ALONG THE CHINA-BURMA BORDER: WWII, DRUGS, HIV, AND JADE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 CHENGDU 000290 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR EAP/CM, EAP/MLS, INR E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/12/2032 TAGS: ETRD ECON PGOV SOCI SNAR CH SUBJECT: ALONG THE CHINA-BURMA BORDER: WWII, DRUGS, HIV, AND JADE REF: A) CHENGDU 124 B) 06 CHENGDU 1205 CHENGDU 00000290 001.2 OF 005 CLASSIFIED BY: James Boughner, Consul General, Chengdu, Department of State. REASON: 1.4 (b),(d) ¶1. (C) Summary: Common ethnic linkages, villages that hug or even straddle the border, a visa-free regime for local residents, spotty security controls, and corruption appear to facilitate a wide-open atmosphere in areas along China's border with Burma. One stretch of road outside the Chinese port town of Ruili in Yunnan Province is controlled by a local gang that extorts money from passing motorists. Illicit narcotics are readily available and inexpensive in Ruili and "underground" casinos still operate across the border in Burma. The history of U.S. military assistance during World War II and shared combat experience, commemorated in a growing number of well-financed museums, generates pro-American sentiment. Although officially open to international visitors and a center for China's ever expanding transportation links with other countries in the region, southwest Yunnan is still viewed by Chinese authorities as a highly sensitive border area and a recent Congen visit was heavily restricted and controlled. End Summary. ¶2. (C) From December 3-6, CG, Congenoff, and LES Pol/Econ Assistant traveled to southwest China's Yunnan Province to look into cross-border trade issues with Burma and visit sites commemorating the role of the Flying Tigers and other U.S. military assistance during World War II. Although our originally requested schedule was approved by the Yunnan Foreign Affairs Office (FAO),just prior to the trip the FAO significantly scaled back our itinerary without explanation and placed a number of restrictions on it. Specifically, we were denied permission to rent a vehicle from a car agency (used by us with FAO approval on many previous occasions including a recent visit to the Vietnam and Laos borders (ref A)) to drive into Yunnan from the industrial city of Panzhihua in southern Sichuan Province. The Yunnan FAO also insisted visits to the towns of Pianma (site of a recently-opened U.S. P-32 Fighter museum) and Leiyong (possible site of former graves of Flying Tigers personnel) were "inconvenient." (Note: Kunming Flying Tigers Association contacts - strictly protect -- recommended Leiyong to us, but also indicated to us -- and showed us photographs -- that it currently hosts a Chinese air base. End note). -------------- -------------- -------------- Tengchong: Development of Strategic Transportation Hub -------------- -------------- -------------- ¶3. (U) Flying into the city of Baoshan from the Yunnan provincial capital of Kunming, FAO personnel escorted us to Tengchong, a strategically located city along the former Stilwell Road and scene of heavy fighting during World War II. The 168-kilometer drive, only 15 kilometers of which is currently expressway, took about four hours and went through the 2000-meter-high Gaoligong mountain pass. According to the FAO, construction of a new expressway between Baoshan and Tengchong will begin soon, but is likely to take at least four years due to the difficult topography of the region and will require the building of what local officials claimed will be the tallest bridge in Asia. ¶4. (U) Congen research of local open source information prior to our trip highlighted the important role Tengchong -- located just 200 kilometers away from Myitkyina in Burma and 602 kilometers from Mine in India -- can play as China expands its international transportation link ups with both Southeast and Southwest Asia. In October 2006, a new highway from Tengchong to the Burmese city of Banwa was completed and the Tengchong-Myitkyina Highway is expected to be completed soon once the 95-kilometer Burmese stretch is finished. As construction of a highway is also reportedly underway between Mine and Myitkyina, within a few years it will at least be theoretically possible to drive from Kunming into India along a 1200-kilometer expressway in just 10 hours. (Note: see ref A for apparently conflicting views we heard from Yunnan officials on the practical feasibility of this and other routes during meetings in April. End note). In addition, the Chinese government has also already begun construction of a railway from Dali in Yunnan that will pass through Tengchong on the way to Myitkyina with the eventual goal of reaching India. To cap it all off, a new airport in Tengchong, capable of handling Boeing 737s and Airbus 320s, will be completed in late 2008 at a projected cost of RMB 433 million (roughly USD 60 million). CHENGDU 00000290 002.2 OF 005 -------------- The Party Welcomes You -------------- ¶5. (SBU) Tengchong Party Secretary Wang Caichun did his best to welcome what he claimed was the first visit to Tengchong by American diplomats since World War II. Wang spoke effusively of American assistance to China during the war and noted his own father had worked as a cook for the U.S. military. Wang also remarked he recently secured RMB 200 million (USD 28 million) to fund a new museum to commemorate the U.S.