Spill-over of the Chinese Civil War across the Border

When Mao Zedong 毛泽东 declared the founding of the PRC on 1 October 1949, Yunnan was still largely under the control of the KMT, whose troops were stationed across the province and preparing to defend against the approaching People's Liberation Army (PLA). On 9 December, Yunnan governor Lu Han 卢汉 defected to the communist side. Following their failure to recapture Kunming, sections of the KMT troops retreated south, with the PLA in pursuit. By February 1950, two remaining sections of the 8th and 26th armies, approximately 2,000 soldiers, crossed the border into Burma's Shan State, and occupied part of a triangle-shaped area around Kengtung and Tachileik, bound by the Mekong River to the east, and Thailand and Laos to the south.Footnote ⁷ Under the leadership of Li Mi 李弥, they would remain in the eastern part of the Shan State for almost a decade.Footnote ⁸

The presence of the KMT troops in Burma irked both the Chinese and Burmese governments. Rangoon certainly did not like the presence of a foreign army on its soil, especially as it was aiming to establish diplomatic relations with Beijing and also dealing with the reality of its own emerging civil war as various ethnic rebellions were flaring. On 8 June 1950, Beijing and Rangoon exchanged embassies, and Burma became the first non-socialist country to recognize the Chinese communist government. Subsequently, Beijing notified the Rangoon government that if the latter were unable to expel the KMT troops, the PLA was willing to assist it in doing so.Footnote ⁹ Worried about the prospect of a military intervention by the Chinese communists and fearing that the latter might not leave afterwards, the Burmese government stepped up its own military offence against the KMT troops. In mid-June, the Burmese government launched airstrikes and a ground attack, yet its forces were no match for the KMT troops and were defeated in Tachileik.

On the understanding that the United States had influence over the Republic of China (ROC) government in Taipei, Rangoon diplomatically requested that the US government put pressure on Chiang Kai-shek 蒋介石 to remove the KMT troops; otherwise, it would appeal to the United Nations. The Burmese government framed its request to the US government on the premise that the KMT presence in its territory diverted its own military resources away from dealing with internal communist and ethnic rebellions. This initially caught the sympathy of the Americans because Washington did not want to see a domestically unstable Burma.

However, the outbreak of the Korean War in October 1950 and Chinese support for North Korea fundamentally altered the US strategic outlook in East Asia. Fearing the “domino effect” of communist expansion in the region, and deeming the Chinese communist government to be its primary adversary, the US government changed its previously cautious approach towards the KMT troops in Burma.Footnote ¹⁰ The CIA, without the US Department of State's knowledge, covertly launched “Operation Paper,” a programme to furnish Li Mi's troops with the weapons, equipment and other logistical support to attack Yunnan in the hope that Li Mi's troops would be able to engage the Chinese military in the south-west and thus reduce pressure on the US troops in Korea.Footnote ¹¹

In order for Operation Paper to succeed, the Americans needed the support of the Thai government. At this time, Phibun Songkram's government was also actively seeking international support to strengthen the position of its army against other competing power bases, such as the navy, which supported Phibun's rival, Pridi Banomyong. Publicly declaring himself a staunch anti-communist strongman, Phibun succeeded in winning over the US by presenting Thailand as the ideal base for US anti-communist activities in South-East Asia.Footnote ¹² When the Korean War started, Phibun's government quickly pledged its support to the Americans, first by announcing the delivery of rice and then by sending troops to Korea.Footnote ¹³ Thailand also offered itself as a base for covert US operations against China, such as Operation Paper. By allowing military logistical support to transit through Thai territories into Burma's Shan State, Thailand became a crucial link between the KMT and the CIA.Footnote ¹⁴

With US support, Li Mi actively recruited soldiers in the borderland area, many of whom were previously militiamen, mabang 马帮 bandits, or from local chieftain (tusi 土司) armies. By the end of 1950, Li claimed to have amassed around 12,500 soldiers, many more than the original number that had first crossed the border from China.Footnote ¹⁵ Li Mi's troops launched their first major attack on Yunnan in May 1951. Following initial success in which they captured several counties along the border, the troops were quickly repelled by the PLA, and in July, they retreated to Burma once again. Despite not making any military gains against the PLA, Li's military bases in Burma grew and came to effectively dominate the eastern part of Shan State. The Yunnan Anti-Communist and Anti-Soviet University (Yunnan Fangong Kang'e Daxue 云南反共抗俄大学) was established in October 1951 and began recruiting students in December of that year.Footnote ¹⁶ A new airport, built to receive military equipment from Taiwan, was also constructed at Mong Hsat.

