In the 1930s, Myanmar was a major grain producer in Southeast Asia and was rich in natural resources such as jadeite, natural gas, tin and tungsten. When Burma became independent from British colonial rule in 1948, it fully inherited the infrastructure and economic system left by the British colonial authorities, and Burma also received $200 million in war reparations from Japan, making it one of the two richest countries in Southeast Asia at the time (the other being the Philippines), but after independence, Burma was caught in an endless civil war with ethnic local armed forces. Today, Myanmar is seen as an economically impoverished, politically fractured and turbulent country.
In the past few decades, dozens of ethnic minority armed forces of all sizes have emerged in Myanmar: Shan National Army, Shan State United Revolutionary Army, Shan State United Army, Wa State United Army, Kokang Allied Army, Kachin Independence Army, Kachin New Democratic Army, Karen National Liberation Army, Kayer Liberation Army, Deang National Liberation Army, Rakhine Rohingya Salvation Army, Rakhine Army, Kuki National Army, Zomi Revolutionary Army, Chin National Army... How many ethnic groups there are in Myanmar almost means how many ethnic groups are armed. While Japan, the Asian Tigers, Chinese mainland, Vietnam, India and other places have entered the fast lane of economic growth, Myanmar is still engaged in endless civil war.
Among them, the armed forces in northern Myanmar are the most widely distributed, and the proximity of northern Myanmar to the Border between China and Myanmar also makes the people of The country more familiar with the armed forces in northern Myanmar. In fact, in addition to the armed forces in northern Myanmar, there are considerable ethnic minority armed forces in southern Myanmar and western Myanmar: an important part of the armed forces in southern Myanmar is the Rohingya Rohingya Salvation Army of the Rohingya, which is also a national armed force that cannot be ignored by its hostile Arakan Army. However, the number of these armies is not large, about 1,000 people, and the maximum number is not more than 2,000. The Main Activities of the Spanish Armed Forces in Burma and India are in areas such as Chin State, which border Myanmar and India: including the Kuki National Army, the Zomi Revolutionary Army, and the Chin National Army.
Of course, we may be more familiar with the armed forces in northern Myanmar than these southern And Western Myanmar armed forces. In mid-January 2015, fighting in northern Myanmar escalated suddenly: sudden fighting caused more than 1,000 local villagers to flee to churches. At that time, the war between the Burmese government army and the Kachin Independence Army even approached the Chinese border for a time, and the Overseas Chinese living in northern Myanmar were even more troubled by the war. In fact, the war in northern Myanmar has not affected China's border once: on December 30, 2012, three shells fired by Burmese government forces in an exchange of fire with the Kachin Independence Army destroyed a house in China's Yunnan Province. In August 2009, shells killed and wounded more than one Chinese border resident in Yunnan during the fighting in Kokang.
The Kachin Independence Army is a formidable force among the many local ethnic armed forces in northern Myanmar. The Kachin people share the same ancestry as the Jingpo people in China. Legend has it that the ancestors of the Kachin people began to migrate south along the Hengduan Mountains from the eastern Part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau around the 7th century. By the 8th century, the ancestors of the Kachin had settled in the area around the Gaoligong Mountains. In the 11th century, they gradually moved along the NmeiKai River and the Mai Li Kai River into the territory of present-day Myanmar. Today, the Kachin ethnic group is mainly concentrated in the kachin state of northern Myanmar (an area of 89,110 square kilometers, accounting for about 13% of the country's area) in the upper reaches of the Chintun River and the upper reaches of the Ilova River. During the Period of British colonial rule, missionaries Hansen and Cussen created the Kachin script in the Latin alphabet and began to popularize it.
The Kachin not only accepted the writing system invented by the British missionaries, but also replaced the Kachin people's primitive belief in ghosts and gods with Christianity brought by the British. After the Kachin converted to Christianity, the contradictions between the Burmese and the Buddhists deepened. In 1956, the Burmese government forcibly declared Buddhism the state religion, while promoting the Burmese language, Burmese costume and other cultural forms in ethnic minority areas. On February 5, 1961, the Kachin people Zhaosai established the Kachin Independence Army in the Kachin Mountain Village near Lashio and put forward political demands for the establishment of the "Kachin Republic". The Kachin Independence Army soon grew from a small guerrilla force of 211 men to a highly organized force: a new battalion was added almost every year.
