Chinese Barbarity

Kachin women from Myanmar raped until they get pregnant in China

By Emma Graham-Harrison

Refugees in Myitkyina, Kachin state, northern Myanmar. 

Burmese and Chinese authorities are turning a blind eye to a growing trade in women from Myanmar’s Kachin minority, who are taken across the border, sold as wives to Chinese men and raped until they become pregnant.
Some of the women are allowed to return home after they have given birth, but are forced to leave their children, according to an investigation by Human Rights Watch, titled Give Us a Baby and We’ll Let You Go.
One survivor said: “I gave birth, and after one year the Chinese men gave me a choice of what to do. I got permission to go back home, but not with the baby.”
China is grappling with a severe gender imbalance; the percentage of the population who are women has fallen every year since 1987. 

Researchers estimate that factors including sex-selective abortion, infanticide and neglect of female babies mean that there are 30 to 40 million “missing women” in China, who should be alive today but aren’t.
That means millions of men are now unable to find a wife, and there has been a rise in trafficking across the borders of neighbouring, poorer nations.
Many of the Kachin women are trafficked out of Myanmar by their relatives, friends or people they trust; in one case a woman was betrayed by someone from her bible study class. 

They are often promised jobs across the border in China, and discover only after they cross over that they have been sold into sexual slavery.
“My broker was my auntie, she persuaded me,” a woman who was trafficked aged 17 or 18 told Human Rights Watch. 

Over three years, HRW spoke to nearly 40 victims who had escaped, or been allowed to leave but without their children, many still struggling to deal with the emotional impact.
All came from, and had returned to, Myanmar’s northern Kachin state or neighbouring Shan state, where the ethnic Kachin have been fighting the government for decades. 

A 17-year ceasefire ended in 2011, and the renewed conflict has displaced more than 100,000 people and left many struggling to survive.
With men taking part in the fighting, women often become the only breadwinners for the families, and with jobs badly paid and hard to find, many feel that they have no choice but to pursue work in China where wages are higher even for illegal migrants.
“Myanmar and Chinese authorities are looking away while unscrupulous traffickers are selling Kachin women and girls into captivity and unspeakable abuse,” said Heather Barr, women’s rights co-director at Human Rights Watch.
“The dearth [of work or legal] protections have made these women easy prey for traffickers, who have little reason to fear law enforcement on either side of the border.”
Myanmar’s government reported 226 cases of trafficking in 2017, but experts told Human Rights Watch they believe that the real number is much higher.
There are few incentives for trafficked women or their relatives to seek official help.

Families seeking police aid to track missing daughters, sisters and wives were turned away in Myanmar, or were asked for money, HRW found.
Many of the areas where the women are trafficked from are controlled not by authorities in the capital, Yangon, but by the opposition Kachin Independence Organisation, so the government has no record of what is happening there.
In China, when some survivors tried to seek help from security forces, they were jailed for immigration violations not supported as crime victims.
Those who were repatriated were often simply dumped at the border, stranded far from their community, the report found. 

And if they do make it back, they face social stigma, and little chance of getting justice, even if they tried to seek it.
“When Myanmar authorities did make arrests, they usually targeted only the initial brokers in Myanmar and not the rest of the networks in China,” the report found. 

“Police in China never arrested people that knowingly bought trafficked ‘brides’ and abused them.”

China's $10 Billion Strategic Project in Myanmar Sparks Local Ire

By REUTERS

KYAUK PYU, Myanmar — Days before the first supertanker carrying 140,000 tonnes of Chinese-bound crude oil arrived in Myanmar's Kyauk Pyu port, local officials confiscated Nyein Aye's fishing nets.
The 36-year-old fisherman was among hundreds banned from fishing a stretch of water near the entry point for a pipeline that pumps oil 770 km (480 miles) across Myanmar to southwest China and forms a crucial part of Beijing's "Belt and Road" project to deepen its economic links with Asia and beyond.
"How can we make a living if we're not allowed to catch fish?" said Nyein Aye, who bought a bigger boat just four months ago but now says his income has dropped by two-thirds due to a decreased catch resulting from restrictions on when and where he can fish. 

