Sino-Myanmar Border Conflicts

In the last few days, there are consistent reports and rumors about Myanmar Army and Airforce accidentially shelling and attacking Chinese border villages in Yunnan Province for several days.
It certainly has something to do with the war between the Ethnic Chinese rebels of the Kokang and the Myanmar goverment that has been ongoing since Feb. 9th this year, spilling over into China.

While an earlier air-attack (one in March 8th) might have caused no casaulties and 'merely' destroyed a peasant's home, prompting 'deep concerns' from the Chinese side, the latest (March 13th) rumored Myanmar airforce attack across the border could have caused 5 death and 9 wounded civilians on the Chinese side. Both attacks are said to have been caused by Myanmar Airforce Q-5 attackers flying across the Chinese border as deep as 100km and bombarding numerous villages. Both attacks are said to have resulted in scrambling of PLAAF fighter jets driving the Q-5s off (no shootdown reported, tough). Chinese troops and armored vehicles are said to have been concentrating near the border.

Chinese BBS and Weibo is buzzing with discussions about a propable Chinese intervention into the civil war/ethnic rebellion.
Some images posted depict a Chinese armored car, troops in full gear, smoke/dust clouds of fresh impacts and gory pictures of the killed civilians. Those pictures are purged shortly after, but still available from a seperate blog.

Anyone heard more about this?


Some links:






The latest attack: (Picture Warning!)

Wikipedia page about the latest conflict, which drove over 50,000 refugees into China.

I really hope Xi Jinping take an tougher stance and scrap that non military intervention of other internal affairs when ethnic Chinese lives are at risk.
Before lives were finally lost, they want to censor the news and prevent anyone from helping. I hope that changes as fighting intensifies. Btw, I've just spend the entire morning reading up the various ethnic minority's in Wikipedia regarding this conflict ongoing event.

if the region want to be part of China ... so be it? wondering why there is no support from Western countries and there is hardly news at all

Western reports are coming in:

EDIT: RFA report already posted here.

More reports of earlier incidents:






Yeah, Chinese forums are already full of people demanding action from the goverment. This time, there are dead civilians...

I couldn't edit and paste the info. on that article I posted (the website or either my mobile is driving me crazy so I'm finally using the computer).

Distancing from conflict
Beijing has been at pains to distance itself from involvement in the Kokang conflict following tensions with Myanmar's ruling military junta over the role played by its citizens in supporting the ethnically Chinese Kokang side.

Chinese authorities are detaining anyone who arrives in the border region from elsewhere in China, according to a Sichuan-based retired People's Liberation Army (PLA) soldier surnamed Deng, who said he knew of a number of volunteers who had tried to cross into Kokang from Yunnan to help the rebels.

"There were a few in Kunming, one in Jinghong city, and a few in Nansan, and I haven't heard from them since they entered [Kokang]," Deng said. "They came from all over China, but then they lose contact, so I don't know how they're doing."

"A lot of Chinese people don't want to see others in trouble, and helping them is like helping ourselves," Deng said. "You can't rely on the government. They only serve their own political power," he said. "But it worries me that once we go in there, it will mess things up."

So Beijing doesn't seem to want to help and preventing anyone from helping for the time being. Hope I am wrong.

suicidal for Myanmar govt

Looks like there was some sort of deal between the PRC goverment and the Burmese Junta.

Maybe the Burmese are also blackmailing China to stand down, leveraging with all the Chinese investments in Burma, like the pipeline and the hydropower plants.

I dont know.

Personally, this is a very very weak and pathetic show by the PRC goverment. People are right to be mad.

I'm not really sure what Chinese netizens want the government and military to do. Retaliatory strikes? That will basically kill China's relationship with Burma entirely, and would be a tactical victory but a strategic failure of a decision.

China should publicly and privately tell Burma that any further incursions will be shot down (and the have the justification for this now), and demand apology and reparation.
However encroaching into Burmese territory or even Burmese air space is not something which should be considered.