The situation in Myanmar continues to deteriorate, with the military government expanding martial law in the first major city of Yangon and continuing to arrest and crack down on protesters. Some Chinese-owned enterprises have chosen to take temporary refuge in the suburbs after their factories were destroyed last weekend. In such an emergency, not only did Chinese officials not relent in their plans to start evacuation plans, but the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar added a new request for distant Epidemic prevention and testing in late February. Some local Chinese businessmen lamented that they could not feel that the country wanted to take them Home.
Now in Yangon, the sound of gunfire can be heard from Time to time in broad daylight, not only in the Lae Daya district, but also elsewhere.
On the evening of March 14, a number of Chinese- and Taiwanese-funded enterprises in the Ledaya industrial zone were vandalized and burned, and the Burmese military government then declared martial law in six areas of Yangon.
“I’m afraid the bloodiest day is yet to come, and now the situation is getting more and more wrong.” Mr. Chen, a Chinese businessman who has been operating import and export trade in Yangon for more than a decade and did not want to be named because of security concerns, compared the protests to the 2007 “Saffron Revolution” in Yangon, “This time the military has killed the red-eyed, and the younger generation of protesters in Myanmar are not backing down. “
Mr. Chen has suspended taking orders after emptying most of his warehouse inventory in early March. After the military declared mass martial law in Yangon, he has retreated to a friend’s home on the outskirts of Myitkyina, Myanmar, for refuge. He described a wave of retreats in Yangon and feared that the military would embark on a further “purge. Although Chinese embassy staff have been reminding people to stay safe in WeChat groups, Chinese officials have yet to say whether they will evacuate.
“I’ve been here for more than a decade, and I can’t just leave, I still have a lot of things to finish. But on the other hand, now is even if you grab a ticket, you may not be able to leave. Now the hospitals in Yangon are full of injured people, doing (nucleic acid) tests is based on luck, and the embassy has come out with new rules.” Mr. Chen said.
The world is different between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait to evacuate overseas Chinese
Under the sound of gunfire and fighting, the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar has not relaxed its control over the epidemic, and is even stricter. According to the official website of the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar, the new rules, which came into effect on Feb. 24, require “double negative certificates” for nucleic acid and IgM antibodies, as well as proof that Chinese enterprises and project personnel have completed 14 days of “closed-loop quarantine management” by their companies.
The Myanmar Chamber of Commerce for Chinese Enterprises (MCCE) issued an emergency security reminder to enhance security awareness, and said that in case of emergency, the Embassy’s Economic and Trade Office and the Chamber of Commerce could be contacted first. However, when the reporter called the Myanmar Chinese Enterprises Chamber of Commerce on duty to ask about possible assistance in evacuation, the answer was: “We don’t have a unified process for this, you have to ask the airline yourself.
According to the official website of Yangon International Airport, the suspension of international flights will be extended until at least the end of March. However, Air China’s official website has a recent flight from Yangon to Beijing on March 21.
Taiwan is in February 21 by China Airlines first flight “rescue flight”, the day from Yangon back to 82 passengers, one of them is a mainland nationals. Comprehensive Taiwan media reports, because some local hospitals in Myanmar have been closed, there were 28 passengers could not get a nucleic acid test (PCR) certificate before boarding, Taiwan’s CDC adopted a flexible approach, allowing 28 people to enter the country first before testing at their own expense.
Taiwan has issued a “red travel alert” for Myanmar, and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Myanmar has also announced that China Airlines has arranged two “rescue flights” from Yangon to Taiwan in March.
The South China Morning Post reported on 16 March, citing unnamed corporate sources, that China had asked state-owned enterprises in Myanmar to withdraw non-essential staff. However, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian did not respond positively to the evacuation inquiry at a press conference, only emphasizing that he was closely following the situation and calling on the Myanmar authorities to take strong measures to protect the safety of Chinese-funded enterprises and personnel.
At the end of the patriotic Chinese movie “War Wolf II,” it says, “This red passport of China can pick you up from anywhere and bring you home.” Mr. Chen laughed helplessly and said, “Of course the movie is just a movie, you still take it seriously?”
Since the epidemic, Chinese overseas have faced the helplessness of having a hard time getting home. Zhao Lijian’s statement, on the other hand, stings to the ears of Burmese.