Last month he joined more than 100 people in a protest demanding compensation from pipeline operator Petrochina.
The pipeline is part of the nearly $10 billion Kyauk Pyu Special Economic Zone, a scheme at the heart of fast-warming Myanmar-China relations and whose success is crucial for the Southeast Asian nation's leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Embattled Suu Kyi needs a big economic win to stem criticism that her first year in office has seen little progress on reform. 

China's support is also key to stabilising their shared border, where a spike in fighting with ethnic armed groups threatens the peace process Suu Kyi says is her top priority.

China's state-run CITIC Group, the main developer of the Kyauk Pyu Special Economic Zone, says it will create 100,000 jobs in the northwestern state of Rakhine, one of Myanmar's poorest regions.
But many local people say the project is being rushed through without consultation or regard for their way of life.
Suspicion of China runs deep in Myanmar, and public hostility due to environmental and other concerns has delayed or derailed Chinese mega-projects in the country in the past.
China says the Kyauk Pyu development is based on "win-win" co-operation between the two countries.

"AVOIDING PANIC"
Since Beijing signalled it may abandon the huge Myitsone Dam hydroelectric project in Myanmar earlier this year, it has pushed for concessions on other strategic undertakings -- including the Bay of Bengal port at Kyauk Pyu, which gives it an alternative route for energy imports from the Middle East.
Internal planning documents reviewed by Reuters and more than two dozen interviews with officials show work on contracts and land acquisition has already begun before the completion of studies on the impact on local people and the environment, which legal experts said could breach development laws.
The Kyauk Pyu Special Economic Zone will cover more than 4,200 acres (17 sq km). 

It includes the $7.3 billion deep sea port and a $2.3 billion industrial park, with plans to attract industries such as textiles and oil refining.
A Reuters' tally based on internal planning documents and census data suggests 20,000 villagers, most of whom now depend on agriculture and fishing, are at risk of being relocated to make way for the project.
"There will be a huge project in the zone and many buildings will be built, so people who live in the area will be relocated," said Than Htut Oo, administrator of Kyauk Pyu, who also sits on the management committee of the economic zone.
He said the government has not publicly announced the plan, because it didn't want to "create panic" while it was still negotiating with the Chinese developer.

AMBITIOUS DEADLINE
In April, Myanmar's President Htin Kyaw signed two agreements on the pipeline and the Kyauk Pyu port with Xi Jinping, as Beijing pushed to revive a project that had stalled since its inception in 2009.
The agreements call for environmental and social assessments to be carried out as soon as possible.
While the studies are expected to take up to 15 months and have not yet started, CITIC has asked Myanmar to finalise contract terms by the end of this year so that the construction can start in 2018, said Soe Win, who leads the Myanmar management committee of the zone.
Such a schedule has alarmed experts who fear the project is being rushed.
"The environmental and social preparations for a project of these dimensions take years to complete and not months," said Vicky Bowman, head of the Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business and a former British ambassador to the country.
CITIC said in an email to Reuters it would engage "a world-renowned consulting firm" to carry out assessments.
Although large-scale land demarcation for the project has not yet started, 26 families have been displaced from farmland due to acquisitions that took place in 2014 for the construction of two dams, according to land documents and the land owners.
Experts say this violates Myanmar's environmental laws.
"Carrying out land acquisition before completing environmental impact assessments and resettlement plans is incompatible with national law," said Sean Bain, Myanmar-based legal consultant for human rights watchdog International Commission of Jurists.

JOB OPPORTUNITIES?
CITIC says it will build a vocational school to provide training for skills needed by companies in the economic zone. 