The expansion of KMT forces in the Shan State fundamentally changed the domestic military balance within Burma. By March 1953, it was estimated that 80 per cent of the Burmese government's military force was engaged in fighting the KMT, rather than combatting communists and other insurgents.Footnote ¹⁷ Indeed, the Eisenhower administration concluded that supporting the KMT in Burma did more harm than good to US security interests in South-East Asia in that it not only consumed the Burmese military force but also created a possible pretext for military intervention by the PLA. This prompted the US government to put pressure on the ROC government to withdraw the KMT from Burma.Footnote ¹⁸ In March 1953, the Burmese government filed a complaint with the United Nations, and the following month the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution demanding that the KMT “be disarmed and either agree to internment or leave the Union of Burma forthwith.”Footnote ¹⁹ At around the same time, Burma also agreed to form a joint committee with Taiwan, Thailand and the United States to oversee the evacuation of the KMT from the Shan State. However, although Taipei agreed to such a move, it was not genuinely willing to carry it out, at least not initially. In the first round of evacuations in November 1953, only the elderly, the disabled, and women and children were removed, but no soldiers, and the KMT troops handed in only weapons that were no longer in working condition.Footnote ²⁰

The US finally succeeded in pressuring the ROC to carry out more meaningful evacuations. By October 1954, nearly 7,000 KMT personnel had been evacuated, although several thousand remained.Footnote ²¹ This was partly owing to Chiang Kai-shek's inability to compel everyone to leave, as by this time many KMT members were engaged in the lucrative opium trade and had little reason to move to Taiwan. In 1960, Beijing and Rangoon reached a bilateral agreement on border demarcation and signed the “Treaty of Friendship and Mutual Nonaggression.”Footnote ²² Rangoon agreed to Beijing's proposal for joint military action with the PLA against KMT troops, a move which eventually succeeded in defeating and driving the KMT out of Burma in 1961.Footnote ²³ Afterwards, the remaining KMT troops, also known as “Chinese irregulars,” relocated to Thailand and were sustained for many years by the opium trade between Thailand, Burma and Laos, as they continued to roam along the porous mountainous borderland region unchecked.

Solidification of the Chinese Border Region

The new communist government secured control over most of the Chinese mainland in 1950. However, it faced strong resistance in areas where it historically lacked popular support, especially in the south and south-west of the country, which were mostly “liberated” through military means. Throughout south-west China, owing to the rough mountainous terrain, sporadic military resistance by bandits (tufei 土匪), remnants of the KMT forces (jiangfei canyu 蒋匪残余) and ethnic rebels persisted. For example, in Guizhou, bandits still partially controlled nearly half of the province's counties in August 1951.Footnote ²⁴ As in other revolutionary movements, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would rely on state-sanctioned terror to subdue and pacify those resisting the new order. To that end, an extensive “Campaign to suppress counterrevolutionaries” (zhenya fangeming 镇压反革命) took place from 1950 to 1953, violently eliminating many real and imagined enemies of the new regime. During the campaign, at least 700,000 were executed, 1,200,000 imprisoned, and another 1,200,000 placed under state surveillance.Footnote ²⁵

Immediately following the entry of the Chinese People's Voluntary Army into the Korean War in order to “resist the United States and assist Korea” (kangmei yuanchao 抗美援朝), Mao signed a new directive to suppress counterrevolutionaries. The war effort in Korea raised huge domestic patriotic support for the CCP, which the Party took advantage of to eliminate many of its internal enemies.Footnote ²⁶ In April 1951, the minister for public security, Luo Ruiqing 罗瑞卿, gave a speech on the need to resolutely suppress counterrevolutionaries.Footnote ²⁷ In this speech, he pointed out that the suppression of counterrevolutionaries was a necessary condition for supporting Chinese military activities in Korea and carrying out domestic land reforms. Luo also emphasized how the campaign was needed to defeat the KMT bandits (Jiang Jieshi feibang 蒋介石匪帮) who wanted to retake the Chinese mainland with the help of the American imperialists (meidiguo zhuyi 美帝国主义).

