http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokang
Kokang (Burmese: ကိုးကန့်; Chinese: 果敢; pinyin: Guǒgǎn), formally the First Special Region, is a historical region of Burma (Myanmar). It is located in the northern part of Shan State, with the Salween River to its west, and it shares a border with China's Yunnan Province in the east. Its total land area is around 10,000 square kilometres (3,900 sq mi).[1] The capital is Laukkai (Chinese: 老街; pinyin: Lǎojiē). Kokang is mostly populated by Kokang people, a Han Chinese group living in Burma.
Kokang is currently a self-administered zone according to the new Myanmar Constitution (2008). Kongyan Township and Laukkai Township aka Laukkaing Township are grouped together to form Kokang Self-Administered Zone and replace the 'First Special Region'.[2][3]
Historically, Kokang was Burma's feudal state (Chinese: 土司; pinyin: tǔsī) for Burmese Chinese. It was founded by the Yang clan, a Chinese military house that fled with the Ming loyalists from Nanjing to Yunnan Province in the mid-17th century and later migrated to the Shan State in eastern Burma. From the 1960s to 1989, the area was ruled by the Communist Party of Burma, and after the dissolution of that party in 1989 it became a special region of Burma under the control of the Myanmar Nationalities Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA). Armed conflicts between the MNDAA and the Tatmadaw have resulted in the 2009 Kokang incident and the 2015 Kokang offensive.
The Diplomat had a good summary of the issue, but their site is currently down for maintenance. So I will have to use another source. Note the date is late February.
http://sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com/201 ... -in-china/
TIME also has some information.Conflict in Myanmar Reverberates Across the Border in China
By PATRICK BOEHLER FEBRUARY 19, 2015 4:13 AM
A photo of a young girl holding a Chinese flag is one of many that China’s online censors have deleted over the last few days in an effort to quell nationalist support for ethnic Chinese rebels in Myanmar.
Others have depicted looted storefronts and bodies of civilians, some dead, some wounded, seeking shelter.
Dozens of soldiers and rebels have died since fighting erupted in the Kokang region near the Chinese border last week, according to the state-backed newspaper Global New Light of Myanmar.
Tens of thousands of refugees fleeing into China and an appeal for help from the rebel forces in Myanmar have now turned the hostilities into a delicate matter for the Chinese government. The Kokang region is largely populated by ethnic Chinese.
Peng Jiasheng, an ethnic Chinese who was affiliated with the now defunct, formerly China-backed Communist Party of Burma, leads the rebel forces in Kokang, who call themselves the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army.
Mr. Peng ruled Kokang until his ouster in an attack by the Myanmar armed forces in 2009 and has since lived in hiding.
A day into an attack by his rebel forces last week that ignited the hostilities, the 85-year-old appealed for support from all those of “common race and roots,” in an open letter widely circulated on social media.
“How is it possible that more than a hundred years after the Opium War, there are still more than 200,000 Chinese suffering under ethnic discrimination?” he wrote. “Every time Jiasheng is reminded of this situation, he bursts into tears, and the pain is unbearable.”
Some Chinese microbloggers have responded to his call by likening his struggle to retake Kokang to the fight of Russian separatists in Ukraine, where Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula last year.
“Let us help Kokang,” one Weibo user commented, while sharing the photo of the flag-holding girl. “The beasts of the Myanmar Army are continuing to slaughter Kokang’s Chinese in Laukkai,” another one wrote, sharing a photo of corpses in the city that has seen most of the fighting. Both those posts and many similar ones have since been deleted from Chinese microblogs.
In a Lunar New Year’s message released on Wednesday, the rebels’ military commander in charge of operations, Peng Deren, thanked Chinese Internet users for their support over the last year, along with Kokang residents and allied armed rebel groups. “The coming of spring brings back us wanderers’ desire to return home,” he wrote. Mr. Peng is the son of the rebel leader Peng Jiasheng.
Chinese state-affiliated news outlets were quick to denounce references to Crimea. “Those who are stuck in such comparisons are either spouting nonsense, or have ulterior motives,” Global Times, a state-run newspaper, wrote in an editorial on Monday.
“Varied forces in Chinese society should stay sober and avoid any premature stance or interference in northern Myanmar affairs, so as not to affect the government’s diplomacy,” the editorial argued.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, echoed the sentiment at a regular news conference on the same day. China “does not allow any organization or individual to spoil China-Myanmar relations and undermine stability of the border area on the Chinese territory,” she said.
More than 30,000 people have crossed the border into China since the fighting began, Xinhua, the state-run news agency, has said.
The outpouring of support from Chinese citizens has been overwhelming for some residents of China. Lin Sen, who lives in Yunnan Province, across the border from Myanmar, said he had harbored up to 20 refugees at his home and had been flooded with phone calls from people wanting to help refugees.