It has given $1.5 million to local villages to develop businesses.
Reuters spoke to several villagers who had borrowed small sums from the village funds set up with this money.
"The CITIC money was very useful for us because most people in the village need money," said fisherman Thar Sai Aung, who borrowed $66 to buy new nets.
Chinese investors say they also plan to spend $1 million during the first five years of the development, and $500,000 per year thereafter to improve local living standards.
But villagers in Kyauk Pyu say they fear the project would not contribute to the development of the area because the operating companies employ mostly Chinese workers.
From more than 3,000 people living on the Maday island, the entry point for the oil pipeline, only 47 have landed a job with the Petrochina, while the number of Chinese workers stood at more than double that number, data from labour authorities showed.
Petrochina did not respond to requests for comment. 

In a recent report it said Myanmar citizens made up 72 percent of its workforce in the country overall and it would continue to hire locally.
"I don't think there's hope for me to get a job at the zone," said fisherman Nyein Aye. 

He had been turned down 12 times for job applications with the pipeline operator.
"Chinese companies said they would develop our village and improve our livelihoods, but it turned out we are suffering every day."

Chinese Peril

Villagers in Myanmar Describe the Destructive Power of China’s Building Frenzy
By CAROL GIACOMO

Oil tanks under construction in 2012 at a site operated by the China National Petroleum Corporation near Kyaukphyu. 

Kyaukphyu, Myanmar — Xi Jinping is hosting a conference in Beijing this weekend to showcase one of his biggest gambles: a planned investment in pipelines, ports, trains, roads and other projects to link China to much of the rest of the world, including Europe and Africa.
Called One Belt, One Road, the multibillion-dollar initiative seeks to generate business for China’s state-owned enterprises while promising development and jobs to other countries along the route that are desperate for both.
Other foreign investors and nations, however, would be wise to consider what happened in the area around Kyaukphyu — a poor town of dilapidated wooden houses and deeply rutted roads in desperately poor Rakhine State, on Myanmar’s western coast — before participating in the huge venture. 

It is a tale of promises not kept, corruption and the trampling of farmers’ rights in the stampede for natural resources and profits.
I heard this story firsthand from five farmers who traveled hours by boat, foot and motorbike from their even smaller and poorer village, Kapaing Chaung, to talk with me about their experiences when the China National Petroleum Corporation and the government of Myanmar, formerly Burma, jointly built an oil and gas pipeline from China across Myanmar to Kyaukphyu, on the Bay of Bengal.
The villagers are members of a local “watch committee” backed by two rights activist groups, the Natural Resource Governance Institute and Paung Ku, to monitor the operation. 

The committee is a weak but admirable attempt at community action in a country where people are reluctant to complain and nobody cared much about the farmers whose land was vital to the project but who were powerless to defend their interests.

The Chinese destroyed a dam in the village and the mangrove trees that supported it, flooding farmlands with salty water and interfering with a river that provided irrigation. 

Tuntin, a 50-year-old farmer, told me that farmers who once produced 1,000 bags of rice now produce half that amount. 

He and his neighbors now find it even harder to feed their families and can no longer afford the tuition for special classes that supplement their children’s insufficient public education.

Farmers from Kapaing Chaung formed a “watch committee” to monitor the effects of the oil and gas pipeline on their village. From left: Tuntin, Noyi Lin, Hlamaung Thein, Daw Thaung Mya and Win Kyi Maung. 

They have also been forced to scramble for part-time work like carrying rice bags for other farmers and working on fixing roads, said Thaug Mya, a 45-year-old woman with a 10-year-old son, whose farm is completely ruined by salt water and cannot be planted at all.
Committee requests for the dam to be repaired have been kicked back and forth between the minister of Rakhine State and local authorities. 

The farmers have been similarly stonewalled in trying to get the Chinese and the Myanmar government to pay more than the meager compensation provided when portions of their land were seized. 

“I am wondering if they are thinking we are helpless people so they can do whatever they decide to do,” said Noyi Lin, the 34-year-old spokesman for the villagers, adding, “I don’t think they have enough humanitarian spirit toward us.”
The experiences of these villagers are not unique, according to a report by the watch committee and their allies. 

