Delivering vaccines to Myanmar’s junta, but also to rebel groups that are the generals’ sworn enemies, China is playing both sides to strengthen its hand in the messy politics of its southern neighbor.
Beijing has already handed over nearly 13 million doses to the generals, who in February ousted the government of civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and plunged Myanmar and its healthcare system into chaos.
The junta has appeared powerless to halt the spread of the virus, spooking authorities on the other side of its porous, 2,000km frontier with China, where officials are waging a “zero case” war on COVID-19.
Photo: AFP
So Beijing has quietly shipped thousands of vaccines, medical workers and construction materials for quarantine centers, multiple rebel groups told reporters.
Chinese Red Cross staff “come to help us sometimes ... to help us prevent the COVID pandemic, but they did not come to stay here,” said Colonel Naw Bu, spokesman for the Kachin Independence Army (KIA).
Naw Bu’s group, which numbers in the thousands, controls territory in Myanmar’s northern jade-rich hills.
“They just came for a while and went back,” he said.
The KIA is one of Myanmar’s more than 20 ethnic rebel groups — many of whom control swathes of remote border territory — who have fought each other and the military over the drugs trade, natural resources and autonomy.
However, they are all vulnerable to COVID-19.
The Shan State Progress Party rebel group has vaccinated 1,000 people in areas under its control with Chinese vaccines, a spokesperson told reporters.
It had ordered half a million doses, he said.
“Good neighbor” China had also promised to supply doses to the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, based in nearby territory, spokesman Brigadier General Tar Phone Kyaw told reporters.
Meanwhile, in the border town of Muse, men work on a new quarantine center that is to house up to 1,000 beds for traders keen to resume business with China.
The workers are Burmese nationals, but the building materials were all provided by authorities in China’s Yunnan Province.
The aid is receiving none of the fanfare of Beijing’s diplomacy elsewhere in Asia and across Africa.
“China will as always, according to their needs, provide necessary assistance and support to the Myanmar people in their fight against the epidemic,” a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman said when asked if Beijing was helping insurgent groups fight COVID-19.
Enze Han (韓恩澤), a University of Hong Kong associate professor in public administration, said it “makes sense” for authorities across the border to help.
“If China wants to protect itself from COVID ... it needs to create a buffer zone,” Han told reporters.
Ethnic Chinese groups, using Chinese SIM cards and currency, live along the border in areas “basically grafted onto the lower belly of China,” said David Mathieson, an analyst formerly based in Myanmar.
If major clashes between rebels and the military broke out — as they did in 2017, sending thousands fleeing into China — it would be a “worst-case scenario” for Beijing, Mathieson said.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese