Ethnic clashes in Burma put Chinese projects at risk

AFPC China Reform Monitor ^ | 7/12/2011 | Joshua Eisenman, ed.

[bruinbirdman]

This week deadly armed clashes near Burma’s border with China ended a nearly two-decade-old ceasefire between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and Burma’s government. About 10,000 people have fled to refugee camps along the Chinese border and 215 Chinese workers from the Datang United Hydropower Developing Co. returned home after the KIA captured a Chinese-built and operated hydropower plant last week. A KIA spokesperson told the Thailand-based Irrawaddy that the uprising began when the government reneged on an agreement to share electricity generated from the region’s Chinese-built hydropower plants with local people. “This electricity is now going to China, not the people as we’ve agreed,” he said. Beijing has called for restraint and its ambassador to Burma met with the foreign minister and border affairs minister on July 17 to discuss the ongoing hostilities.

[Editor’s Note: Conflict between the KIA, the country’s second largest ethnic army, and Burma’s government forces could disrupt energy supplies to Yunnan. In May, the KIA sent a letter to Beijing formally objecting to the Chinese-built Myitsone hydroelectric dam project and warning that local resentment against the project could spark a civil war. Kachin State is also adjacent to the route of China’s twin oil and gas pipelines being built through central Burma from the Bay of Bengal to Yunnan Province.]

[WellyP]

Word to all people and all countries: China never GIVES anything, they only take or steal what they want.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks bruinbirdman.