Drugs bring Beijing into Burma

China doesn't care about democracy in Burma, only about stability.

They led him along the corridor handcuffed, a small, skinny man in a loose shirt and shorts. In the interrogation room, prominently displayed, was a sign in Chinese characters reading "No torture or forced confessions".

Aware of our TV camera, two policemen read him his rights. They said they had caught him red-handed receiving money in Ruili, the largest town on the border between China and Burma.

He was, they alleged, a link in a chain of five people - two Chinese, three Burmese - smuggling drugs from what used to be called the Golden Triangle.

The Chinese Public Security Bureau is not usually noted for its openness, but the drug squad in Yunnan province was happy to show us around.

As heroin production has increased in the Golden Crescent, centring on Afghanistan, it has decreased in the region bordering China.

Chinese figures show that opium poppy cultivation in the Golden Triangle has dropped from 157,000 hectares ten years ago to 24,160 now. Heroin production in Burma has shrunk by 80 per cent.

Concerned that Chinese border towns were being destabilised by drug addiction, HIV/Aids and crime, the Chinese gave the generals in Rangoon little choice, making independent deals with ethnic warlords and taking over great swathes of land to grow rubber, rice and sugar cane instead of poppies.

"We began the alternative crops campaign in order to reduce the reliance on the drug economy in northern Burma," said Zhang Hua, deputy director of the anti-drug committee of Dehong Prefecture. "We also helped them build an alternative economy, such as manufacturing and tourism industries. We've been very successful."

We drove to Jiegao Special Economic Zone, where four Thai transvestites, dressed in long clinging skirts and high-heeled shoes, their faces caked in white make-up, sat chatting on the ledge of a fountain.

Noticing that we were filming, one coquettishly flipped a purple-gloved hand. Like the jade trinkets and polished lumps of petrified wood in the shops that line the border, the "lady boys" were among the attractions for Chinese tourists wanting a glimpse of their impoverished neighbour.

Cross-border trade and tourism were only minimally affected by the September democracy protests and subsequent arrests, but Chinese officials who have worked hard to curb drug smuggling are worried.

"More than 30 companies from this prefecture are involved in alternative cultivation on over 300,000 hectares of land in Burma," said Zhang.

"If the situation in Burma destabilises, it will certainly affect the results of our companies' endeavours."

Already there are signs that success is under threat. In October, a report from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime warned that poppy cultivation was on the rise again, especially in eastern Burma, and yields were increasing.

Antonio Maria Costa, the director of UNODC, has ascribed the increase to poverty and lawlessness. The US state department takes a different view: it blames "absolute corruption" in the military.

Chinese officials say that many former heroin producers have switched to amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) such as "ice", ketamine and ecstasy, which can be manufactured in crude factories often using chemicals smuggled in across the border from China.

"The international market for new drugs has expanded and the demand has risen. Looking at the future, new drugs will replace traditional drugs on the global market. Drug-dealing groups have also noticed this.

When there's a market, there's production," said Zhang. At a police station in Ruili, drug squad team leader Yangli Qiang showed us a plastic bag of tiny red pills, which retail locally for less than 50 pence each.

Many of the pills are smuggled to Australia and the west via Hong Kong. A two-year study by the US department of justice concludes: "Ample intelligence suggests that south-east Asia is well on its way to become a major ATS supply source in the world. If one thinks the red-hot Asian economy has flooded North America with cheap consumer goods, wait until Asian drug manufacturers show off their entrepreneurial prowess."

At the unofficial border at Wanding, a Burmese teenager rolled up his trouser legs and hoisted his bicycle on to his shoulders to forge the river.

Two little girls said they were coming to China to play with their friends. It is a mark of China's confidence that it tolerates the open border with Burma. Their intelligence network is extensive, and the drug squads usually only mount border patrols when they have solid information that a consignment is on its way.

China doesn't care about democracy in Burma, only about stability. Curbing the drug trade has enabled China to extend its economic penetration and leverage.

Its success gives the lie to Chinese government proclamations that their influence in Burma is limited. On the record, officials give the impression that this is a partnership of equals. But off the record, one official said that the Burmese authorities would do nothing unless the Chinese pushed or did it for them.

But the generals have some leverage, too. The authorities in Yunnan fear that if Beijing threatens to withdraw support, the generals will stop co-operating, and drugs, crime and HIV/Aids will flood back into China, creating more addicts and destabilising the region.

This article first appeared in the New Statesman.

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