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Burmese people in China

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Burmese people in China
Total population
351,248[1] (2020, census)
Regions with significant populations
Yunnan
Languages
Burmese language
Related ethnic groups

Burmese people in China mainly live in Yunnan, which borders Myanmar. According to the 2020 Chinese census, a total of 351,000 Burmese nationals live in China. As of 2020, Burmese nationals were the largest group of expatriates in China, whereas the second largest group was the Vietnamese numbering seventy-nine thousand.[1]

Burmese students at the University of International Business and Economics (Beijing) in April 2018

In addition of legal residents, many Burmese people were smuggled to China and found jobs in sweatshops often located in East China.[2] Many Burmese nationals live or work in Yunnan, often in border cities like Ruili.[3] During intensified clashes between armed groups along the China-Myanmar border, many Myanmar refugees enter China and reside in Chinese border camps.[4] During the COVID-19 pandemic, the border was closed, negatively impacting border city economies and creating humanitarian concerns for Burmese refugees.[5]

Borderlands

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See also: China–Myanmar border
Yanlonkyine border gate with China in Kokang, Myanmar

The boundary area is inhabited by non-Han and non-Burmese peoples, and has been traditionally kept as a buffer region between the various Chinese and Burmese empires.[6] The modern border of China and Myanmar also divides several ethnic minorities found in both countries. The ethnic makeup along the China-Myanmar border is further complicated as individuals can identify with multiple ethnic identities depending on specificity and socioeconomic context. Until the 1950s KMT battles, many minorities from Myanmar understood Chinese-ness not as an ethnicity, but as a cultural feature.[7]

The China-Myanmar border is porous as a militarized strict border control was controversial prior to 2020. Burmese migrant workers are included within the economy of Chinese border cities in Yunnan Province through a "compromise-oriented border control." China implemented flexible migration for Burmese workers while implementation surveillance, policing and other enforcement tactics in border cities instead of only at the border. Burmese migrants in Chinese border cities live and work within China but endure economic exploitation, spatial confinement and social discrimination.[8] In 2015, China Daily reported that approximately 50 thousand Burmese people were working in Ruili, Yunnan. They mostly worked in industries of jewellery and rosewood as well as tourism in the service sector.[9] In recent years, several towns along the border, such as Mong La, Ruili and Muse, have become centres of gambling, prostitution and drug smuggling.[10][11][12] Before the outbreak of COVID-19, 50,000 Burmese nationals crossed the border every day, including those working in Chinese border cities.[3] During the pandemic, Ruili's population declined by 40,000 with many businesses being forced to close as China's Zero-COVID policy cut off all trade and migration with Myanmar until the partial reopening of the border checkpoint in January 2023.[5]

In 2022, around a thousand Myanmar migrant workers were being held in Chinese detention centers. The vast majority of the detainees were undocumented illegal border crossers held in Yunnan after overstaying their six-day tourist visas. A hundred other Myanmar nationals were held in Guangdong province, some arrested during factory raids by Chinese police.[13]

Human trafficking

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Yunnan has also become a "hot spot" for human trafficking since 2008 with instances of transnational marriage, mail-order brides and marriage migration between Myanmar and China have become more prevalent in Yunnan.[14] There have been reports of over 7000 Burmese women and girls being sold for sexual slavery in China, where they are sold as "brides".[15] Women were also reported to have been sold multiple times for the purpose of forced childbirth.[16]

Refugees

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Yunnan province sheltered tens of thousands of refugees during periods of intensified clashes between Myanmar's military and ethnic armed organisations throughout the 2010s.[17] Between 7,000 and 10,000 Kachin refugees entered camps in Yunnan fleeing fighting in 2011. Soon after the initial displacement, refugees were potentially denied entry or forcibly returned to IDP camps in Myanmar.[18] China denied accusations of forcing refugees back stating that those sent back were not refugees.[19] Following the 2015 Kokang offensive in Myanmar, many Burmese nationals fled across the border to China. According to the United Nations, the conflict drove 70,000 people across the border into China with 27,000 remaining in China until 2016.[4] Renewed clashes in Kokang in 2017 sent at least 20,000 people to enter border camps set up in China. The refugees received humanitarian assistance from the Chinese government.[20]