All along the pipeline route, project authorities working with Myanmar’s previous military government confiscated farmers’ land, in whole or in part (even though laws forbid foreigners to own land in Myanmar), and paid a pittance for the property. 

The farmers were left with no way to earn a living.
The watch committee reported that farmers were not informed in advance about the project, or warned of its consequences. 

It also documented at least 102 cases of corruption or extortion by the local authorities. Environmental damage was ignored or hidden, and grandiose promises of how the project would benefit depressed communities with nearly 500,000 new jobs proved false.
Years of Chinese involvement in Myanmar, including support for the despised former military dictatorship, has left many Burmese hostile to China even as they acknowledge a dependence on trade with their much larger neighbor.
Xi has invested enormous political capital in his One Belt, One Road program, which is intended to expand China’s strategic influence as much as anything else. 

In addition to the pipeline, China plans to build two deepwater ports and a special enterprise zone in the Kyaukphyu area. 

One would thus expect him to behave with greater compassion for local concerns so as to deflect opposition on the ground, especially since popular opposition has already stalled, if not defeated, China’s plans for a controversial dam in Myanmar. 

The Japanese, who have also invested in Myanmar, have been far more solicitous and open to complaints.
But most people I spoke to saw little hope that China would modify its behavior as it plowed ahead with the deepwater ports and the enterprise zone, which are expected to require thousands of acres of land. 

“We have lessons from the pipeline,” Noyi Lin, the villager, told me, “We are the real owners of the land, but they don’t care about us. The compensation they gave us is just a teacup for them.”

Chinese Calamity

China's Huge Dam Projects Will Threaten Southeast Asia As Water Scarcity Builds Downstream
By Daniel Rechtschaffen

BEN TRE, VIETNAM - APRIL 28

A river is born high in the Tibetan Plateau, before snaking its way 3,000 miles south and emptying itself into the South China Sea. 

On its journey, it passes through six countries, sustaining their ecosystems and local economies, its fisheries providing a lifeline for 60 million people in its lower basin.
The Mekong changes names as it ventures southward through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and finally Vietnam. 

Its English title, from the Lao-Thai Me Khoong, or “Mother River,” emphasizes its life-giving nature. It has had a profound influence on the cultural traditions of the 95 ethnic groups who make their homes along its shores, and its basin is second in biodiversity only to the Amazon.
Water is the world’s most important resource, providing economic, agricultural and transportation benefits. 

This is especially true for the developing countries of Southeast Asia, who rely on rivers like the Mekong to spur economic growth and support local industries. 

But although the Mekong was the lifeblood of Southeast Asia long before modern-day borders were delimited, it has been at the root of acute political turmoil in recent years. 

As the supply of water fit for irrigation and maintaining ecologies becomes increasingly scarce in the region, upstream countries that control vital transboundary resources, like China, wield an enormous amount of power. 

Although all of the Mekong’s riparian countries harness or plan to harness its waters for hydropower, extensive damming in China’s section has had the severest effects on downstream states.
The Mekong River is divided into upper and the lower basins. 

The upper basin falls mainly within China’s borders and its upstream location effectively allows for a chokehold on the river’s lower riparian states. 

China’s effects on the river are most evident in its extensive dam projects—hydropower is second only to coal as the country’s largest energy source. 

This represents a larger shift by the government toward renewable energy in the wake of rapid environmental decline and social unrest due to air pollution in recent years. 

Luckily for China, authoritarian governments have a much easier time than democracies commissioning dams, which often cause mass displacement of populations and destruction of local ecosystems. 

China currently has seven dams completed in the upper basin, with another 20 set to be finished in the near future.
Chinese dam-builders are incentivized by the fact that the vast majority of the Mekong’s drop in elevation occurs within China’s borders in the southwestern province of Yunnan, creating a powerful downstream flow ideally suited for hydropower. 

However, this region is also famous for being one of China’s most biodiverse, and this damming comes at great harm to local ecosystems. 