-China World War II alliance. He stressed the importance of educating China's new generation about how the two countries worked together closely to defeat the Japanese. Wang appeared to be genuinely moved when discussing the subject. ¶6. (C) When asked about China-Burmese border trade, however, Wang quickly adopted the "Party Line." Unlike some official and business interlocutors during our April visit to Yunnan (ref A), Wang went on at length about the "excellent security" of driving along roads in northern Burma, complimented the Burmese government for the "professionalism" of its border officials, and noted he himself had recently driven to Mine in India without any fear for his safety whatsoever. Drug smuggling at the border is no longer an issue and Chinese and Burmese authorities have successfully eradicated all opium poppy cultivation in the area. When CG quoted the old Chinese saying of "the mountains are high and the emperor is far away" to ask if local authorities did not sometimes have a little bit of de facto latitude in implementing central government policies, Wang quickly interjected that in Tengchong the "Party is fully in control of everything." ¶7. (C) As unfortunately appears to happen all too often on visits to remote areas in our district, our host later tried to turn what would otherwise have been a possibly enjoyable banquet into a raucous bacchanalia. To the noticeable discomfort of our FAO handlers, Wang became increasing inebriated and at one point even tried to hold CG's head down and pour a local variation of grain alcohol "bai jiu" down his throat. Wang also made his young female assistants stand up and serenade his guests and offered to arrange a joint "hot springs event" after the banquet. We diplomatically disentangled ourselves from the situation and bid an early good night to Wang. -------------- Commemorating the War -------------- ¶8. (SBU) The national military cemetery in Tengchong contains the graves of over 9,000 troops of the Chinese Expeditionary Army and has two brand new museum structures. A section of the cemetery also honors 19 American soldiers killed in a 1944 battle -- their remains were returned to the U.S. following the war -- to retake Tengchong from the Japanese. Somewhat surprisingly given Party Secretary Wang's plans to invest in a new war museum, just a few kilometers from the cemetery another brand new and lavishly furbished museum was just completed in the village of Heshun, that is being developed into a major tourist destination. Over 10,000 of Heshun's 16,000 residents are returned overseas Chinese, mostly from Southeast Asia. The focus of Heshun's war museum is U.S.-Chinese cooperation, and pride of place is given to hundreds of military artifacts, including equipment, photographs, and even some personal effects (rings, etc.) of Chinese, American, and Japanese soldiers. ¶9. (C) Given the destruction of Tengchong and brutality of Japanese troops toward the local population during the war, it is of course not surprising the exhibits at both the national cemetery and Heshun museum have a certain "edge." At times, however, the exhibits seem to go a little bit overboard. Heshun, for example, has a display containing a war-era Japanese "vivisection table," which actually looks quite new, as well as a photograph of what it claims to be a Chinese baby "carved up for meat" by hungry Japanese soldiers. A mound at the front of the national cemetery in Tengchong is crudely labeled in Chinese, "Jap Tomb," and contains the remains of Japanese officers who we were told proudly were placed there so as to be "ritually humiliated for eternity." Both sites also conveniently steer clear of other aspects of Chinese history that local authorities would not wish to have highlighted, and no mention is made of the fact that Red Guards looted the national cemetery during the Cultural Revolution. The Heshun museum director told us privately a local teacher whose exploits saving a downed American air crew during the war (commemorated in an exhibit) was executed in the early 1950's for having had overly close ties to the U.S. military. CHENGDU 00000290 003.2 OF 005 -------------- Border Ties, Drugs, and HIV/AIDS -------------- ¶10. (SBU) The following morning we were hosted by Ruili Deputy Mayor Wei Gang, an ethnic Dai, who was a far more forthcoming interlocutor than we had experienced in Tengchong. Wei claimed Ruili, located in the far southwest of Yunnan's Dehong Prefecture and sharing a 114-kilometer long border and 28 crossing points with Burma, is China's largest land port. Ruili is an historic homeland and center of the Dai people who speak a dialect very similar to Thai. About 60 percent of Ruili's official population of 160,000 consists of Dai and other minorities, and in addition the area hosts 40,000 migrants from other areas of China. ¶11. (SBU) Ruili's biggest industry is sugar production, with tourism running second. Another major source of employment is the jade trade with Burma and over 10,000 local residents are associated with the jade industry. Wei characterized commercial traffic with Burma -- mostly agriculture according to Wei -- as "brisk" and said many people in Ruili maintain close family relations with their ethnic Dai cousins across the border. Ruili government web sites claim that Ruili's cross-border trade reached 2.8 billion RMB in 2006 (USD 374 million). Both Chinese and Burmese with residency in the border region are issued passes which gives them visa access to