The Kachin, with a population of about 1.25 million, are the sixth largest ethnic group in Myanmar. The "Kachin government" stipulates that men must become soldiers from the age of 13 and cannot be discharged from the army for life, even if they are not in the army in the future, they can only be regarded as "vacations", and if there is a war, they must return immediately; if there is a war, each family must have 3 children, 3 or 4 children must join the army twice, and two children must join the army; if there is no man, they must recruit female soldiers. The Kachin Independence Army claims to make up 7 percent of the kachin population and claims to be Christian. However, according to people familiar with the matter, in fact, the total strength of the Kachin army does not exceed 15,000 people, plus more than 32,000 government workers; some say that there are only 8,000 people.
At present, the Kachin Independence Army controls an area of about 10,000 square kilometers and controls a population of about 100,000. In addition to the Kachin Independence Army, the Kachin people also have an armed force - the Kachin New Democratic Army, which was reorganized from part of the 101st Military Region of the Communist Party of Burma in 1989, which is an armed force composed of more than 500 troops and more than 1,000 militiamen, equipped with Type 54 pistols, Type 56 automatic rifles, 75 mm recoilless guns, 82 mm mortars and Maxin heavy machine guns, and currently controls an area of 6,000 square kilometers, divided into 4 districts of Katama, Xi dong, TowHorn and Fallen, with a population of more than 70,000. On February 24, 1994, the Burmese government and the Kachin Ethnic Armed Forces reached a ten-year "armistice."
However, the Burmese government has always felt like a fish in the throat for the local ethnic armed forces that support themselves and occupy their own land. The Burmese government forces began to pressure local ethnic groups, including the Kachin armed forces, to join the Myanmar Border Guard Force and to be integrated and supervised by the government. The Kachin Independence Army, for its part, firmly refused to accept integration. On September 1, 2010, after the deadline given by the Burmese government to the "Mindi Wu", the Burmese government declared the ceasefire agreement "null and void". In the 15 years since the ceasefire was reached, Myanmar's state media have again begun calling the Kachin armed forces "rebels." On June 7, 2011, large-scale fighting between Burmese government forces and the Kachin side broke out again.
With an area of about 2,700 square kilometers, Kokang is called the "Kokang Autonomous Region in Northern Shan State". Kokang is bordered to the north by Longling County and Mangshi City in Yunnan Province, China, to the east by Zhenkang County, Gengma Dai Wa Autonomous County and Cangyuan Wa Autonomous County in Yunnan Province, to the south by the Dinghe River in the south, to the west by the Salwen River and The Town of Menggu Town and Guiguo Town in Mujie City, and to the southwest by the town of Tuolong. As of 2018, Kokang has a registered population of about 300,000 and a permanent population of about 800,000. About 90% of the population is Chinese (called Kokang and Kokang in Myanmar), and in fact the so-called Kokang in Myanmar is China's Han nationality.
In the twelfth year of the Southern Ming Dynasty (1658), some officials and people followed the Southern Ming Yongli Emperor Zhu Youluo all the way from Yunnan to Burma. In December 1661, Wu Sangui led 100,000 Qing troops into Burma, forcing the Burmese side to hand over the Yongli Emperor Zhu Youluo, and a year later the Yongli Emperor was forced to die by Wu Sangui in Kunming. The officials and people who followed the Yongli Emperor continued to persist in the anti-Qing struggle based in the Kokang region on the China-Burma border. At this time, Kokang was actually located on the Chinese side of the China-Myanmar border: from the 13th to the 14th century, Kokang was the domain of the Military and Civilian Governorate of Kang Road and the Military and Civilian Governorate of Mengding Road in Dali Golden Tooth and other places in The Yunnan Province of the Yuan Dynasty of China.
From the 14th to the 17th century, Kokang was the domain of Zhenkang and Mengding provinces in the Ming Dynasty of China. Yang Gaoxue, a Ming general who had followed the Yongli Emperor on his way, gradually became the ruler of the Kokang region during the anti-Qing struggle. However, the fortunes of the times no longer favored the Ming Dynasty, and eventually the Kokang people had to end their struggle with the qing dynasty like the anti-Qing forces in the interior. In the eighth year of Yongzheng (1730), Yang Youcai, a descendant of Yang Gaoxue, officially accepted the Qing Dynasty's canonization of the "Fengfeng Zheng Dafu" and ruled Kokang in this name. From then on, Kokang entered the reign of Yang's Toastmaster. In the twelfth year of Guangxu (1886), the British annexed the Burmese Gongpung Dynasty, and since then they have continuously invaded the territories of various toasts on the Sino-Burmese border.