Not surprisingly, hydropower projects in Yunnan have been met with fierce resistance, sometimes violent, by local environmental organizations.

GUANLEI, CHINA: A man brushes his teeth on the banks of the Mekong River. Environmentalists have warned that China's aggressive dam building and development plans threaten fish stocks and add to the pollution of Southeast Asia's strategically important Mekong River, which connects Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. 

But perhaps the gravest concern surrounding Chinese dams is their potential for an international crisis—studies in recent years have increasingly shown that China’s many dams are having serious effects on the countries in the lower basin who share the Mekong. 

By changing water temperatures and altering sediment loads that are carried along the river, China’s dams pose a serious threat to fisheries downstream, the yields of which provide the major source of protein to the region’s inhabitants. 

More noticeable are the severe droughts and floods brought by a change in water flow caused by the dams. 

In March last year, China was approached by a desperate Vietnam asking that the Jinghong hydropower floodgates be opened to quench a downstream water shortage.
Mitigating a water crisis in the region is an issue the international community has sought to address for decades. 

In 1997, China was one of three countries that voted against the United Nations Watercourses Convention, an agreement establishing the non-navigational uses of transboundary waterways. 

Since the 1960s, China’s per capita renewable internal freshwater resources have diminished by half thanks in no small part to explosive population growth and rapid industrialization; the country’s available water per person in 2017 is one-third of the world’s average. 

And this water crisis, compounded most recently by pollution, is likely a major factor in China’s close guarding of water resources within its boundaries. 

Although Beijing has sought out less comprehensive regional initiatives with Southeast Asian countries to moderate the Mekong, these are difficult to enforce without the backing of the international community.
And unfortunately, the potential for crisis isn’t limited to the Mekong. 

China controls the “Water Towers of Asia”—the lofty sobriquet given to the Tibetan glacial plateau. 

The Mekong, Irrawaddy, Brahmaputra and the Salween all begin as trickles in these mountains before spilling across China’s borders to eager downstream riparian states. 

Getting first call on how these waterways are manipulated means that China poses a severe security risk to its neighbors.

This photo taken on March 18, 2015 shows a small hydro-electric power station above the Nu river near Gongshan, in southwest China's Yunnan province. Many smaller hydro power stations already generate electricity from water running off the mountains into the Nu river. 

China controls the life essence of eastern Asia: The towers within its domain provide water to 1.3 billion people. 

Up until now China has been compliant in releasing water when requested by downstream states, but the country’s water supplies are drying up. 

And as they do, assertions by recent scholars that 21st-century wars will be fought over water are becoming increasingly convincing.

Chinese Peril

Beijing Increases Weapons Sales To Expand World Influence
BY TOM O'CONNOR

China has massively boosted its arms exports around the world in an effort to expand its sphere of political influence, according to a report published Friday by Sputnik News, a state-controlled Russian news agency.
Between 2012 and 2016, China overtook Germany, France and the U.K. to become the world's third-largest exporter of arms, according to a study published last month by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
While the U.S. and Russia still dominated the world's weapons market, China has boosted not only weapons exports but the sales of advanced military technology, which SIPRI reportedly may not have taken into account in its figures. 

China's near doubling of weapons exports has helped the nation establish a newfound instrument for developing crucial political relationships around the world, according to military analyst Vassily Kashin.
"As China transitions to the active foreign policy of a great world power, its export of arms and military technology will turn increasingly into a foreign policy tool, losing its economic significance. It is likely that with the strengthening of China's influence in the world, we will see major new supplies of Chinese weapons and equipment, particularly in regions such as the Middle East and Africa," Kashin of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Far East Institute told Sputnik News.
Over 35 percent of China's exports went to Pakistan, which has reportedly ordered a significant amount of high-tech defense weaponry and technology. 

The nation, which borders China and is located on the crossroads of West and South Asia, has accepted China as an international guarantor after security agreements and weapons sales between Washington and Islamabad declined in recent years.
As of September 2016, China supplied 63 percent of Pakistan's arms, according to India's Economic Times. 