“I tell people that there is no need to send supplies,” he said. “There is no shortage at the moment.” Some callers, he said, even contacted him from post offices, asking him for his address to mail emergency supplies.
On Tuesday, Myanmar imposed three months of martial law in the region. Fighting continued as of Friday, residents said. “They are still exchanging fire,” Li Jiapeng, who volunteered distributing aid to refugees on the Chinese side of the border, said by telephone.
Lets recap.Thousands of Refugees Are Pouring Into China to Escape Fighting in Burma
Hopes for a prolonged truce appear to be fading in the war-torn nation
Burmese President Thein Sein granted the nation’s military wide-ranging powers this week to take the fight to ethnic Chinese rebels, after ongoing skirmishes in the country’s northeast sent thousands of refugees fleeing into neighboring China.
On Wednesday, the state-backed Global New Light of Myanmar ran two notices on its front page signed by the President announcing the imposition of a state of emergency and martial law in the country’s embattled Kokang region.
Burma’s military chief Min Aung Hlaing, who largely made a name for himself after trouncing Kokang militants in 2009, will now be charged with bringing the insurgents to heel in any manner he sees fit.
Fighting continues to rage near the Chinese border with the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MDNAA), a Kokang militia, who commenced a brazen offensive against government positions near the town of Laukai on Feb. 9, days ahead of the country’s Union Day celebrations.
The Burmese government had previously hoped to sign a highly vaunted nationwide cease-fire with the country’s myriad rebel forces on the national holiday.
President Thein Sein spent much of the last week visiting wounded soldiers, where he promised to not lose “an inch” of the country’s territory to Kokang “renegades.”
Analysts say the timing and the high-level of coordination among major rebel militias from across northern Burma who participated in the offensive suggests that the peace process has hit the rocks.
“The idea was to make a very loud point that there are a significant number of powerful factions in the north who are not interested in mealymouthed promises,” Anthony Davis, an analyst with IHS Jane’s, tells TIME.
Despite years of negotiations, trust between the ethnic insurgents in the country’s far north and the government has been in steady decline since an artillery assault by the Burmese army on a Kachin Independence Army training camp in November killed 23 cadets.
The resurgence of the MDNAA also raises fresh questions over how a militia that had been routed five years ago was able to raise the material and tactical support within earshot of the Chinese border to launch a major offensive.
Analysts have long suspected Beijing of providing sophisticated weaponry to ethnic Chinese insurgents along its border as a way of leveraging power against Burma as it seeks to foster new relations with the West.
An editorial published in a Chinese state-linked media outlet on Tuesday sought to shoot down any notions that Beijing has been propping up Burma’s ethnic Chinese forces in the same way that Russia has been helping separatist rebels in southeast Ukraine.
“There are no grounds for comparing Kokang to Crimea. Those who are stuck in such comparisons are either spouting nonsense, or have ulterior motives,” read an editorial printed in the Global Times on Tuesday. “Peace and stability in the border regions are in China’s utmost interest.
1. Kokang is part of Myanmar bordering China's Yunnan province. Its population is traditionally descendants from Han Chinese who migrated there. Ethnically they still are. There are also PRC nationals living there, presumably for business purposes.
2. A peace agreement was signed with the Myanmar government in 1989, but then an offensive by the government in 2009 ousted the leader Pheung Kya-shin/Péng Jiāshēng and replaced him with a leader the government preferred. In february Peng started his own attack leading to the current situation.
3. From what I understand the inhabitants are given identity cards, but are not citizens.
4. Because of 3, one can understand that Kokang relies heavily on the PRC. Postal services, financial services, telecommunications and electricity are all from the PRC. Even the telephone number uses the Yunnan district code. The currency is the RMB, not the Burmese Kyat. This reminds me of the situation in Georgia between North and South Ossetia.
5. Officially the rebels call for autonomy and not separatism.
6. The rebels themselves are dodgy, with ties to drug king pins or possibly drug lords themselves.
7. Myanmar has accused the PRC government (or least rogue elements of their government) of helping the rebels with things ranging from weapons and mercenaries. China of course denies it.
8. Peng (the rebel leader) has written an open letter criticising the Chinese government of "abandoning" Kokang. Which kind of is silly if China already is supporting the separatists. The problem is, its most probably not aimed directly at the Chinese government. Its aimed at Chinese citizens who might in turn express displeasure and put some pressure on the government to do something.
9. Currently Chinese media is reporting that the number of refugees has hit 60,000 (an increase from the articles I posted). The PRC has managed to settle them for now.
10. Not surprisingly, the views among Chinese intellectuals is diverse. Ranging from this being China's Crimea to sticking with China's official policy of not interfering in another nation's affairs. China of course is pushing for the conflict to end because the refugees then become China's problem.
Oh, and if anyone is interested, some of China's critics have slammed them for "betraying" Kokang. If they do a Putin or some form of military intervention they would be heavily criticised, which just goes to show, you can't win with some people.