In the twenty-third year of Guangxu (1897), after forcing Yang's toast to surrender, the British signed the "Annex to the Sino-British Renewal of the Treaty of Yunnan and Burma" with the Qing government: the Han people living in Kokang were thus renamed kokang, the Chinese language was renamed Guoyu, and the Chinese language was renamed Guowen. However, in fact, Guoyu is Chinese, and Guowen is Chinese. From 1989 to 2009, Kokang once enjoyed a high degree of autonomy: the Kokang language (Chinese), the circulation of renminbi, the use of China Mobile numbers for communication, and the transmission of electricity from the Southern Power Grid to the Laojie substation through the Yunnan power grid. In 1989, Peng Jiasheng, deputy commander of the Northeast Military Region of the Communist Party of Burma, broke away from the Communist Party of Burma and formed the Kokang Allied Army.
In 2009, burmese government forces stationed in kokang and a section of the Kokang Allied Army was reorganized into the 1006 Border Guard Battalion, and another part of the Kokang Allied Army entered areas controlled by other ethnic armed forces. At the end of 2014, Peng Jiasheng suddenly announced that he would reorganize the allied forces and fight fiercely with the Burmese National Defense Forces in Kachin and other places, while he also declared that he would not give up force to "restore the courage". On 9 February 2015, the Kokang Allied Forces of Myanmar went to war with local government garrisons and attempted to invade Lao Cai, the capital of the Kokang Autonomous Region. From 21 to 22 February 2015, there were five fierce battles between the Burma Defence Force and the Kokang Allied Forces. At 2:00 a.m. on March 6, 2017, members of the Kokang Allied Forces launched another attack on the local military camp and police station.
Wa State, or the Second Special Administrative Region of Myanmar, and the Second Special Administrative Region of Shan State and the Wa Autonomous Region of Myanmar by the Myanmar government, consists of two areas: the northern region is located in the northeast of Myanmar, with an area of 17,000 square kilometers, and the southern region borders Thailand, with an area of 13,000 square kilometers. The total population of Wa State is about 558,000 people, the main ethnic group is the Wa, and the Wa in China are of the same origin, they have their own ethnic Wa language. Since the Wa do not have their own written script, the Wa state uses Common Chinese characters and learns Chinese. In fact, the Wa state was actually Chinese territory for a long time in history: during the Tang Dynasty it belonged to the divided regime of Nanzhao in Yunnan, and during the Song Dynasty it belonged to the successor of the Nanzhao state, dali state.
In 1253, the Mongol Kublai Khan conquered Dali, and the Wa state under Dali was also included in the territory of the Mongol Khanate during this period. Kublai Khan modeled on the Central Plains Han system and established the Yuan Dynasty, which was made under the jurisdiction of Zhenkang Road, later divided into Mengding Road and Mulian Road, and in the Ming Dynasty, it belonged to the Mengding Province, Menglian Division, and Menggen Province of the Dai Tusi Shifeng. When the British colonized Burma, the Wa state was still administered by the Tusi under the Chinese government and was not included in British Burma. It was not until 1941 that the Anglo-Burmese authorities took advantage of the Japanese army's total blockade of the outlet to the sea in eastern China to threaten to close the Burma Highway and cut off overseas aid to China, forcing the Nationalist government to place Wa State under the jurisdiction of British Burma on June 18, 1941, in the form of a government exchange.
After independence in 1947, Myanmar stipulated in its constitution that the area where the present-day Shan State Alliance and Wa State are located will form part of the Union of Myanmar, which will henceforth be named "Shan State". In 1948, the remnants of the 8th and 26th Armies of the Chinese Nationalist Army were defeated and retreated to northern Burma, and Wa State was controlled by the remnants of the Chinese Nationalist Army. After the withdrawal of the remnants of the Kuomintang, the local tribal armed forces in the local area rose to prominence, and after a long period of melee, the current Wa State was controlled by the Wa State United Army: Bao Youxiang was appointed as the commander-in-chief, and he was also the chairman of the Wa state government, the general secretary of the Wa State United Party, and the federal finance minister. The United Wa State Army is the most powerful of myanmar's various local ethnic armed forces.
The active duty unit of the United Wa Army of about 40,000 men is divided into three regular divisions, in addition to about 60,000 militia forces. The United Wa State Army is equipped with man-portable air defence systems, various mortars and rocket launchers, and even light tanks and several helicopters. Such an armed force is insignificant in the face of a truly military power, but it is unparalleled among the various local armed forces that are lined with mountains in Myanmar. For many years, the United Wa State Army has been moving among various forces such as the Burmese Government Army, the Rakhine Army, the Deang National Liberation Army, and the Kachin Independence Army. On the one hand, we firmly grasp the barrel of the gun, and on the other hand, we have forged extensive good relations with other forces, so as to create a rare peaceful environment for our own development.
