Myanmar is currently going through one the bloodiest civil wars since the military junta swept to power with a coup in 2021. The bordering regions of this southeast nation, especially in Shan and Kachin, have a long history of ethnic insurgencies by various armed militias. This had forced the region into poverty, increase in illicit activities and human rights violations. However, these developments did not spring in isolation. The external forces have played an important role in bringing Myanmar to this situation. What we are witnessing in Myanmar is an outcome of interference by the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
The two main reflections of China’s dark grip on Myanmar are human trafficking and drug smuggling, both interconnected for its own survival and exploitation. Myanmar is grappling with ethnic insurgencies, a coordinated offensive unleashed by the anti-military alliance. The Three Brotherhood alliance in the country’s northern Shan state, and the National Democratic Alliance Army which are key constituents of the anti-military alliance are known to be funded by the drug trade.
Myanmar’s northern region bordering China has a long history of ethnic violence with armed militias’ involvement in drug trade. Myanmar’s Shan state is part of the Golden triangle region (Myanmar, Laos and Thailand) bordering south of China and is known for being world’s second largest heroin production region and world’s largest producer of synthetic drugs over the past decade. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the 2021 coup in Myanmar forced a surge in drug smuggling.
China, in fact, plays a significant role in sustaining this trade. In 2021, 72 tons of propionyl chloride (used to create methamphetamine) was seized in Laos which was found to be shipped from China’s Jiangsu province that was intended to reach Myanmar. A report by NGO International Crisis Group (ICG) revealed that armed militias are exploiting China-Myanmar relations to intensify their drug trade. Chemicals used for illicit drug production are crossing China and flowing into Myanmar’s border regions.
Moreover, China’s BRI ambitions in Myanmar is another key reason which requires Beijing to maintain cordial relations with the rebel groups to avoid risking its projects being destabilised by them. Taking advantage, these rebel groups make use of the infrastructure established under China’s BRI that helped these groups to facilitate (and accelerate) their drug trade.
Along with drug trade, China is also a major player behind Myanmar’s human trafficking, especially girls and women. A study by John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Kachin Women’s Association Thailand estimated that from 2013-17, about 21,000 women and girls from Myanmar were forced into marriage in just one province in China. During the same period, out of 160,000 female Myanmar migrants who returned from China, 5,000 were victims of forced marriages; 3,900 were victims of human trafficking and 2,800 were forced to bear children for their Chinese husbands.
Another study by John Hopkins undertaken in 2017-18 reported that about 400 migrant women from Myanmar, aged between 15 and 55, were married to Chinese men and experienced childbirth during their five-year stay in China.
In 2017, the Myanmar government reported 226 cases of trafficking, while the Department of Social Welfare annually assists between 100 to 200 women returning from China, indicating that the actual number of trafficked women is higher than the official estimate. Some of these forced marriages were only intended to sustain till the victim gave birth to a child.
Forced marriages in Myanmar are prevalent among girls and women who belong to rural areas with low education, as seen in Myanmar’s Shan and Kachin state. The persistent ethnic insurgencies in these areas, too, have forced thousands of women to fall prey into trafficking, without their knowledge. The main reason for the increase in trafficking cases is attributed to China’s ‘one-child’ policy that paved the way for gender-based abortions in the country due to preference for male children.
As a result, China witnessed a peak in gender imbalance in the year 2004 when 120 boys were born for every 100 girls as per Chinese population figures. This led to an eventual crisis of women in China for men to marry and continue their family tree. As a result, these men started importing (or buying) wives from neighbouring countries (such as Myanmar), even by force through what came to be commonly known as ‘bride trafficking’. These trafficked women were reported to be subjected to abuse, torture and rape.
Women, once kidnapped, were forced to take drugs that were believed by captors to increase women’s endurance and trigger sexuality so that they can be impregnated by Chinese men who resorted to trafficking to get wives for themselves because of their poor economic background. Some of these Chinese men also continued the marriage until their wives gave birth to a child. In case any of these trafficked women in China managed to escape and ran to Chinese police, they were sometimes imprisoned for illegal immigration, rather being treated as victims of trafficking.
China’s role in repatriation of these victims back to Myanmar was also very chaotic, adding to the victims’ misery. The Human Rights Watch rightly describes the situation as “a porous border and lack of response by law enforcement agencies on both sides (China and Myanmar) created an environment in which traffickers flourish.” The Trafficking in Persons (TIP), too, reported China and Myanmar to consistently being “state sponsors of human trafficking.”
It is important to recognise the patterns of illicit activities that have intensified since the 2021 Myanmar military coup. However, the coup alone is not responsible for the country to be grappled by such events. For long, China has manipulated its cordial relations with Myanmar to its own advantage, sowing seeds of exploitation in Myanmar and pushing the country towards endless internal disturbances and turmoil.
The writer is an author and columnist and has written several books. He tweets @ArunAnandLive. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.
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