Indeed, the CCP government put strong emphasis on pacifying the south-west, and in particular, the borderland area between Yunnan and Burma. A January 1951 report submitted to Mao Zedong by He Long 贺龙 and Deng Xiaoping 邓小平 summarized the military's success against bandits in south-west China, but also mentioned the major challenges remaining along the border.Footnote ²⁸ According to a report prepared by the South-West Bureau of Public Security in 1952, Li Mi's troops maintained a strong presence in Burma and constantly harassed the Chinese side of the border. The report stated that Li Mi led an estimated 13,000 soldiers who conducted surprise attacks at night, propagated slogans against the CCP's suppression of counterrevolutionaries, and killed soldiers, militia members, cadres and local activists.Footnote ²⁹ The same report also noted that the KMT and its “imperialist supporters” had set up 21 stations along the border, including espionage stations, liaison offices and training centres. Supposedly, these spy stations were involved in the gathering of information from the Chinese side of the border, organizing rebellions and sabotaging inter-ethnic unity. For example, it noted that in Baoshan 保山 district, Longling 龙陵 county, bandits from across the border killed more than 80 cadres and local activists.Footnote ³⁰ According to another internal Party document released by Xinhua in 1954, between November 1953 and March 1954 there were 2,200 sabotage incidents, which led to 102 deaths, 94 injuries and financial losses of 1.4 billion yuan.Footnote ³¹ The same document also noted how the counterrevolutionaries spread anti-communist slogans such as “socialism is suffering,” “socialist transition only leads to hunger,” and so forth. Assassination attempts were made against the Party secretaries of Mojiang 墨江 and Ludian 鲁甸 counties. Furthermore, there were many popular protests against the Chinese government's grain procurements, also ostensibly orchestrated by the counterrevolutionaries.Footnote ³²

Faced with such challenges, the Chinese government responded in a number of ways. The first was violent suppression. Around 23,000 people were executed in the south-west by October 1951, with another 62,000 imprisoned and 15,000 placed under surveillance. In total, 190,000–200,000 people were executed between 1950 and 1953, constituting 0.21 per cent of the population of the south-west.Footnote ³³ Indeed, for the duration of the “Campaign to suppress counterrevolutionaries,” Mao decreed that executions should be carried out according to a quota, set at 0.1 per cent of the whole population.Footnote ³⁴ It appears that the execution rate in the south-west was double the national average. This could be an indicator of the more serious resistance faced by the CCP in the south-west, but it might also be the case that in that region the government was more ruthless and indiscriminate in its use of state violence, which certainly included many errors.Footnote ³⁵

The CCP also realized that the situation in the borderland region was more complicated than in inland areas. The long and porous border meant that exit was an easy option. The excessive use of violence risked driving local people across the border into Burma. Moreover, the region was composed of many different ethnic groups, and indeed, many local ethnic chieftains and community leaders, facing an uncertain future, did cross the border when the CCP took over. In Xishuangbanna 西双版纳, the reigning Dai 傣 king's father, Dao Dongting 刀栋庭, fled to Burma's Shan State in 1949 in anticipation of the PLA's arrival.Footnote ³⁶ In Baoshan district, Silashan 司拉山, who was a Jingpo 景颇 Christian pastor, also escaped to Burma in August 1952 in the wake of the CCP's campaign to suppress counterrevolutionaries and the associated negative implications for Christianity as a religion for the Jingpo people.Footnote ³⁷ Not only did the CCP government want to prevent the exodus of such ethnic leaders, it also wished to avoid stirring up ethnic problems locally, incidents which its external enemies could exploit. It realized its policies and practices in the borderland area were deeply intertwined with the need to prevent external sabotage and meddling.Footnote ³⁸ This required the CCP to approach the consolidation of its control over the borderland area with some caution.Footnote ³⁹

