the first incident of its kind which only resulted in property damage, so it was reasonable to give the Myamar government the benefit of the doubt and take their word for the explanation of the incident.

However, given that the bombing attack that killed the civilians was at least the second of its kind, and the fact that unlike the first strike, Chinese civilians were killed, a tougher response should now be warranted.

I would like to know more details about the location of the strike before passing broader judgement on the appropriateness of the response for the PLA.

The PLA should have been on heightened alert before even the first cross broader fire incidents because of the conflict in Mynmar. I also suspect there have been some misreporting of the incidents, either by accident or by design.

I seriously doubt the Mynmar Air Force was allowed to bomb a village 100km inside of China. It could be a mashing up of multiple events. Maybe a flight did stray 100km into Chinese airspace once, but another likely conducted the strike, at a seperate time and place.

I believe intially the PLA didn't do anything silly like launch a SAM because their SOP has never been to shoot first and ask questions later. The PLA likely closely monitored the developments, but didn't take lethal action because it was awaiting instructions from Chinese leadership.

They did seem to have scrambled fighters to intercept and turn back the intruder, which was again standard and reasonable. Given that Mynmar has a land boarder with China, their jets can fly right up to the Chinese boarder and still be operating normally, so the 100km incursion before intercept doesn't really tell us anything about the readiness state of the PLAAF given the speed fighters typically fly at.

That seems reasonable given the fact the Mynmar and China are supposed to be on good diplomatic terms.

One of the main reasons I want to know where the second fatal bombing occurred was to see if it was far from the boarder.

If it was a village right on the boarder, them there won't have been much anyone military in the world could have done about it without an over-reaction of hilarious proportions like deploying an Iron Dome-like air defence asset.

Iron Dome might be appropriate for a country like Israel, but for China to deploy a similar system (even if they had it, which they don't currently) on its Mynmar boarder would be like the US deploying Iron Dome on its Mexican boarder.

However, given the fact that the second strike killed civilians, and was a second strike, the 'accident' reason given by Mynmar would hold a hell of a lot less water for China now.

It is not in the Chinese people's or government's nature to publicly rant and rave their thoughts and opinions, so we get the normal proforma diplomatic responses from the Chinese foreign office and official media, but privately, behind closed doors, I believe Mynmar would be on its final warning that any further incursions into Chinese airspace, for whatever reason, will not only not be tolerated, but also trigger a strong if not lethal Chinese military response.

I would expect PLA air defense units to be deployed closer to the boarder, and also given revised ROEs and greater discretionary powers to launch without needing higher authorisation.

I would expect any Mynmar military air assets to cross into Chinese territory from this point on to get a radar lock warning from SAM sites and instructions from Chinese air traffic control to land at a Chinese military air base where the pilot and plane would be taken into cusdoy pending an investigation, and that failure to follow instructions to the letter would result in immediate engagement and destruction by Chinese air defences.

This second strike would have caused China's leaders (both civilian and military) enormous embarrassment and annoyance, and no further repetitions of it would be tolerated.

Over on CDF I said that the key fact China should clarify is whether those intrusions and attacks by the Burmese jets were deliberate or accidental.

If it was accidental, then I think China should take the more passive defensive role I described.
If it was deliberate, then China should seek to double and triple check this, before deciding on a more proactive and coordinated military and political response that may involve incursion into Burmese territory, or at the very least some degree of military retaliation.


----
sino-burmese relations are not quite so good lately, partly due to the slight lean towards the US by the burmese govt, and also because of the conflict with ethnic chinese Kokang rebels, that has supposedly led some chinese military mercenaries to join the Kokang cause, which I'm sure has sown quite a bit of distrust. There have been some indications that the Chinese govt had also supplied the rebels while also dealing with the govt as well.

Reading from what others are saying, there seems to be two different tracts that are at play but some are treating it is as the same thing which in fact is not. The broader problem seems to be there is some internal conflict within Myanmar involving what may be rebels of Chinese ethnicity which some Chinese outside of Myanmar feel they should provide assistance or that the Chinese government should. The other is simply proximity of border and potential overspill of conflict that had caused collateral damage to property or people on the Chinese side. Until that is sorted out, benefit of the doubt should rest on the assumption that it wasn't intentional but accidental.

Some sources report that this, in fact, was already the third air-strike within a few weeks. This strike saw the impact of at least four bombs onto Chinese soil.

The 2009 overshot mortar round which destroyed a peasant's house might have been an accident, but intruding three times into China's airspace and bombing Chinese villages?
And why always villages?

I dont buy the 'accident' excuse anymore. Myanmar is clearly testing China's resolve, and seeks to present China's weak will in the face of her vital economic interests in Myanmar, that seemed to be much more valuable to China than the sovereignity of her border and the lives of her people.

At least it seems that the Chinese military is gathering in the area now. Whether this includes SAM systems, I dont know. I sure hope so.

The Kokang conflict causes problems for China, too
Mar 14th 2015 | NANSAN, YUNNAN PROVINCE |

• Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
  
  FOR most of the past three weeks 19 members of the Yang family have lived in “125”, a refugee camp that straddles the Myanmar-China border. They left their homes in February when fighting flared up between Burmese government troops and local rebels, says one of the Yang sisters, carrying the youngest of her six children on her back in a red velvet sling. But after shelling came perilously close to the camp one night, they fled again, this time crossing into China, laden down with bedding, clothes and “water-smoking pipe”, or giant bamboo hookah. They joined the 60,000 or so Burmese who, the Chinese state media say, have entered Yunnan province since early February.
  
