The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 13 | Issue 14 | Number 1 | Article ID 4305 | Apr 14, 2015

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The March 2015 Bombings of Yunnan and the Decline in Sino-Myanmar Relations 2015年3月の雲南省爆撃と中緬関係の低下

Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim

Abstract: Myanmar's accidental bombings ofChina's Yunnan province on 8 and 13 March2015 are symptomatic of a recent decline inSino-Myanmar relations. This article will firstexamine the recent unrest in Myanmar'sKokang region that led to the bombings ofYunnan. The relationship between China andthe Communist Party of Burma will be shown toconnect the unrest in Kokang with theMyanmar government's long-term suspicions ofChina. It then shifts to a broader overview ofSino-Myanmar relations, with their close tiesduring the international isolation of Myanmarafter 1988 shown to be one of necessity forMyanmar, which ended with Myanmar'srapprochement with the US in 2011. The finalsection focuses on the collapse of Chineseinvestment in Myanmar following the Myanmargovernment's 2011 suspension of the MyitsoneDam project, and discussion ends with thereminder that Chinese energy concerns,manifest in the oil and gas pipelines connectingYunnan with the Indian Ocean, make Myanmaran essential component of China's long-termplans for its energy security, thereby making itcrucial for the Chinese foreign policyestablishment to seek an improvement ofChina's bilateral relations with Myanmar.

Keywords: China, Myanmar, Yunnan,Insurgency, Energy

Kokang soldiers in Shan State (AFP)

Introduction: The March 2015 Bombingsof Yunnan

On March 8, 2015, a Tatmadaw (Myanmararmed forces) fighter jet battling rebels fromthe pro-autonomy Myanmar NationalDemocratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) in theKokang region of Myanmar's northern ShanState accidently bombed a village in Gengmacounty in China's Yunnan province, destroyinga house. Apart from the damage in property,there were no casualties, and the Chinesegovernment asked their Myanmar counterpartsto ensure such an incident never happenedagain.1 However, less than a week later, onMarch 13, another Tatmadaw fighter jetbombed a sugarcane f ield in Lincangprefecture in Yunnan, killing five villagers andinjuring eight. High-level complaints fromChina were issued to Myanmar, and Chinesefighter jets scrambled to patrol the border, butwhile Myanmar expressed sorrow for thecasualties, they blamed the MNDAA rebels for

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the incident. 2 These were not the firstinstances of Myanmar's civil warfare crossingthe border into China. In 2013 the Tatmadawaccidently bombed Yunnan during a fightagainst the Kachin Independence Army.3 Then,as now, China offered to mediate between thewarring sides to secure peace along theborder.4 This is essential given the geographyof the borderlands between Myanmar andYunnan province. As observers note, theTatmadaw fighter jets were probably withinMyanmar airspace when they released thebombs that strayed into Yunnan. This suggeststhat similar incidents could occur in the futureshould peace not be secured within Myanmar.5

Indeed, a week after the fatal bombing ofLincang, the Tatmadaw resumed air patrolsover the border region, and local residents inMengdui township near Lincang reportedairdrops of unexploded bombs, apparently fromTatmadaw aircraft.6

The crisis began a month earlier, when thesudden resumption of fighting between theMNDAA and the Tatmadaw on February 9prompted almost 50,000 ethnic Chinesecivilians from Kokang to flee across the borderto seek refuge in Yunnan.7 Chinese officialsinitiated bilateral talks aimed at restoringstability on the border and organizing therepatriation of the refugees.8 Apart from therefugee crisis, the conflict in Kokang alsonegatively impacted the transborder traffic oftrade goods between Yunnan province andShan State.9 As we shall see later, this tradecorridor is of strategic importance for China,allowing goods to travel to and from ports onthe Indian Ocean without having to passthrough the Straits of Malacca and the SouthChina Sea. Hence the peaceful settlement ofthe Kokang conflict is of utmost importance toChina. In order to defuse the Myanmargovernment's suspicions of Chinese support forthe MNDAA, the Chinese government hascracked down on grassroots-level activism inYunnan organizing medical and other suppliesfor the MNDAA rebel effort.10 In addition, the

recent arrest of Major General Huang Xing,reportedly for unauthorized provision ofmilitary intelligence to the MNDAA, highlightsChina's desire to win the trust of the Myanmargovernment.11