In a June 1952 decree on land reform in Yunnan, Liu Shaoqi 刘少奇 emphasized the necessity of maintaining social order, increasing interethnic unity and winning the support of ethnic leaders, in addition to rooting out bandits and counterrevolutionaries.Footnote ⁴⁰ For that reason, land reform was not initially carried out in 26 counties along the border. The decree stated that land reform should only be carried out in moderation in those counties close to but not directly on the border. It also declared that land reform was suitable only in lowland areas where interethnic relations were good and where the counterrevolutionaries had been suppressed.Footnote ⁴¹ Such moderation was emphasized because the CCP had realized the complexities of the borderland area and the dangers of rushing such socio-political transformations. Land reform in these areas was only gradually implemented in 1955–1957.Footnote ⁴² “Peacefully negotiated land reform” (heping xieshang tudi gaige 和平协商土地改革) was carried out on relatively peaceful terms, without the excessive violence and killing of landlords that occurred in most provinces.Footnote ⁴³ For the same reason, the CCP decided not to implement religious reforms in the region's existing Protestant and Catholic churches, as it did in other parts of China, in order to gradually win over the loyalty of the many borderland ethnic minorities, such as the Jingpo and Lisu 傈僳, who had been evangelized by Western missionaries.Footnote ⁴⁴

In order to avoid stirring up ethnic tensions, local leaders were actively courted because the CCP recognized that in order to consolidate its control in these areas, cooperation with the existing social hierarchies was necessary.Footnote ⁴⁵ Guidance offered by the South-West Bureau instructed lower-level Party organizations to maintain long-term unity with ethnic leaders. It reasoned that only through such a cooperative relationship could the Party carry out its work locally because ethnic leaders were also the targets of influence by the KMT “bandits” and “imperialists” across the border.Footnote ⁴⁶ Consequently, in Xishuangbanna, Dai aristocrats were co-opted into the new government following the establishment of the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Region in 1953,Footnote ⁴⁷ and “many pre-existing cultural and political structures were left intact and even subsumed into the party-state structure.”Footnote ⁴⁸ In Dehong 德宏, a Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Region was established in 1953, with a Dai tusi, Dao Jingban 刀京版, as the chairman, and several Dai and Jingpo ethnic leaders as vice-chairmen, including Silashan, the Jingpo Christian pastor who had previously fled to Burma but who was later persuaded to return to China by the CCP.Footnote ⁴⁹ The Party also actively recruited members from among the ethnic populations in the borderland area. In Dehong, 25 per cent of the local CCP cadres were ethnic minorities by the end of 1958.Footnote ⁵⁰ In Xishuangbanna, about 30 per cent of the cadres were ethnic minorities by 1955.Footnote ⁵¹

It was by using such a mixed approach to borderland management that the new communist government established and consolidated its rule in Yunnan. By the mid-1950s, most opponents to the new government had been physically removed through the “Campaign to suppress counterrevolutionaries.” The new government's moderate approach to land reform, ethnic and religious matters also won over the people. Politically, the CCP established a series of ethnically autonomous governments along the border. In addition to Xishuangbanna and Dehong, a few other county-level autonomous areas were established in places such as Menglian 孟连, Gengma 耿马, and so forth, where a modern bureaucracy was introduced in the form of a people's government. The Party also actively recruited local members, especially in the rural areas.Footnote ⁵² In Dehong, by mid-1955, extensive Party cells had been established in many townships via which peaceful methods of land reform were carried out.

Economically, the new government worked to secure the dominant position of the new currency, the renminbi yuan, in the borderland markets, gradually reducing the circulation of Burmese kyats and Indian rupees. For example, in Dehong the Burmese kyat was banned by mid-1954, and by mid-1955 the yuan's market share had increased to 70 per cent.Footnote ⁵³ The new government also started to ban the planting of poppies and instead recommended tea as a substitute, although poppy cultivation was not eradicated until the early 1960s.Footnote ⁵⁴ The new government also took measures to establish health facilities. By the early 1960s, every district in Yunnan had at least one health clinic, and malaria and other tropical diseases were brought under control.Footnote ⁵⁵ The Party also set up new school systems along the border, and by the early 1960s, primary school enrolment among children reached 57 per cent.Footnote ⁵⁶ Thus, throughout the 1950s, the CCP government gradually built up and consolidated state institutions in the borderland area. Although political radicalization from the Great Leap Forward onwards would once again destabilize the area – for example, in 1958 there was an exodus of borderland people to Burma owing to famine and a shortage of grainFootnote ⁵⁷ – the state's control of the Chinese side of the border became entrenched and unchallenged.

