The Southern Great Wall on the China-Myanmar Border
Funding both sides of a civil war and demonizing refugees? Truly, China is a great power.
The Southern Great Wall on the China-Myanmar Border
Ge“Our side is like heaven. Over there… I won’t say.” A Chinese vlogger says, as he walks along the Chinese side of the newly built barbed wires on the China-Myanmar border. The video footage shows an ever-extending wall of barbed wires cutting across the Chinese border town. The video was shot in 2021, when the border fence between China and Myanmar was expanded significantly in scale and technical capabilities. The new spiked fences were now equipped with surveillance cameras, an infrared sensor, and an alert system. Chinese border patrol staff checkpoints along the fence, ready to respond to alerts of irregular crossings.
In a 2020 interview published by state media, the Police Bureau Chief in Ruili, a Chinese border town, introduced its five new strategies to prevent irregular border crossings. This includes a bounty system where Chinese citizens could report irregular crossings for 1000 Chinese Yuan (140 USD) each; a systematic sweep of informal bridges and tunnels; and a new system of 316 checkpoints to patrol the 170km-long border. Dubbed the newly established “Southern Great Wall,” the 2000 kilometer long border between China and Myanmar was completely fortified with the high-tech barbed wire system by the end of the pandemic.
The informality of border crossing norms between China and Myanmar prior to the pandemic has facilitated vibrant cross-border commerce and integration, but the lack of state control over these border crossings has also long troubled authorities. Indeed, the border itself was only officially settled in 1960 with the China-Burma Boundary Treaty, in which China conceded significant territories to Myanmar. Many border communities found themselves divided in two different countries overnight—many did not even know this change occurred at the time.
Despite the settling of official boundaries, border communities continued to maintain close familial, cultural, social, and economic ties with one another, partly due to the insufficient state capacity to enforce the border in the early years of the People’s Republic. After China’s Reform & Opening, the border became an important element in the state’s strategy to marketize and establish its position as a facilitator of regional trade. In the border town of Ruili, for instance, one-third of the population were foreign nationals before COVID-19. The local economy of many border towns like Ruili was sustained almost completely by cross-border trade.
It is therefore unsurprising that COVID-19 and China’s harsh COVID restrictions spelled doom for many who make their livelihood on trade across the China-Myanmar border. The Chinese authorities’ approach to the border has shifted almost entirely to a security-centric one—achieving security at ‘any costs necessary.’ As Dai Rongli, a Party cadre who served in Ruili, wrote in his open letter to the Central Government, “barbed wires can’t block the desire for livelihood... it is essential to restore production and trade for the town to save itself.”
It isn’t just the coronavirus that the ‘Southern Great Wall’ seeks to keep at bay. The 2021 coup d’etat in Myanmar saw the country descend into a full-out civil war between the military junta, the armed wing of the civilian government (The People’s Defense Force), and various ethnic armed organizations on Myanmar’s borders. While conflict has always been present in the Shan and Kachin states of Myanmar, between ethnic armed organizations and the central government in Naypyidaw, 2021 saw dramatic increases in conflict intensity, and with it produced significant refugees and displaced populations within Myanmar. These refugees were kept out of China’s borders with the border fence, and alleged use of tear gas by Chinese military police on refugees seeking to cross the border.
While China is party to the 1951 Refugee Convention and the 1967 Protocol, it has yet to establish a legal mechanism for accepting refugee entry, determining refugee status, and enforcing refugee protection. Its policies in the past, notably as it pertains to North Korean refugees, have contradicted the non-refoulement principle established by the Convention, which prevents countries from deporting refugees back to countries where they feared persecution. Refugees who manage to cross into China have no avenue to secure documentation for legal presence or be relocated to a safe third country.
Judging from social media sentiments, the walling out of refugees has been popular in China. “Crazy Warfare-Show” (军武次位面), a nationalist and hawkish influencer account on the Chinese internet with more than 520 million views on Sohu alone, writes:
During the 2009 and 2015 Kokang civil unrests, China accepted tens of thousands of [ethnic Han] Kokang people out of humanitarian concerns, but found that the refugees posed significant dangers to Chinese society, as they started to kill, rob, sell drugs, and rape… Many militias there are sponsored by the American government, and we don’t know if they would infiltrate China as refugees… What if they create trouble pretending to be Chinese people?