Pakistan's military aspirations came as tensions arose with its southern rival, India, last year over the disputed territory of Kashmir. 

Bangladesh and Myanmar made up the next two largest recipients of Chinese arms, making up 17.85 percent and 10 percent, respectively of Beijing's exports.
China also maintained steady weapons sales to Africa, where Algeria made up about 9.28 percent of China's arms exports. 

Thanks to its security forces, the North African country has maintained its grip on jihadist organizations such as the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, and al-Qaeda, that have conducted multiple attacks against civilians in neighboring Tunisia and Libya. 

China and Algeria established a pact of strategic partnership in 2014 and held another summit in Beijing last year strengthening the two country's ties. 

China also pledged to invest $60 billion throughout Africa months earlier.
Tensions between Beijing and Washington have remained strained since the election of President Donald Trump last year.
Trump has routinely attacked China over its economic policies, which the Republican leader accuses of promoting currency manipulation and exploiting cheap labor to take jobs from the U.S. 

China and the U.S. have expressed a mutual desire to work together, however, disputes in the South China Sea, across which Beijing has made broad territorial claims, has remained a flashpoint in relations between the two nations.

China's Fifth Column

Through reclusive Wa, China's reach extends into Suu Kyi's Myanmar

By Antoni Slodkowski and Yimou Lee | PANGSAN, MYANMAR

United Wa State Army (UWSA) soldiers march during a media display in Pansang, Wa territory in northeast Myanmar October 4, 2016. Picture taken on October 4, 2016.

Children leave school in Namtit, Wa territory in northeast Myanmar November 30, 2016. Picture taken on November 30, 

United Wa State Army (UWSA) soldiers march during a media display in Pansang, Wa territory in northeast Myanmar October 4, 2016. Picture taken on October 4, 2016. 

Ethnic Wa performer dressed as United Wa State Army (UWSA) soldiers perform a traditional dance in Mongmao, Wa territory in northeast Myanmar October 1, 2016. Picture taken on October 1, 2016. 

A teacher conducts a Chinese language lesson in a school in Namtit, Wa territory in northeast Myanmar November 30, 2016. Picture taken on November 30, 2016. 

China is extending its sway over an autonomous enclave run by Myanmar's most powerful ethnic armed group, sources in the region told Reuters, bolstering Beijing's role in the peace process that is the signature policy of Aung San Suu Kyi.

The "foreign policy" of the self-proclaimed Wa State is closely monitored by Beijing, senior officials in the administration run by the 30,000-strong United Wa State Army (UWSA) and its political wing said, with contact with Western governments, businesses or aid groups deemed particularly sensitive.
Official known to Myanmar as "Special Region 2", the remote territory is the size of Belgium and home to 600,000 people. 

Largely closed to Westerners for decades, it was visited by Reuters in October.
China's influence is quickly apparent, with street signs in Mandarin and Chinese businesses and banknotes ubiquitous in the self-proclaimed state's capital, Pangsan, and other Wa towns that straddle the rugged border.
"We share the same language and we marry each other," said the head of the Wa Foreign Affairs Office, Zhao Guo'an, when asked about the Chinese influence on Wa politics. 

"There's nothing we can do about it. We use Chinese currency, we speak Chinese and we wear and use products from China. Very little of that is from Myanmar."
Delve a little deeper, and it is apparent that China's reach extends much further than business and social ties.

EYES AND EARS
When Lo Yaku, the Wa agriculture minister, was asked about the drugs the statelet is accused of producing on an industrial scale, his secretary and a staffer from the official Wa News Bureau intervened to deflect the question. 