Militarization of the Borderland and Fragmentation of the Burmese State

Burma's independence from Britain in 1948 did not bring about Burmese national unity or solidarity among its diverse ethnic population, as promised in the Panglong Agreement signed a year earlier. The assassination of Aung San in July 1947 deprived Burma of a unifying figure. But, fundamentally, many of the problems the Union of Burma faced stemmed from the fractures left by its colonial legacy and were all but impossible to overcome. Ethnic minorities such as the Karens and Kachins, who had staffed the colonial army, now faced the political reality of the ethnic Bamar claiming sole possession of the country. Communal violence towards the Karens soon intensified, and rebellions organized by the Karen National Union against the Rangoon government broke out in January 1949. Later, the First Kachin Rifles defected from the Burmese army. With a communist insurgency, which had been brewing since the first half of 1948, and subsequent ethnic rebellions in several states, Burma found itself embroiled in a bitter civil war that engulfed much of its territory within a year of independence.Footnote ⁵⁸

By the end of the 1949 rainy season, the government of Prime Minister U Nu controlled little more than the capital, Rangoon. Appealing for support from citizens, U Nu called for the nation to rally behind his slogan, “Peace within one year.”Footnote ⁵⁹ After a year and half of bitter fighting, the tide did indeed begin to turn against the various insurgencies. With the expansion of the Burmese army, which consumed 40 per cent of the national budget, military success against various rebels meant a general improvement in the domestic situation.Footnote ⁶⁰ In an interview with a British newspaper, The Observer, on 21 May 1950, U Nu confidently asserted that the civil war in Burma was coming to an end.Footnote ⁶¹

Although the propaganda value of such self-congratulatory reports is clear – it was certainly an exaggeration that “Peace within one year” could be achieved – there is no denying that by 1950 the central government had significantly recovered from its previous position of weakness. Throughout 1950, the Burmese army achieved significant military gains against the Karen National Defence Organization (KNDO). For example, an article in the government journal, Burma, reported that: “On the morning of 19 March, Government forces, making a lightening thrust from Zeyawaddy and Nyaungchidauk, broke through to Toungoo the same evening, capturing the former ‘Kawthulay Capital’ without meeting any opposition.”Footnote ⁶² According to the same report, by November “there was practically no insurgent activity of importance in any sector.”Footnote ⁶³ However, the KMT's invasion and occupation of the Eastern Shan State significantly disrupted the balance of military power within Burma. Most importantly, the security threat posed by the KMT in the context of the great-power competition during the Cold War meant that the Burmese government had to divert its attention and resources away from fighting the Communist Party of Burma, KNDO, and other ethnic rebellions. Thus, the KMT incursion provided these internal insurgencies with the breathing space to hide and regroup in rural and jungle areas. In a report sent from the US embassy in Rangoon to the State Department, the first secretary Albert Franklin noted the negative consequences of the KMT presence in Burma: it “compounds the effectiveness of the Communist threat, not only by diverting a portion of the Burmese armed forces, and by affording a horrible example of ‘Western disruptive and warmongering techniques’, but also by casting doubt on the Burmese government's sincerity as a bulwark against Western exploitation.”Footnote ⁶⁴

Worse still, the KMT also began to forge links with the KNDO and other ethnic rebel groups. In January 1952, KMT troops collaborated with “Karen and Karenni rebel forces and reoccupied the mining town of Mawchi in the Karenni hills, which had served as the Karen rebel headquarters for a brief period in 1950.”Footnote ⁶⁵ The US embassy in Rangoon was also aware of the assistance the KMT was giving to the KNDO, and it seems the Americans worried that US military aid to Taiwan would instead end up in the hands of the Karen rebels.Footnote ⁶⁶ In addition to the KNDO, KMT aid also went to ethnic Mon rebels in the hope that the KMT could gain access to the Tenasserim Coast through the Mon State to obtain more aid from Taiwan.Footnote ⁶⁷