Many comments under the post echoed these sentiments. A user posting from an American IP address says, “look at the havoc refugees have wrecked in Europe. We must prevent refugees from coming in at all costs.” Another posting from Hebei says, “none of these so-called ‘refugees’ is innocent! They helped massacre Chinese people in Myanmar… Just let them die, don’t have any kindness for these degenerates!” Many of these comments echo Western far-right nationalist anxieties about refugee criminality and ‘impurity.’ These worries could perhaps best be summed up with Donald Trump’s (in)famous comments about Mexican immigrants in the United States: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
It is worthy to note, in this context, that the Chinese state has had a direct hand in the exacerbation of the crisis in Myanmar and the continuous displacement of civilian populations. While generally seen to support the ruling junta, the Chinese state also maintains close ties with and strong influence over various ethnic armed organizations, particularly in Northern Myanmar. It is widely assumed that ‘Operation 1027’, one of the more successful counter-offensives of the Myanmar opposition against the junta, was tacitly approved by the Chinese government, and its subsequent halt was also mandated by the Chinese government. It imposed a border blockade on critical goods like medical supplies at Muse and other checkpoints between China and Myanmar in October 2024, after it became apparent that the ethnic armed organizations were making too many gains.
China is effectively perpetuating conflict to shape regional power distributions to its own interests. In that process, countless numbers of people are forced to flee their homes, only to be turned away at a fortified border designed to keep them out. Many commentators note the hypocrisy of China’s claim to non-interference in the domestic affairs of other countries: in his article for Foreign Affairs, Ye Myo Hein, visiting scholar at the U.S. Institute for Peace writes that “Beijing’s involvement is prolonging Myanmar’s destructive war.” Within its own sphere of influence in Southeast Asia, the Chinese state has gradually began to learn from the playbooks of other superpowers—perpetuating war for one’s own strategic gains without considering the impacts on civilians in the region.
Alongside refugees, the fence also aims to block out the drug trade which is notoriously prevalent in the ‘Golden Triangle’ of Southeast Asia. China is especially sensitive to the threat of narcotic drugs, given its history of the Opium War and the narrative that the imperial British drug trade weakened the Chinese nation and was partially responsible for China’s “century of humiliation.” The suspicion of migrants and refugees coming from China’s southern border is compounded by the perception that they will bring drug-related crimes into China with them. The Ministry of Public Security’s 2022 Report on drug-related crimes in China indicates that the Golden Triangle continues to be the main source region of narcotics flowing into China. Organized crime groups and local militias alike in the region often use the drug trade as well as telecom fraud to fund their illicit operations. In recent years, the term ‘North Myanmar’ has become synonymous with forced labor and organized crime on the Chinese internet, with stories of organ harvesting and modern slavery dominating the Chinese imaginary of the other side of the China-Myanmar border.
Organized crime is not just a reason to keep people from Myanmar out; it is also invoked as a justification to keep people in. The border fence is part of how the government stops Chinese citizens from illegally crossing the border to join organized crime groups. This is in conjunction with restrictions on legal means for citizens to travel to countries deemed ‘high-risk’ for organized crime. Under political pressures from the Central Government to crackdown on telecom fraud industry recruitment, local police have denied passport issuance, placed exit bans on citizens, and turned people away at airport check-in desks. In early 2023, the local government in Enshi, Hubei Province announced that its residents would be required to file an application to the local Ministry of Public Security to travel to high-risk countries, including Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, UAE, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, and Türkiye. These exit restrictions mainly target residents of less economically developed regions in China, as they are judged to be more likely to be lured into illicit employment at organized crime groups, and less likely to be legitimate tourists for international destinations.