The MNDAA and the Ethnic Kokang

The Myanmar government's suspicions ofChina are rooted in ethnicity and history. Theethnic dimension is rooted in the fact that theKokang Chinese, the minority group associatedwith the MNDAA, are descendants of HanChinese Ming dynasty loyalists who arrivedfrom China in the 17th century to escape fromQing rule, and later, Kuomintang fighters andparty members who settled in Burma after the1949 Communist revolution in China. Thehistorical dimension is that the MNDAA wasonce part of the Communist Party of Burma(CPB). The CPB was supported in i tsinsurgency against the Burmese state by theChinese Communist Party, and the leaders ofMyanmar today continue to recall thechallenges of the communist insurgency. WhileChinese support for the insurgents emerged inthe early years of Burmese independence, itreached its peak during China's CulturalRevolution, when the Chinese sent significantaid to the CPB. Indeed, China continued tosupport the CPB, albeit at a lower level, intothe 1980s, and Tatmadaw forces suffered heavycasualties against the CPB in battles in late1988. In 1989, when the CPB insurgencycollapsed, China sheltered its ousted leadersand cadres. Myanmar's current military leadersmost likely have personal memories of battleengagements against the Chinese-backed CPBinsurgents.12

In 1989, the MNDAA was the first faction toemerge from the collapse of the CPB to sign abilateral ceasefire with the Myanmargovernment. In the two decades between 1989and 2009, Kokang enjoyed a peace dividendfrom the ceasefire, and the region prosperedfrom the production and trafficking of

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narcotics, illegal logging, as well as armstrafficking from China to insurgent groups innortheastern India. The funds from these illicitactivities financed development projects inKokang and elsewhere in Myanmar, includingcasinos, entertainment, real estate, hospitality,retail, and construction. Many of these projectswere co-financed by Chinese investors, leadingmany Myanmar locals to regard the ethnicKokang as outlaws supported by China, and tosupport the Tatmadaw's fight against theMNDAA.13

In 2009 Kokang's two decades of peace endedwhen the MNDAA resisted the government'sinstruction to reorganize itself into aparamilitary force under the control of theTatmadaw. The Tatmadaw commencedhostilities, and MNDAA leader Peng

Peng Jiasheng (Irrawaddy.org)

Jiasheng was ousted in a mutiny supported bythe government. The violence prompted over37,000 civilians to flee across the border intoYunnan, a precursor to the refugee crisis ofFebruary 2015.14 Peng, who had forgedconnections with the Chinese Communist Partyduring his years with the CPB, claims to havespent 2009-2014 in exile in China and othercountries in the region.15 In the middle of 2014,he was back in Myanmar, and on February 9,2015, he commenced his attempt to retake

Kokang with the MNDAA.16 In the currentconflict, the MNDAA has reportedly beensupported by other ethnic militias, includingthe Ta'ang National Liberation Army, theKachin Independence Army, and the ArakaneseArmy. Myanmar's United Nationalities FederalCouncil, representing a collective of ethnicmilitias, has voiced support for the ethnicKokang, and has asked the government to enterinto peace negotiations with the MNDAA.17 Asenior Ta'ang National Liberation Armycommander explained that the current conflictderives from the ethnic minorities' unhappinessover their being sidelined by the Myanmargovernment.18 In broader historical perspective,the current struggle of the ethnic Kokang is thelatest iteration in a history of failed nation-building in the Burmese state. As Bertil Lintnerexplains:

From the very beginning, theproblem has been one that manyBurmese rulers and even ordinarycitizens are reluctant to admit:Burma is a colonial creation thatincludes nationalities whichhistorically had little or nothing todo with each other until Britishauthority was established over theo l d b a m a k i n g d o m a n d ahorseshoe - shaped r ing o fsurrounding mountain ranges.Even today, there are remote tribalareas where the local people donot even know that they belong toa country called "Burma," or evenless so "Myanmar" - the officialname of the country since 1989a n d w h i c h i s s u p p o s e d t oencompass the country's "135national races," as if such a termexisted in any language.19