  The fighting in Kokang, a small region in Myanmar’s northern Shan state, is the bloodiest the country has seen for years. It risks undermining Myanmar’s ceasefire talks. It also worsens an already turbulent relationship between Myanmar and China and highlights differences between the central government in Beijing and far-flung Yunnan, one of China’s poorest provinces, which shares a 2,000km border with Myanmar.
  
  In this section
  • Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
  • The Han that rock the cradle
  • Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
  • Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
  • Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
  • Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
  Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
  
  The conflict involves China partly because the fighting is on its doorstep: on March 8th stray bombs damaged a house on the Chinese side. Kokang also retains a special place in China’s psyche. It was part of the country until the Qing dynasty ceded it to Britain in 1897. Around 90% of the Kokang are ethnic Han-Chinese (a similar proportion make up China’s own population); they speak Mandarin, use Weibo, a Chinese microblogging site, and many have friends and relatives in Yunnan. Some have Chinese identity cards.
  
  The government of Myanmar claims the Chinese are training Kokang fighters. Some accuse them of arming or financing the Kokang militia, too, and of allowing them to use Chinese territory to outflank government troops. The militia’s octogenarian leader, Peng Jiasheng (known as Phone Kyar Shin in Burmese), denies these allegations but has tried to whip up Chinese support online, reminding the Chinese of their “common race and roots”. Though they are not Chinese citizens, the Kokang’s ethnicity increases domestic pressure on China’s government to respond in some way, reckons Enze Han of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. Some Chinese people criticised the government when it failed to react to anti-Chinese riots in Indonesia in 1998.
  
  
  
  
  China’s government has tried to dissociate itself from the conflict. An editorial in the state-run Global Times newspaper warned people to “avoid any premature stance or interference” in Myanmar’s affairs; Chinese news reports refer to “border people” rather than “refugees”. The government has yet to allow the United Nations refugee agency access to the camps. A facility for refugees at the international convention centre in Nansan, a town just across the border from the main crossing-point in the Kokang capital, Laukkai, was shut within three weeks of the conflict starting. It is unclear what happened to the inhabitants. Some richer Kokang booked into hotels or rented places in Nansan, but the city is not overrun with Burmese—and few have returned to their homes.
  
  For the government in Beijing the local conflict is bothersome: China’s leaders care more about domestic stability and regional economic ties than border tribes. Official policy towards Myanmar, as elsewhere, is not to intervene. Myanmar’s military junta relied on China when the West imposed sanctions in the 1990s, which led to a backlash against the country in 2011 after Thein Sein came to power. Some contracts have since been renegotiated and Chinese investment has recovered. China now sees Myanmar mainly as a trading partner and energy supplier.
  
  But the influx of Kokang has forced China to become more involved. Resources have been mobilised quickly to deal with the incomers and several temporary facilities opened—though at least one has been closed, and there have been unconfirmed reports of refugees being forced back to Myanmar. Still, the situation is a lot better than in the recent past. In 2009 30,000 people fled another flare-up in Kokang, the largest refugee crisis on China’s border since the war with Vietnam in 1979. In 2011-12 hostilities in Kachin again forced thousands into Yunnan. On both occasions, China’s humanitarian response was weak and late, says Yun Sun of the Stimson Centre, a think-tank in Washington. Since then a succession of natural disasters has given China more experience in dealing with internally displaced people.
  
  The conflict also sheds light on the different priorities of Beijing and Yunnan. Although trade with Myanmar accounts for less than 1% of China’s total, it makes up 24% of Yunnan’s. Residents on both sides benefit from being allowed to move freely, but fighting jeopardises that. So local Yunnanese ought to have a strong incentive to end the fighting.
  
  
  Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
  
  At the same time illegitimate commercial activities conducted by Chinese companies in northern Myanmar—including illegal mining, logging and smuggling conducted under the noses of local officials—help to finance local militias. These illicit ventures are sources of conflict with locals. And they are at the root of Burmese accusations that China is supporting and arming the separatists. The government in Beijing could do more to clamp down on such trade.
  
  It has already moved to increase its oversight of Yunnan and the border with Myanmar. In 2009 provincial officials either did not know or did not tell the authorities in Beijing that a conflict was brewing. Now the Chinese army, rather than the local border police, controls the boundary. And officials in Beijing have established direct links with ethnic groups inside Myanmar, rather than going through their Yunnanese counterparts, as before. But the Chinese authorities do not have an appetite for being sucked in. Unless the violence gets much worse, the government in Beijing is unlikely to step in to try to make peace between Myanmar’s government and the Kokang.
  

shen said:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Click to expand...

Thank you, that was quite an informative article. It sums up pretty much the ongoing conflict background of the event. It also explain the pro and con decision by the current Chinese government such as forcing refuges back into Myanmar rather fairly quickly and distancing itself from the conflict. When Chinese government can't even protect ethnic Chinese under persecution in other countries... (read what Myanmar do to rebel minorities that fought them in wiki history) at the very least protest or voice concern about it, not until they bombed you and stay muted), then no one will take your people/government very seriously. This is why there are so many ethnic persecutions of Chinese minority in so many countries back in history. I can understand if when you're weak.. but now China is not so weak... yes China needed Myanmar gas pipe for Chinese future strategic goal... but not at the expense of other ethnic Chinese lives... who can say for sure 10 years from now Myanmar will not more be pro U.S.? By trend relation is already not so well. Myanmar government know China needs the gas pipe so it is using the chance to exploit the case and finish off one of several armed ethnic minorities inside the country wanting autonomous control. From that article above, I am surprised to know it is formerly an Chinese territory.