Both men are not Wa natives, but from China.
"This question was answered yesterday," said I Feng, a news bureau reporter originally from western China.
"After the drug eradication campaign, our government encouraged agencies, individuals and Chinese investors to participate in anti-drug activities," said the minister's secretary, Chen Chun, originally from Zhejiang province on China's faraway east coast.
A similar scene played out repeatedly during Reuters' visit -- the first by a major international news organization -- questions on topics ranging from military funding to methamphetamine were mostly fielded not by the Wa minister but by an accompanying Chinese minder.
These and other Chinese citizens Reuters found working in the administration in Pangsan said they were employees of the Wa government and "did not work" for the authorities in Beijing.
But their presence hints at just how closely entwined the Wa State and its leaders are with their giant neighbor.
"China has its ears and eyes everywhere, including in the government and business, and is wary of any deepening of ties with the West," said one minister from the Wa government, speaking on condition of anonymity due the sensitivity of the matter.
"We take this very seriously, and act so as not to anger China," he said, adding that all dealings with Washington and Brussels, as well as every foreigner or NGO entering Wa territory, were scrupulously reported to China.
China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in response to a question from Reuters that "as a friendly neighbor" it has "consistently respected Myanmar's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and not interfered with Myanmar's internal affairs".

OPENING UP
The Wa State was formed in 1989, when the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) disintegrated into ethnic armies, and has been run as an autonomous region by the UWSA beyond the authority of the central Myanmar government since.
The rare invitation to a small group of foreign journalists to visit -- made at Beijing's urging according to two ministers from the Wa government -- appears to be part of a charm offensive aimed at the new civilian government led by democracy champion Suu Kyi.
Reaching an accord with the Wa and other rebels is one of Suu Kyi's biggest challenges as she grapples with the interlocking issues of ending decades of ethnic conflict and tackling drug production in Myanmar's lawless border regions.
While it has not fought the Myanmar army in years, the USWA -- whose leaders deny allegations from the United States and others that it is a major producer of methamphetamine -- has so far declined to actively participate in Suu Kyi's peace process.
"It's a good timing for us to open up. There's a new political reality in Myanmar, so it's good to engage in the political dialogue and open up to the outside world," said Nyi Rang, a Wa government official.
China also has its own interests in play, according to analysts.
Beijing hopes Suu Kyi will restart a blocked, Chinese-financed mega-dam project, and wants to protect its extensive mineral interests in the country after the removal of U.S. sanctions has opened it up to Western competitors.
"China is playing a complex game in Myanmar aimed at safeguarding and extending its considerable economic, commercial and strategic interests while at the same time deterring any encroachment by Western or Japanese interests along its southwestern border," said Anthony Davis, a Bangkok-based analyst for security consulting firm IHS-Jane's.
"In this carrot-and-stick game the UWSA is unquestionably the biggest stick Beijing wields -- plausibly deniable diplomatically, hugely influential as a strategic rear-base for allied ethnic factions, and itself far too powerful to be taken down militarily."

WEAPONS SALES
The Wa mini-state relies heavily on China as a market for its exports of rubber and metals such as tin.
As well as occupying government posts, Chinese citizens, mainly from neighboring Yunnan province, dominate local markets and the Wa elite send their children to Chinese schools and elderly to its hospitals.
"We don't make anything here. The stuff we eat, we wear and we use is all from China," said Chu Chin Hung, district office chief in the Wa border town of Nan Tit. 

"Every Saturday morning there is a farmers' market, but almost all of the vendors are from China."
Experts such as IHS-Jane's Defence Weekly have previously reported that China has sold a variety of weapons to the Wa. 

For the first time, a Wa minister, who declined to be identified, confirmed some of those reports and described the process.
"The Wa State has bought military trucks directly from China and light weapons from China indirectly through Laos," said the minister. 

"Those weapons include rifles and cannons. They don't want to anger Myanmar by selling directly."
The Chinese Defence Ministry denied selling weapons to the Wa.
"China has consistently and strictly adhered to a military equipment export policy that benefits the recipient country's present defense needs, does not harm regional or world peace, security and stability, and that does not interfere in the internal affairs of the recipient country," it said in a statement to Reuters.