The Karen were an early southward tribe of the Ancient Qiang and currently have a population of over 4 million in The Karen State and the Irrawaddy Delta region. The Karen are now the third largest ethnic group (the second largest ethnic minority) in Myanmar. Since ancient times, the Karen have been in constant conflict with the central government of Burma, and during the British colonial period, the Karen assisted the British army in suppressing the Burmese. British-backed Karen forces attacked the pro-Japanese Burmese Independence Army during World War II. After the end of World War II, the Karen armed forces were divided into the "Karen State Alliance", "Karen Central Organization", "Buddhist Karen" and "Karen Youth", and it was not until February 5, 1947 that the four armed groups came together to form the Karen National Union.
The Karen National Liberation Army (KAN) is the oldest and most tenacious force in the Golden Triangle region. In 1984, Burmese government forces launched a massive military operation against the Karen Coalition and its armed Karen Liberation Army, resulting in an influx of more than 10,000 Karens into Thailand to escape the scourge of war. In 1995, Burmese government forces captured the karen union headquarters. As early as 1963, the head man Ran Wei surrendered to the Burmese government with a part of the Karen armed forces, and in 1994 the Buddhist Karen split off and held peace talks with the Burmese government. At present, the Karen National Union has only 5 armies, with a total strength of less than 10,000 troops.
Shan State, located in the interior of eastern Myanmar, once had more than 100 armed forces, and later through continuous integration formed three more powerful armed forces: the Shan National Army (SSA) with a total strength of more than 3,200 people covers an area of 510 square kilometers (excluding guerrilla areas) and controls a population of 45,000 people; the Shan State United Revolutionary Army (SURA), with a total strength of about 5,000 people, mainly operates in the area south of Keidong, east of Bang Nong, as well as Mon Nai, Lankau, Bang Ban, Sai Mang Roll, Wandao, Places such as Daoxin and Muang Pei; the Shan State Coalition (SUA) once had more than 20,000 armed forces and was armed with SAM 7 anti-aircraft missiles, mortars and other weapons.
The Kayer Liberation Army (KA) is an anti-government force ideal for national independence and autonomy, founded in July 1949. Its main force now has nearly 10,000 people and has accepted national reconciliation, but it still carries out armed division and self-management in the areas under its control. In 1963, the Deang (known as the Browns in Burma) living in the northern plateau of Shan State established the first armed force, the Brown Armed Forces, to safeguard the right of national self-determination, and in 1976 it was renamed the Brown State Liberation Army. It is now more deang National Liberation Army, with a current strength of about 1300 people, divided into seven regiments, due to geographical relations with the Kachin Independence Army, the Northern Shan State Army and the Kokang Allied Army to form an alliance.
It is not difficult to see the degree of confusion in the situation on the ground from the number of armed forces in northern Myanmar. From time to time, clashes break out between the various armed forces. As a result, the lives of innocent border people have been troubled, and sometimes the fighting has even spread to our border areas. Years of war and conflict have made it difficult for the local economy to develop. Myanmar's total GDP of US$71.215 billion ranks 78th in the world among more than two countries and regions; it ranks 149th in the world with a per capita GDP of US$1326. Obviously, Myanmar's economic data is relatively low in the world, so it is listed by the United Nations as one of the least developed countries in the world. At the forefront of the armed conflict between the Burmese government forces and ethnic minorities, northern Myanmar is the poorest place in Myanmar.
Some northern Burmese armed forces sold tin, jadeite, jade, hardwood and even drugs in large quantities to raise funds. Today, northern Myanmar has risen from opium alone to a diversified drug empire integrating the production and marketing of opium, heroin, ecstasy, methamphetamine, marijuana, morphine, ecstasy and other products. Armed forces in northern Myanmar have dispatched armed units at the regimental level and even military district level to escort drugs along the border line to ensure smooth customs clearance. Today, about 20% of the global opium underground market comes from the Golden Triangle region, which borders Thailand and Laos in northern Myanmar. The impoverished state of northern Myanmar has led some local people to take risks to achieve the goal of getting rich through illegal and criminal activities.