In addition to collaborating with ethnic rebels, the KMT also actively recruited soldiers from indigenous ethnic minority groups in the Shan States. Since there was only a limited number of soldiers who fled China, the KMT force needed local recruits to boost its military presence. Bertil Lintner points out that, “since the beginning of 1951, the KMT generals in the Shan hills had been drafting more soldiers from the villages in the border areas: Lahus, Shans, Was, Palaungs and Sino-Shans. These fresh recruits were trained at the KMT's new base at Mong Hsat and armed with weapons that arrived on nightly flights from Taiwan.”Footnote ⁶⁸ At the same time, the KMT treated the local communities with disdain. Burmese military historian Maung Maung describes the atrocities committed by the KMT: “Strength made the KMT arrogant. Their parties who periodically combed Kengtung for food became hostile. From theft and robbery they advanced with rapid steps to raid and plunder; occasionally they would rape and kill, and kidnap for ransom.”Footnote ⁶⁹ In addition, with martial law and military administration imposed over much of the Shan State as the Burmese government attempted to suppress the KMT, the local Shan communities were subjected to brutal treatment at the hands of the Burmese Army also, fuelling local resentment towards the new government.Footnote ⁷⁰ In one report, for example, the second secretary of the US embassy in Rangoon, William Hamilton, discussed his interview with the Mahadevi of Yawnghwe, who lambasted the Burmese troops for their brutal behaviour towards the Shan population. The Mahadevi also accused the Burmese government of “not bombing KMTs, they are bombing Shans.”Footnote ⁷¹ Lintner also writes that “Shan politics had become more intense because of the KMT invasion, and the subsequent massive influx of the government forces.”Footnote ⁷² Thus, the KMT presence in the Shan State indirectly and directly paved the way for the nationalist reaction and mobilization among the Shan.

The Shan nationalist movements were obviously spurred by domestic political changes in Burma. The 1947 constitution had given the Shan States the right to secede from the Union of Burma after ten years. In a bid to prevent that from happening, in 1958 the Burmese government was working on a constitutional change that would strip the Shan sawbwas (chieftains) of their power. In April 1959, under Ne Win's caretaker government, all 34 sawbwas formally surrendered their hereditary rights and power in a public ceremony in Taunggyi.Footnote ⁷³Although some Shan strongly supported deposing the sawbwas on anti-feudal grounds, there was increasing dissatisfaction with the Union of Burma and demands for secession had gained momentum. A year before the sawbwas were stripped of their power, the Shan militant group, Noom Suk Harn (Young Brave Warriors), formed in the jungles along the Thai–Burmese border. A year later, the Shan State Independence Army (SSIA) was founded and began launching military attacks on the Burmese army in December 1959. A leaflet distributed by the SSIA claimed that its military actions would be “a beginning that would fire sparks and smoulder on the Burmese scene, for, Independence is not an empty theory to the Shans, it is an ideal since time immemorial by which Shans or Tais as they are called, have lived and for which they are willing to die.”Footnote ⁷⁴ In 1962, several Shan rebel armies merged to form the Shan State Army (SSA), which continued to fight the Burmese army along the border in the following decades.Footnote ⁷⁵ Although fragmentation and regrouping has characterized the Shan nationalist insurgency movement, armed resistance to Burma's government in the Thai–Burmese border area persists to the present day.

The emergence of Shan rebels along the border offered the KMT “a front behind which it could hide to deflect international criticism.”Footnote ⁷⁶ Meetings were then held between the KMT and the Shan rebels to find a way to coexist. By this time, the remaining KMT troops in the Golden Triangle were predominantly engaged in opium smuggling between Burma and Thailand.Footnote ⁷⁷ The huge profits to be gained through trading opium were a major reason thousands of remaining KMT troops refused to be repatriated to Taiwan. Lintner summarizes the impact of the KMT presence on opium production:

By funding its military activities with opium smuggling, the KMT played a direct role in the Golden Triangle becoming one of the main sources of drug trafficking in the world for decades.Footnote ⁷⁹

The KMT presence in Burma was also one of the factors that led to the expansion of the Burmese military's institutional and personnel capacity.Footnote ⁸⁰ From the time of Burma's independence in 1948 to 1955, the army grew from a mere few thousand to more than 40,000.Footnote ⁸¹ Increasing shares of the country's budget were allocated to the military, and General Ne Win grew more powerful than the civilian wing of the Burmese government. As tension between the two sides mounted, a military coup took place in 1958 which resulted in the “caretaker government” holding power until 1960. After briefly restoring a civilian government following the 1960 election, in 1962 Ne Win instigated another coup in an attempt to forestall secessionist movements in the Shan State and elsewhere. Military rule continued into the 21st century, making Burma's one of the longest-lived military dictatorships in modern history.