The Recent Decline in Sino-MyanmarRelations

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Despite its support for the CPB, China hasenjoyed a history of close bilateral relationswith Myanmar. The Chinese recall that Burmawas the first country outside of the socialistbloc to establish relations with Beijing after thefounding of the People's Republic of China in1949, helping China break out of the diplomaticisolation imposed by the anticommunist West.More recently, when Burma suffered Westernsanctions after the 1988 military crackdown,China provided a diplomatic and economiclifeline, including much-needed concessionaryloans and techn ica l a ss i s tance fo rinfrastructural and industrial projects. Chineseimmigration into Burma increased under themi l i tary ru le o f the State Peace andDevelopment Council (SPDC) (1988-2011), asWestern sanctions shielded Chinese investorsfrom Western competition.20 Sino-Myanmareconomic relations further intensified after theturn of the mil lennium, when China'sglobalizing state-owned enterprises turned toMyanmar as a convenient location for theextraction of timber, gems, minerals, andhydropower. By 2010 China had becomeMyanmar's largest foreign investor.21 Indeed, inMay 2011, when Myanmar's new PresidentThein Sein visited Beijing, China announced theelevation of its bilateral relationship withMyanmar to a "comprehensive strategiccooperative partnership."22 The Chinese werehence blindsided just a few months later whenThein Sein suspended China's Myitsone Damproject, which had faced significant criticismfrom local people and non-governmentalorganizations for the population displacementits construction would cause, not to mentionthe destruction of important sites of culturaland environmental significance.23

Construction of Myitone Dam (Irrawaddy.org)

Myitsone Dam Protestors(Democratic Voice of Burma& Reuters)

(China Power International, the Chinesepartner in the project, hopes that thesuspension will be lifted when Thein Seinleaves office in 2015. Should the projectinstead be terminated, however, it may pursuelegal channels for reimbursement of itsinvestment of over 1 billion USD. 24) Chineseofficials would later cite the suspension ofMyitsone Dam as the third major instance,following 2005's surprise relocation ofMyanmar's capital to Naypyidaw, and 2009'sTatmadaw attack on Kokang, of Myanmar'sharming and embarrassing China.25 As we shallsee, Sino-Myanmar relations have subsequentlygone into a steep decline.

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In counterpoint to China's reduced influence inNaypyidaw in 2011, the US saw a rapidrapprochement in its relations with Myanmar.The opening was Thein Sein's meeting withopposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi thatAugust. The subsequent political liberalizationsaw the lifting of most of Washington'sfinancial sanctions on Myanmar, as well asstate visits by Secretary of State Hillary Clintonand President Barack Obama, and theappointment of a US ambassador to thecountry. The Chinese would soon come to seethe US as having undermined their closefriendship with Myanmar.26 However, as wehave seen earlier, Myanmar's suspicions of theChinese date back to Beijing's historic supportfor the CPB. Myanmar's close relationship withChina during the SPDC period was due tonecessity, the Chinese being the only majorpower willing to invest in the country. With theUS rapprochement of 2011, Myanmar is nowfree to pursue its preferred foreign policy ofneutrality and nonalignment. In practicalterms, as we shall see, this has meant thebalancing of Chinese and Western interests.While China has not been shut out of Myanmar,it now has to compete with the Americans,Japanese, and other powers.27

The response from Chinese investors to theMyitsone Dam debacle of 2011 was a collapsein new investment in Myanmar. While theycontinued with the implementation of existingprojects, they have signed no new projects, inview of the political risks exposed by thesuspension of the Myitsone Dam project. From2012 to 2013, Chinese investment in Myanmarcollapsed by over 90%, from over 8 billion USDto just 407 million USD.28 China accounted forjust 0.8% of foreign direct investment (FDI) inMyanmar in the nine months ending inDecember 2013. The top investors during thatperiod were South Korea, Singapore andThailand.29 In terms of cumulative investment,however, China remains Myanmar's largestinvestor, with 14.25 billion USD invested in thecountry, especially in the power and oil and gas

sectors.30 (China also remains Myanmar'slargest trading partner.31) This appears to bechanging. Following the lifting of Westernsanct ions on Myanmar, Thein Sein 'sgovernment has sought to diversify the sourcesof FDI beyond China. In the oil and gas sector,for instance, Myanmar has awarded oil and gasblocks to Euro-American energy corporationsincluding ConocoPhillips, Chevron, and Shell,avoiding the previously favored Chinese energycorporations.32