The level of chaos in northern Myanmar is largely due to the inaction of the Burmese government. Fighting between government forces and ethnic minority forces has become the norm since Independence. The government, which is busy dealing with various local armed forces, cannot take care of dealing with illegal and criminal activities, not to mention that northern Myanmar, which is under the control of various local armed forces, is a foreign land that the Myanmar government cannot control, so the security situation in this area has long been quite bad. Several casinos can be hidden in a small village in northern Myanmar. It attracts a large number of gamblers from Southeast Asia and China every day. But as long as you enter the casino in this place, whether you win money or not, you are lucky to get out alive.
Those forced to remain stranded in northern Myanmar are only possible to be released: one is to be rescued by the police; the other is to be squeezed out of "surplus value" and released. Every year, even every day, brave people enter the dangerous areas of northern Myanmar, but very few people can really come out alive. In addition to casinos, there are various fraud gangs and drug cartels in the northern region of Myanmar. 根据《2011-2021年电信诈骗犯罪总体趋势大数据分析（上）》调查数据显示：在6818个案例样本中境外涉电信诈骗案件量由多到少排名前四位的国家依次为印尼189件、柬埔寨121件、缅甸85件、印度69件。
Drugs and child labor are not uncommon in northern Myanmar. Both are the main money-making tools in addition to fraud and are also the source of economic resources for armed forces in northern Myanmar. Although Myanmar law explicitly prohibits the use of child labor, myanmar is in fact one of the countries with the largest number of child laborers in the world: about 1.5 million children have become the breadwinner of their families. 2020年缅甸全国一共破获了13960起毒品案件、抓获19994名毒贩。 The drugs seized included 3.88 tons of opium, 1.85 tons of heroin, 89.273 kilograms of large tobacco paste, 49.06 kilograms of morphine, 586.95 kilograms of opium powder, 32.841 million pieces of ephedrine, 2.14 tons of ephedrine powder, 17.36 tons of methamphetamine, and 737.597 kilograms of marijuana.
In recent years, the Myanmar government and the local autonomous governments of northern Myanmar such as Wa State have gradually increased their supervision of criminal activities such as fraud and drug trafficking. In 2005, after the smoke was basically extinct in the local area, Wa State became a pure land in the Golden Triangle. The toxic economy was swept away and replaced by the promotion of various high-value-added cash crops. Today, the economy of Wa State is still relatively backward to the outside world, but it can be said to be the only one in Myanmar's generally economically backward states. After the realization of comprehensive anti-drug control, Wa State has vigorously promoted the alternative cultivation of rice, rubber, tea, fruits and other crops on the one hand, and on the other hand, vigorously developed the mining and export of jade and tin ore.
Today, crops such as tea, rubber, and longan occupy a large area of land in Wa. After the Wa State invented low-cost mining technology in 2016, Myanmar's tin ore export volume reached the third place in the world that year. Almost all of the tin mines in the Wa region are exported to China in the form of border trade. In recent years, Wa's per capita GDP has risen rapidly, and trade with China has become increasingly frequent. In recent years, Wa State has made remarkable achievements in economic development and crime fighting, but few other states in northern Myanmar have achieved similar results as Wa State. Even Wa State is only relatively safe among the northern States of Myanmar, but if you want to take the security of Wa State and our country, it is too far behind.
Today, the security situation in northern Myanmar is generally worse: on the one hand, the local poverty has led to some people taking risks, and on the other hand, the local government has not done enough to combat crime. Although northern Myanmar is legally part of Myanmar territory, it is effectively under the control of local ethnic armed forces. For a long time, the local national armed forces have been busy dealing with the fighting with government forces, so they have not been able to crack down on criminal activities in their own jurisdictions. For example, in recent years, some scammers engaged in telecommunications fraud have many dens in northern Myanmar: first trick people, and then let these people cheat on the Internet. CCTV has also reported that Chinese citizens have been lured to northern Myanmar and extorted.
The Ministry of Public Security of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of our country has also issued a circular reminding our citizens to be vigilant about recruiting workers in northern Myanmar: Recently, the domestic public security organs have received many criminal cases in which Chinese citizens have been deceived into going to the northern region of Myanmar and then kidnapped, illegally detained, extorted, and forced into prostitution. At present, there is a high incidence of crimes involving our personnel in northern Myanmar. The Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Criminal Investigation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security remind the vast majority of Chinese citizens to be vigilant. Migrant workers must go through formal and legal labor intermediaries, and do not trust the recruitment information in northern Myanmar. In case of emergency, please report to the local and domestic public security organs in time, and contact the Chinese embassy or consulate in the local area for help.