Aside from exit restrictions being placed on people who may be traveling to join the organized crime groups in Southeast Asia, there are also restrictions outlined in Chinese law that prevents those who may ‘endanger national security’ if they are allowed outside the country. This has been used to justify exit bans on well-known dissident figures as well as foreign nationals accused of espionage. Putting together exit bans through legal channels and increasingly fortified physical borders preventing illegal crossings, the Chinese state has gained unprecedented levels of governance capacity over its borderlands. While the rugged terrain of the region once facilitated its ‘art of not being governed’, the state projects its power by projecting lines on the map into barbed wires on the ground.
While the fence prohibits cross-border flows that are seen as threatening to state integrity and interest, it regulates and selectively approves flows that are apparently in the state’s economic and political interests. China’s signature infrastructural investment project in Myanmar, the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), launched before the 2021 coup, has continued despite the ongoing civil war in Myanmar. These infrastructural projects range from gas pipelines, railroad projects to highway projects, with the strategic aim of connecting Southwestern China to the Indian Ocean, circumventing the need for Chinese cargo and energy supply to pass through the Malacca Strait, which is widely seen to be under the influence of the U.S. navy.
However, these projects are widely unpopular amongst the population of Myanmar, partially stemming from popular resentment of the Chinese support for the ruling junta. Following the 2021 coup, China was one of the only remaining countries that supplied economic and military resources to Myanmar despite global sanctions against the regime. In a 2024 survey conducted by the Institute for Strategy and Policy Myanmar, 54% of respondents from sectors across Burmese society said that China was “not a good neighbor” or “not good at all.” The China-Myanmar oil and gas pipeline, a signature Belt & Road Initiative project, have been attacked by local militias and armed resistance groups, as they were seen as symbolic of China’s complicity with the junta’s crimes. The construction of the pipeline has also led to displacement of local residents with little to no compensation for land and lost livelihoods.
It is against this background that earlier this year, the junta enacted the Private Security Services Law, enabling Chinese private security firms to operate in the country to protect Chinese investments and business interests. The new law also requires private security firms to assist law enforcement for the junta. Some critics worry that the law would effectively offer a backdoor for Chinese military personnel to enter Myanmar, disguised as private security firms, although the bill requires that at least 75% of employees of these private security firms to be citizens of Myanmar. Regardless, the presence of Chinese security companies in Myanmar could further raise tensions between different stakeholders, as an attack by ethnic armed organizations or the People’s Defense Force on the Chinese security personnel could be seen as provocative for the Chinese state, which would in turn add even more to its security presence in the country.
The picture that begins to arise from China’s plans for the border’s future is clear. Between further securitization which could threaten the bottom line for Chinese capital investments, and liberalization which could endanger the projection of Chinese sovereign power in its borderlands, the state has chosen to develop capacity for securitizing the border while allowing cross-border flows that are in its own interest. At the expense of this new arrangement are border communities and the broader connection between the people of China and Myanmar, as further entrenchment and fortification on the border makes it increasingly challenging to humanize the other side. The Wall produces a Chinese imaginary of Myanmar as criminal, undeveloped, and dangerous; it produces a Burmese imaginary of China as predatory, corrupt, and unjust. Nor do Chinese investment interests stand to gain in the long run from this lose-lose arrangement: repressed anger at land appropriation and displacement will not go away when confronted by private security guards with guns; in fact, it only feeds into a vicious cycle that could one day have catastrophic consequences for everyone involved.
Diego Ge is an intern for China Focus at The Carter Center and studies Political Science and International Comparative Studies at Duke University.
The views expressed in this article represent those of the author(s) and not those of The Carter Center.
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That’s all from Atlanta. Y’all be good.
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Voters in the U.S. are hostile to immigration. 🤷♂️ I don’t know why. America was great when all you needed to go from Mexico into the U.S. was a horse. Before 1965 workers could freely enter the U.S. from Mexico.
China seems to have difficulty too. This article speaks of immigration from Myanmar. But the border with North Korea has been a bigger problem for far longer. And NE China has a huge Korean population.
Chinese and Americans, so often we are alike.