A corner of Myanmar that is forever Chinese

By Nicholas Nugent
06 February 2023
A corner of Myanmar that is forever Chinese

We are so used to national states having clearly defined borders with associated immigration officials that it was a surprise to discover a corner of Myanmar that appears, for all intents and purposes, to be part of China. Nicholas Nugent reports from the border town of Mong La.

Mong La is a crossing point between China and Myanmar in northern Shan State adjacent to China’s Yunnan province. I had reached there by road, a two hour drive north east from Kengtung in the heart of what used to be known as the Golden Triangle, famed for its growing of opium and production of heroin.

Mong La resembles any modestly sized town in Yunnan in its architectural style and ‘Chinese-ness ’whereas it actually lies on the Myanmar side of the international frontier, not withstanding the Buddha figure that lords over the town. From a high point I could see the international border post to the north.

A visit to Mong La’s market seems to confirm that you are actually in China. Foods including poultry on sale is aimed at the Chinese palette and – the biggest shock of all – the trading currency is the yuan rather than the kyat. Even electricity and communications networks in Mong La come from China.

Check the local time and you will find that, like all of China, you are now on Beijing time, an hour and a half ahead of Myanmar’s clocks. The hotel I checked into was most definitely Chinese, indeed the citizens of Mong La speak Chinese rather than the Burmese language or Bama, though many would regard themselves as Wa, a Myanmar minority, rather than Han Chinese. If you speak only Burmese and carry only kyats you will not get far in Mong La.

Mong La gained its autonomy under an agreement with Myanmar’s central government in 1989 following one of several ceasefires agreed between local militias and the Tatmadaw. Unlike Wa, Kokang and Kachin ethnic armies involved the ‘special district ’created for Mong La was not ethnically based despite being in a predominantly Wa region. Its basis is more political since its special status came into being around the time of the dissolution of the Communist Party of Burma (CPB).

A leading figure in the negotiations was a former CPB functionary known in China as Lin Mingxian and in Myanmar as Sai Leun or Sai Lin. He once operated as a Chinese Red Guard from the Yunnan capital Kunming. The militia that took control of Mong La – or Special Region 4 to give its formal title – was the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA).

Many of Myanmar’s border crossings with China are associated with the country’s booming production of methamphetamines while that at Muse in western Shan State is renowned for its trade in jade and other gemstone. Mong La’s niche business is gambling. Chinese citizens prohibited from gambling in China (other than in Macau or in the official national lottery) cross the border to play at casinos operating in the dark areas around the city to where they were pushed back from the border after objections from the Chinese authorities. Mong La is a gamblers ’paradise. If not on the scale of Las Vegas in the US, it is busy all year round with Chinese visitors and highly profitable for casino owners.

Other cross-border activity in the town is said to include the trade in rare animal species such as the pangolin as Chinese culinary delicacies or ingredients in Chinese medicine. Such activities take place in the open because neither the Chinese nor Myanmar authorities hold sway in the special region, which continues to be ‘ruled ’by the NDAA.

According to British historian Martin Smith, Mong La is “a symptom of state failure and long-running, almost forgotten-about, conflicts” resulting in an absence of central authority. He says this unusual status continues “because it is not troubling anybody”. It suits the governments of both countries because it is providing services that are in demand, notably a gambling facility, but is also a centre of cross-border trade in a range of ‘goods ’- including ‘marriageable women ’of whom there is said to be a shortage in Yunnan.

The seizure of power in Myanmar by the Tatmadaw in February 2021 has not threatened the status quo in Mong La. The army continues to battle ethnic armed organisations in border regions as well now as pro-democracy campaigners in all parts of the country and has no desire to stir up another ‘hornets ’nest ’by clamping down on Mong La’s gambling industry.

However, attitudes may be changing in China where President Xi Jinping has expressed concern that the yuan equivalent of US $144bn is being drained from the Chinese economy through ‘offshore ’gambling centres like Mong La. Last September Chinese media reported the conviction and jailing in Shanghai of eight Chinese citizens accused of running casinos including one in Mong La.

One Chinese businessman linked to a Mong La casino, Zhao Wei, has opened another ‘offshore ’gambling facility in the region, the classically styled and named ‘Kings Roman Casino ’on the Thailand-Laos border which, like casinos in Cambodia, the Philippines and Singapore, mainly serves Chinese visitors. The Economist magazine estimates that as many as 340 casinos in South East Asia target visitors from China, calling China’s ban on gambling “a cash gift to the rest of Asia”. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Organisation claims casinos like Kings Roman and those at Mong La are used to launder money, the proceeds of the trafficking of drugs.

Myanmar already has a dubious reputation is the main Asian producer of chemically-based methamphetamines, which are shipped illicitly to Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Bangladesh and as far as Australia, Europe and the United States, as heroin was once. Now this ‘Golden Triangle ’region is feeding a different addiction, that of gambling, which has until now been of less concern to governments than the traffic in drugs.