Myanmar and Kokang

In this past month, Myanmar air force has apparently waded into Chinese territory 3 times as part of its ongoing struggles with Kokang rebels. In the most recent time, bombs were dropped which killed 5 Chinese citizens. Due to the fact that the vast majorities of Kokang population are ethnically Han Chinese and use RMB as their currency, there is understandably a lot of sympathy in China toward the plight of Kokang. Many people have compared this to Russia and Crimea and others wonder if China should do more in this conflict.

As usual, China keeps to its official stance of not interfering with another country’s internal affairs while building up air defense capabilities in the border area. China painstakingly makes it clear that it’s not supporting Kokang rebels causes, because it has relatively good relationship with Myanmar and does a lot of business in the country. In the future, it is also possible that China would want to set up base in Myanmar to access Indian Ocean. So it should be quite understandable that PLA does not devote much resource in this area. There is 2 regiments stationed in the area, but they are quite a distance away from where the bombings took place. A lot of people were wondering about the readiness of PLAAF to respond to intrusions, but it seems like they really didn’t have that much time based on where the intrusions happened.

The interesting part is that Myanmar first reacted to these bombings by putting the blames on the rebels and absolving itself of all responsibility. They have since toned down their accusations and may have even offered compensations to the victim’s families, but I think they really looked quite foolish in the process. A swift apology and some kind of pledge to investigate the matters would have done a lot to pacify the anger in China right now. As it is, the Chineses gov’t is under pressure to do something.

So far, it looks like they have told Myanmar that this kind of action is not acceptable and will not be tolerated. And I think that if China wants to be the leader in this region, it certainly cannot allow repeated incursion of its airspace and bombing of its citizens. The way to do that is by building up more air defense weapon systems and installing more early warning radar in the range. If China’s radar cannot reliable track Myanmar’s Mig-29s, then they need to improve those radar systems. And if another deadly bombing does occur, then they probably need to launch strikes against certain Myanmar military targets. Other than that, it is in China's interest to keep this as low-key as possible.