Politically, China has publicly demonstrated itsdispleasure at Thein Sein's turn to the West bydrastically reducing the number of official visitsto Myanmar from senior officials. However, ithas also started to cultivate other inroads intoMyanmar. In late 2011 China recognized thelegitimacy of the opposition National Leaguefor Democracy (NLD), and the Chineseambassador has held multiple meetings withNLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi. On the culturalfront, China has sought to improve its imagewith a broad public relations campaign. ItsBuddhist diplomacy campaign appearsespecially prescient given the recent revival ofBuddhist nationalism in Myanmar.33

The Southwest Passage

A primary reason China cannot fully disengagefrom Myanmar is Myanmar's strategic locationas China's southwest passage to the IndianOcean. China lacks direct coastal access to thePacific Ocean. Good relations with Myanmarmake it possible for China to develop Myanmaras a transshipment passage between Yunnanand the Indian Ocean.34 Indeed, the Chinesegovernment's Five Year Plan of 2011-15highlights Yunnan's strategic role as abridgehead for China's engagement with theIndian Ocean, thereby transforming China froma "One Ocean" to a "Two Ocean" power.35 Asvice-mayor Liu Guangxi of Kunming explainedin 2010, the Chinese government plans totransform Yunnan into "a gateway that links toneighboring countries and the Indian Ocean."36

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A key infrastructural project has been the 2.5billion USD development of oil and gaspipelines crossing almost 800 km from theIndian Ocean across Myanmar into China. TheShwe gas pipeline, which went live in July2013, runs from the port city of Kyaukphu toRuili in Yunnan.

Shwe gas pipeline (Irrawaddy.org)

The oil pipeline, which went live in early 2015,runs parallel to the gas pipeline, and extendspast Yunnan into Chongqing, supplying theenergy needs of the growing cities of southernChina. These pipelines enhance China's energysecurity by allowing oil and gas shipments tobypass the piracy-ridden Straits of Malaccaand, more significantly, the South China Sea,where China has significant territorial disputeswith regional powers.37 The maintenance andenhancement of these pipelines henceconstitute a key infrastructural component ofChina's energy security policy, which makes itessent ia l for China 's fore ign pol icyestablishment to pursue an improvement ofChina's bilateral relations with Myanmar pastthe setbacks of 2011.

Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim is a research fellow withthe Longus Institute for Development andStrategy, and the author of Cambodia and thePolitics of Aesthetics (Routledge 2013). Hereceived his Ph.D. in Political Science from theUniversity of Hawaii at Manoa, and has taughtat Pannasastra University of Cambodia and the

American University of Nigeria.

Emai l : a l v i n c h @ h a w a i i . e d u Web:https://manoa-hawaii.academia.edu/AlvinLim

Recommended citation: Alvin Cheng-Hin Lim,"The March 2015 Bombings of Yunnan and theDecline in Sino-Myanmar Relations", The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 14, No. 1, April 6,2015.

Related articles

• Bertil Lintner, Burma 2012: Democracy andDictatorship.

Notes

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4 McMahon, "Myanmar Blames Kokang.""China-Myanmar ties entering 'new norm,'"Want China Times, March 19, 2015, accessedMarch 23, 2015.

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5 "PLA deployment to Myanmar would damageChinese interests: Duowei," Want China Times,March 20, 2015, accessed March 23, 2015.

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Kokang Conflict," Voice of America, March 10,2015, accessed March 23, 2015.

19 Bertil Lintner, "Burma 2012: Democracy andDictatorship," The Asia-Pacific Journal 10(2012), accessed March 23, 2015.

20 John Walsh, "The Rising Importance ofChinese Labour in the Greater Mekong Sub-Region," The Asia-Pacific Journal 9 (2009),accessed March 23, 2015.

21 Haacke, "Nature and Management," 115-116.Sun, "China's Strategic Misjudgement," 79

22 Sun, "China's Strategic Misjudgement," 80. LiChenyang, "China–Myanmar ComprehensiveStrategic Cooperative Partnership: A RegionalThreat?" Journal of Current Southeast AsianAffairs 31 (2012): 54, accessed March 23, 2015.

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24 Seamus Martov, "Myitsone Dam Project onHold, but Far From Dead," The Irrawaddy,November 6, 2013, accessed March 23, 2015.Yun Sun, "China, Myanmar face Myitsone damtruths," Asia Times, February 19, 2015,accessed March 23, 2015.

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32 Toh, "China's rivals."

33 Sun, "China and the Changing," 65-68.Maung Zarni, "Buddhist Nationalism inBurma," Tricycle 22 (2013), accessed March23, 2015.

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