In 2021, in the wake of the intensifying violence after the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, China scrambled to secure its borders and limit refugees over fears of COVID-19. Seven thousand border guards were deployed to erect barbed wire fences near major border crossings.[3] While China no longer allows Myanmar refugees or asylum seekers, many of Myanmar's internally displaced people (IDPs) conduct cross-border trade as border residents. The Chinese government continues to use a localized model of border control to prevent a large influx of refugees through providing cross-border livelihoods for displaced Burmese nationals on the border.[21]

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References

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  1. ^ a b 网易 (2022-06-26). "谁是"外籍居民"第一省？你绝对想不到". www.163.com. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
  2. ^ "洋黑工热衷赴华打工挣钱 已形成地下产业链(图)-搜狐新闻". news.sohu.com. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
  3. ^ a b c Shih, Gerry; Li, Lyric (21 April 2021). "China scrambles to lock down Myanmar border amid fears of coronavirus and coup instability". Washington Post.
  4. ^ a b Wang, Ann (8 April 2016). "Kokang refugees in China". The Diplomat.
  5. ^ a b Agence France-Presse (16 Jan 2023). "Coronavirus: China-Myanmar border towns eye revival after Covid". South China Morning Post.
  6. ^ "International Boundary Study No. 42 – Burma-China Boundary" (PDF). US DOS. 30 November 1964. Retrieved 17 September 2020.
  7. ^ Toyota, Mika (2003). "Contested Chinese identities among ethnic minorities in the China, Burma and Thai borderlands". Ethnic and Racial Studies. 26 (2): 301–320. doi:10.1080/0141987032000054448. S2CID 145372607.
  8. ^ Su, Xiaobo; Cai, Xiaomei (13 June 2019). "Space of Compromise: Border Control and the Limited Inclusion of Burmese Migrants in China". Annals of the American Association of Geographers. 110 (3): 847–863. doi:10.1080/24694452.2019.1644989. S2CID 204435944.
  9. ^ "在云南的缅甸人[1]- 中国日报网". pic.chinadaily.com.cn. Retrieved 2023-01-18.
  10. ^ Asia Times Online, Virtual gambling in Myanmar's drug country, Michael Black and Roland Fields, Aug 26, 2006
  11. ^ "Asia Times Online :: south-east Asia news – Virtual gambling in Myanmar's drug country". Atimes.com. 2006-08-26. Archived from the original on 2006-10-19. Retrieved 2012-11-29.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  12. ^ "Strategic Programme Framework: Union of Myanmar 2004–2007" (PDF). United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Retrieved 2009-01-01.
  13. ^ "More than 1,000 Myanmar migrants in China wait months or years for deportation". Radio Free Asia. 27 May 2022.
  14. ^ Yang, Wen-shen; Lu, Melody Chia-Wen (2010). Asian Cross-Border Marriage Migration: Demographic Patterns and Social Issues. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
  15. ^ "Interview: Why 'Brides' From Myanmar Are Trafficked to China". Human Rights Watch. 21 March 2019. Archived from the original on 15 June 2020. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
  16. ^ "Thousands of Myanmar women forced into marriages in China". DW. 7 December 2018. Archived from the original on 25 March 2020. Retrieved 2 July 2020.
  17. ^ USIP China Myanmar Senior Study Group (14 September 2018). China's Role in Myanmar's Internal Conflicts. United States Institute of Peace (Report).
  18. ^ Human Rights Watch (25 June 2012). "Isolated in Yunnan: Kachin Refugees from Burma in China's Yunnan Province". hrw.org.
  19. ^ "China deports Myanmar refugees amid fighting, says group". South China Morning Post.
  20. ^ "Myanmar violence: 20,000 people seek refuge in China". BBC. 5 March 2017.
  21. ^ Zhou, Can; Wu, Shuitian; Su, Xiabo (February 2022). "Cross-border Livelihood: Trade, labor, and internal displacement at the Myanmar-China Border". Geoforum. 129: 49–59. doi:10.1016/j.geoforum.2022.01.002. S2CID 246049986.
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