both cross the border and work on the other side. Burmese work in Ruili mostly as traders and laborers. Chinese and Burmese-registered vehicles are also permitted to cross the border. ¶12. (C) Wei observed that Burmese central government control over some border areas is weak, but remarked that the city of Mujie across from Ruili has a relatively strong Burmese official presence. The Burmese government, however, does not maintain a consulate or any kind of representative office in Ruili. Ruili officials have authority to handle routine border management, but must refer more important issues to Kunming. Wei commented, however, that his Burmese counterparts in Mujie appear to be kept on a relatively short leash by their political masters to whom they refer even relatively minor questions. There is no official Burmese-Chinese currency exchange in Ruili. Rather, currency exchange is handled by small-scale traders who are allowed to operate openly and without heavy regulation. The current rate is about 200 Burmese Kyat to the Renminbi and there was a brief speculative spike following political disturbances in Burma during September. ¶13. (C) Wei agreed that drug smuggling in the area is a major issue. According to Wei, security officials in Ruili are particularly concerned about the involvement of Muslims from northern Burma in the drug trade, but claimed they are probably not linked to Chinese Hui Muslims and there are in fact only about 100 Hui that reside in Ruili. (Note: Wei was probably undercounting the number of Hui in Ruili, and there is at least one large mosque in the area. End note). ¶14. (SBU) Wei noted the spread of HIV/AIDS is an important local problem and commented that Ruili appreciates the assistance it receives from international NGO's. Ruili authorities rely heavily on education in their fight against illicit narcotics use and HIV/AIDS. Recognizing government propaganda might not always be the best medium to reach the masses, however, Wei noted that Ruili is trying to experiment in using local Buddhist monks to pass the word about the dangers of drug use and make use of the high level of respect they command within their local communities. However, he claimed there are only 100 Buddhist monks resident in Ruili. ¶15. (C) Informal conversations with locals indicated Ruili's economy had fallen off significantly in the last year; one restaurant owner blamed the decline on the closing of casinos across the border in Burma (see note below),which he claimed had brought a decrease in the number of free-spending Han tourists. Others remarked on the obvious decline in the amount of sex-industry activity on Ruili's streets over the last year (although there was no shortage of massage parlors and karaoke lounges). -------------- Jade: Fujianese and Burmese -------------- ¶16. (SBU) After our meeting with Wei, our FAO handlers (apparently intent on keeping us busy),took us on a tour of Ruili's new officially-designated "Gem Street," where they tried to convince us to buy jade. As most of the pieces presented by well-prepped shop owners for our inspection ranged in price between the equivalent of USD 10,000 to USD 100,000, we politely CHENGDU 00000290 004.2 OF 005 declined to the noticeable disappointment of one FAO official who said she would receive a nice "souvenir" from the shop owners if we actually bought something. ¶17. (SBU) This time-consuming process, however, did give us some interesting insights into the jade traffic. Notably, all the shopkeepers we met were Fujianese who had moved to Ruili from China's east coast in the 1980s, and freely discussed how Fujianese maintain virtual control over the Ruili jade industry. In front of our ever-vigilant FAO hosts, the shopkeepers stressed their jade jewelry originates from unfinished jade purchased legally by their families at the official jade auction held in Rangoon and later fashioned at family-controlled workshops in Ruili. One storeowner commented most of her customers are wealthy Chinese from either Beijing or Shanghai. Another noted she has many customers from Burma, including government officials, because Burmese are "less skilled" than Chinese at working jade into finished jewelry. While one of the Fujianese stressed the importance of Ruili as a jade center, she also observed that most jade purchased at the Rangoon auction by Chinese traders is fashioned in workshops in Guangzhou. ¶18. (C) Not too far from the spic-and-span official "Gem Street," we spied a warren of older buildings and streets containing smaller jade establishments run mostly by Burmese. To the apparent consternation of our FAO colleagues, we made a beeline for it and were greeted by the numerous Burmese milling in the area. One young Burmese man from Mandalay came up to shake CG's hand and after finding out where he was from said "USA - very good." This elicited thumbs up signs from others in the crowd. CG exchanged greetings in Arabic with several Burmese Muslims who told him they had come to Ruili to sell jade. One FAO handler told CG it would be better to move on as neighboring construction made the area "unsafe." -------------- Trying to Get the Real Scoop -------------- ¶19. (C) Taking advantage of a two-hour "rest break" in our schedule, we hired a taxi on the street and asked to go up a scenic tourist road along the border towards the village of Longdao. Our driver turned out to be a migrant from Sichuan who was quite happy to share his thoughts