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Asia | Asia’s multi-headed conflict


MYANMAR’S CIVIL WAR HAS MOVED TO ITS HEARTLANDS


TWO YEARS AFTER AN ARMY COUP, A COUNTRY THAT WAS ONCE A DEMOCRATIC HOPE IS
FALLING APART


Jan 31st 2023 | Mae Sot
Share

For a glimpse of the labyrinthine conflict in Myanmar, head to the gemstone
markets along the country’s border with Thailand and try on a ring encrusted
with the finest imperial jade. If you meet the merchant’s asking price of
300,000 baht ($9,200), your purchase will bolster at least three different sides
in Myanmar’s complicated and spreading civil war. You will help the brutal
Burmese army, which controls the jade mines in the Himalayan foothills of Kachin
state, worth tens of billions of dollars a year. And you will help an ethnic
militia or two, representing minority groups that for years have fought for
autonomy or independence in their homelands around Myanmar’s periphery. They
collect a tax on goods that are trafficked across their turf.

You will also be contributing, via the shopkeeper, to a more recent military
enterprise: the People’s Defence Force (pdf), a network of militias that has
sprung up among the country’s Bamar majority to oppose its junta. Thein Han is a
Bamar refugee from Sagaing province in Myanmar’s heartland. Two years ago, after
General Min Aung Hlaing seized power in a violent coup and threw Aung San Suu
Kyi and her recently re-elected government in jail, Mr Thein Han took to the
streets in protest. He fled across the border after soldiers sought to arrest
him one night; instead they nabbed his sister, who remains locked up. Mr Thein
Han (not his real name) wants his future back. So each month he sends his
savings to a chapter of the Pdf.

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ASIA FEBRUARY 4TH 2023

 * America’s hoped-for Asian semiconductor pact looks tricky
 * South Korea still refuses to send arms to Ukraine
 * Shah Rukh Khan faces down India’s Hindu right
 * China’s put-upon maritime neighbours are pushing back
 * Myanmar’s civil war has moved to its heartlands

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