Assembling the Sino-Myanmar borderworld

ABSTRACT

While grand schemes of economic corridors and interregional connections are drawn on paper, the highways, railroads and pipelines need to cross the terrestrial and lived borderworlds. The rhetoric and policy agendas of both China and Myanmar signify the states’ power to execute the relevant cross-border connectivities. The article demonstrates how in the lived borderworld between China and Myanmar, at the section of the border between Dehong Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province and Kachin State, respectively, the state is not such a single, unitary and abstract actor that by default determines the cross-border dynamics. The latter emerges within the complex and uneasy assemblage of motley components ranging from human agents with diverse goals to material artifacts and abstract notions, some associated with the state and others not. Applying assemblage as a methodology and a mode of thinking, the article examines these participants on their own terms – based on how they connect to and participate in the heterogeneous and uncomfortably composed borderworld.

KEYWORDS:

• Border
• Sino-Myanmar border
• Kachin
• Dehong
• assemblage

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all participants in the workshop “On Edge: China’s Frontiers in a Time of Change,” October 12–14, 2017, in Kandersteg, Switzerland, for feedback on the first draft of the article. This article has further benefited from the comments by the workshop’s organizers, Agnieszka Joniak-Lüthi (University of Zurich) and Max D. Woodworth (Ohio State University), and from suggestions by Laur Kiik (University of Oxford), David Brenner (Goldsmiths, University of London) and an anonynous reviewer. Any remaining deficiencies are the sole responsibility of the author. The workshop was funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the University of Zurich Fund; the research leading to this article was supported by the Estonian Research Council grant PRG398 ‟Landscape approach to rurbanity.”

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The country’s name was changed from Burma to Myanmar in 1989; the name Burma will be used in references to periods before 1989.

2. Dehong has altogether 504 km of border with Myanmar’s Kachin and Shan States, according to the Dehong government website. Of this, the KIO controls most borderlands opposite Dehong in Kachin State.

3. Sohn (2016) makes such a call but he does not apply assemblage to study a particular border. Eilenberg and Cons (2019) use the notion of “frontier assemblages” as an analytic to understand the forces, actors and processes precipitating productive and extractive transformations at Asian remote and marginal spaces – but not definitely at borders – in the context of global land grabs, capitalist (wealth) accumulation and the related struggles.

4. The names of people have been changed for the purpose of anonymity. Naw Seng’s age was that during the fieldwork encounters in 2000. Jiang Hkawng is the Kachin name for the town of Zhangfeng. The latter (Chinese) name is not used (nor even known) by the Kachin.

5. The number of ethnic minority representatives in China’s provincial, prefecture and county level governments must be commensurate with the share of the respective ethnic population in the autonomous unit, and the Dehong Dai-Jingpo AP has 48 percent Han, 13 percent Jingpo, 14 percent Dai and two percent Lisu. For example, during fieldwork in 2000, the 15 seats for representatives from Ruili District in the Ruili county city level government were distributed in the following way: the Dai and Jingpo minzu each had 5 representatives; one seat was reserved for the Bai and four for the Han.

6. The exception is the Myanmar government controlled Lweje town that the Burmese army won in battles with the KIO in 1987 and that was opened as an official border trade point in 2002.

7. During 1962–2011, the military was the de facto office holder in the country. Under the present constitution, the military retains significant control of the government. In three key strategic areas – Home Affairs, Border Affairs and Defense – it appoints the staff and ministers (who must be serving military officers) for the respective ministries. The General Administration Department (GAD) is housed in the Home Affairs Ministry, while all border affairs officially fall under the direct control of the Ministry of Border Affairs. Finally, it is the Myanmar military’s Northern Regional Command that runs military operations in Kachin State, with which the civilian section of the government, including the President’s Office, has no power to interfere.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Eesti Teadusagentuur [PRG398 Landscape approach to rurbanity].