Burmese yearn for democracy, not exclusion: military government plants evidence
Kyaw Win, founder of the London-based Burma Human Rights Network (BHRN), has recently been the target of arrows in the official Chinese media. His personal Twitter feed, which translated into English the protesters’ slogan in Burmese, “If a civilian is killed, a Chinese factory will be burned,” was used as an incitement in reports by the Global Times and China’s Global TV Network. He told the station that the Chinese media had completely misquoted and disseminated inaccurate information, adding that the Burmese protesters wanted democracy and freedom and “no Chinese exclusion.
“There are many people who participated in the protest and were shot by the military government were ethnic Chinese Burmese who sacrificed their lives, they are our brothers and sisters.” Kyaw Win said.
Lin Yaozong, a 17-year-old Chinese-American medical student, is Kyaw Win’s sibling. He was shot and killed by police during a demonstration in Yangon on the 14th. His mother cried out in the video that she wanted democracy and freedom and was very distressed by the Chinese government’s inaction in cleaning up its own snow, “I am Chinese, but I don’t love China!” This caused discussion online.
Kyaw Win then said, “Burmese people have been longing for democracy for a long time, but the Chinese government has been on good terms with the military government from the past, and this time, even helped ease the Burmese military government’s cheeks in the UN Security Council. The Chinese government should think clearly that the Burmese people are not your enemies, it is the junta that has designed a trap to try to use China and involve China as a way to find support for themselves.”
Kyaw Win charged, “This setting fire to a Chinese-owned factory was simply a self-directed act by the junta. They released thousands of people from prison in mid-February, and some men in black were filmed setting fires in Chinese-owned factories, and it was Burmese protesters who went to help put out the fires, and then the military planted them to set the fires, arrested and shot them, and then declared martial law afterwards. Who has the most to gain by going to the industrial area of Dalaiya in particular and burning the factory to do so?”
We are unable to independently confirm Kyaw Win’s claims, but CNN reported in February that the Burmese military government released more than 20,000 criminal prisoners from custody after the coup.
The situation along the China-Myanmar border is now relatively stable, with a large number of Chinese with special status in Myanmar’s Shan State East Special Region, which borders Yunnan, long excluded from the Chinese and Burmese military governments. The Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in Kachin State in northeastern Burma even sent troops to protect the protesters after the military coup.
An ethnic Chinese who did not want to be named for security reasons agreed with Kyaw Win, and told the station, “Chinese companies in Burma that have factories there hire security guards. What kind of relationship do they have with the military? When the Chinese factories were burned, where did these security personnel go? Not to mention the fact that the police were ignored, it is even more of a question whether the military government connived.”
And Myanmar’s local media, Myanmar Now, reported that the Kachin Independence Army and the military’s crackdown forces in northern Myanmar are engaged in a fierce firefight in northeast Myitkyina, in addition to several large cities in Myanmar protesting the military coup, Myanmar’s military government is on a killing spree, and Myanmar fears another civil war.
Myanmar’s Bloodstained Democracy Movement Crisis Fears Prolonged
Gregory Poling, a senior fellow with the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, told the station that neither the military nor the protesting public show signs of wanting to compromise, and that the unrest in Myanmar this time is very likely to turn into a year-long crisis, not unlike Myanmar’s 1988 8888 democracy movement. “The young Burmese who are taking to the streets now don’t even remember much about the ‘tomato saffron movement’ of 2007. They are a generation growing up with free access to the internet and Facebook, much like the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, which has been daitai-less and de-centralized.”
Burma’s failed economic reforms had already caused public discontent before the 8888 movement, which erupted in March 1988 when the school movement broke out at the Yangon Institute of Technology and the Burmese military sent troops onto the campus to suppress it, and later erupted into several mass demonstrations that reached a peak on August 8. Aung San Suu Kyi spoke in Rangoon on August 26 in support of the people’s struggle for democracy, drawing a crowd of 500,000 people. On September 18 of the same year, the military announced a takeover of power, followed by the arrest and detention of Aung San Suu Kyi, who was not released until 2010.
The 8888 movement is regarded as Myanmar’s unfinished democratic revolution, and by some accounts at least 3,000 people were killed.
Today, China is Myanmar’s top trading partner, largest source of imports and largest export market, as well as the second largest source of investment. Poling reminded that from the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor and the Belt and Road to the China-Myanmar oil and gas pipeline, as well as China’s construction of Kyaukpyu port and the Mandalay-Kyaukpyu railroad project, these Chinese investments are all about its own geo-strategy and security, and “the unstable situation in Myanmar is not good for China.”
Recent Comments