on Ruili. He noted drugs are widely available and cheap in the area, with the current price for a vial of injectable heroin going for about RMB 80 (a little over USD 10; he claimed one vial could be used for three or four injections). The drug trade is controlled by local gangs. As he talked, a large SUV with Chinese plates pulled out ahead of us from what appeared to be a dirt road our driver said led across the Burmese border just 30 meters away. The driver added that, since China began pressuring the Burmese government a couple of years ago to shut down casinos in Mujie when Chinese officials and tourists were losing too much money there, "underground" casinos have sprung up across the border and are well-frequented by Chinese tourists. He described the casinos as "dangerous places" where visitors were subject to robbery and extortion. We declined his offer to take us to have a look. ¶20. (C) Following a swing through the "One Village, Two Countries" tourist site (a small village bisected by the Chinese-Burmese border and appearing devoid of anything other than the most basic security controls),our driver stopped abruptly to talk to a group of four young men playing cards alongside the road. Getting back in the cab a few minutes later, he explained he had had to pay a small bribe (RMB 30, or roughly USD 4) to a local gang that controls vehicular traffic to Longdao and does not allow taxis to engage in two-way trade back and forth from Ruili without first paying a fee. We saw other taxis returning empty from Longdao stop and be inspected by the young men. This "inspection check point" was located right between two relatively large Chinese People's Armed Police (PAP) facilities just a few kilometers away. When we drove again with the FAO down the same stretch of road later in the day, the "inspection point" was not visible and the men appeared to have returned to nearby villages. -------------- Jiegao Border Trade Economic Zone -------------- - ¶21. (C) During an official FAO tour of Jiegao, a border zone that links Ruili to the Burmese town of Mujie, we were not permitted to see the gate through which vehicular traffic takes place and cargo is inspected. The Jiegao People's Armed Police (PAP) officer on duty, however, did walk us through the gate that handles pedestrian traffic. He told us daily traffic through the gate includes about 16,000 Burmese entering China and 5,000 Chinese going the other way. Although literally right CHENGDU 00000290 005.2 OF 005 at the border demarcation line, we did not see any Burmese customs or inspection officials. The FAO and PAP appeared less than pleased when their group photo taking session with us was interrupted by colorfully-attired Burmese transvestites who wanted to join in. Apparently, the Burmese earn money from Chinese tourists by posing with them for photographs. Congenoff later saw in Ruili advertisements posted in Chinese for "Ladyboy Shows" in Burma. -------------- Wanding -------------- ¶22. (SBU) En route the next day for departure at the airport in Mangshi, we stopped by the border crossing point at the small town of Wanding (population about 6,000) located 24 kilometers from Ruili. The only cross-border traffic visible was a beat-up sedan with Burmese plates and a man carrying a sack of produce entering China. The Wanding River (which forms the border there) appeared to be only a few feet deep and five or six feet across at most. A local government official told CG that only a few hundred people cross the bridge each day. When asked by CG why Ruili's border trade was so much more dynamic, the man laughed and replied, "Here in Wanding we enforce government regulations and collect taxes." From the expressions on their faces, his comment appeared to give our hovering FAO escorts yet another opportunity to be "not amused." -------------- Comments -------------- ¶23. (C) Our tight Yunnan FAO escort throughout the trip appeared to be in sharp contrast with the much more flexible treatment given to Congen personnel during a visit to the area in 2006 to look into anti-trafficking issues (ref B). It is possible this was due to the reported increase in the flow of drugs across China's total 2,200-kilometer long border with Burma. In comments reported in an October 2007 edition of "Yunnan Legal News," the deputy director of the Yunnan Higher People's Court noted: "Yunnan's drug trafficking is still very serious; more traffickers from abroad and other provinces are committing crimes in Yunnan; the number of ice-drug (methamphetamine) users has greatly increased; and more armed drug trafficking has occurred." ¶24. (C) Despite the restrictions they tried to impose this time, however, our FAO officials appeared amiable enough and gave the impression that our handling was "just business, not personal." Neither of the two Kunming FAO officials who traveled with us throughout were Han Chinese. One was Dai and was an expert on Laos who had served several years at the Chinese Embassy in Vientiane. The other was of the Bai minority people. Both indicated they were Buddhists and took time to perform religious devotions at a Buddhist temple we visited outside of Ruili (although the Bai official later claimed that as a Party member she recognized any form of religion as backward superstition, and spoke proudly of having been "sinicized"). In addition to a large seated Buddha, the temple displayed pictures of both Chairman Mao and the King of Thailand. BOUGHNER