Irregular Force along the Thai Northern Borderland

The communist victory in the PRC also sent powerful shockwaves through the Kingdom of Thailand, especially in 1950 after China's military annexed Tibet and joined the Korean War. The perception that a militarily aggressive communist regime in Beijing might intend to invade Thailand created a sense of alarm in Bangkok.Footnote ⁸² This fear was reinforced by reports that Field Marshall Phibun Songkram's arch-rival, Pridi Banomyong, had sought asylum in China following a failed coup attempt against Phibun. Three years earlier, in 1947, Phibun had returned to Thai politics with the help of the “Coup Group,” ousting Pridi and his supporters in the Thai government.Footnote ⁸³ Phibun was worried that the PRC would use Pridi, who enjoyed public support in Thailand, to overthrow his government. Indeed, the new PRC government did publish a series of scathing editorials in the People's Daily criticizing the Phibun government. For example, on 27 January 1950, the newspaper carried a piece denouncing the “fascist Phibun clique brutally oppressing overseas Chinese in Thailand.”Footnote ⁸⁴ Earlier in the same month, another piece in the People's Daily accused Phibun's government of embracing American imperialists.Footnote ⁸⁵ Although the threat of military invasion by the PRC was perhaps played up in the Thai press for anti-communist propaganda purposes, Beijing was nonetheless highly critical of the Thai government both for its foreign policy orientation towards the United States and the critical role it played in the US support for the KMT.

Thailand had positioned itself as the crucial link between the KMT troops in Burma, the CIA and ROC government. Many of the liaison meetings between Li Mi and ROC and US representatives took place in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. Logistical support for the KMT also passed through Thailand. Following US president Harry S. Truman's authorization of Operation Paper to support the KMT's military campaigns in Burma, the CIA secretly solicited support from the Thai government, first to allow the supply of weapons and materials to Li Mi's troops via Thailand, and second to provide the necessary diplomatic cover for these covert actions to prevent the US from being dragged down by KMT affairs if things went awry.Footnote ⁸⁶ The People's Daily reported from a source in Bangkok in June 1961 that the US was shipping weapons and Thai rice to the Thai–Burmese border to support the KMT troops. The report also claimed that the KMT had set up a recruitment office in Bangkok for its activities in Burma. The same report also alleged that the US had asked the Thai government to allow KMT troops to take sanctuary in specially designated areas in Nan province in Thailand.Footnote ⁸⁷

Thailand's support of the KMT should be understood in the broader context of its pursuit of military cooperation with the United States’ anti-communist activities in South-East Asia. It formed part of Thailand's broader commitment to US security interests in the region. As discussed above, Phibun actively lobbied the US for military aid to boost the power of the army that supported him. Declaring himself to be a staunch anti-communist strongman, Phibun succeeded in winning over the US by presenting Thailand as the ideal partner for the US in its anti-communist activities in South-East Asia.Footnote ⁸⁸ As a result, Thailand received a tremendous amount of aid, including $10 million in US military aid and $11.4 million in economic and technical assistance.Footnote ⁸⁹ When the Korean War started, Phibun's government once again quickly pledged its support to the US, first by promising to supply rice and then by sending troops to Korea.Footnote ⁹⁰ In return, in August 1950 the World Bank, under the auspices of the US, approved US$25 million in development aid for Thailand – the first time it had authorized funds for an Asian country.Footnote ⁹¹ Domestically, the Phibun government passed stringent anti-communist measures. The first of these was the Alien Registration Act of 1950, which was ostensibly aimed at repatriating left-leaning overseas Chinese to the PRC.Footnote ⁹² In 1952, the Thai government also passed the Anti-Communist Act, which gave the government sweeping powers to define and punish communist-related activities.Footnote ⁹³ Thus, both internationally and domestically, the Phibun government committed itself to the US anti-communist grand strategy in South-East Asia, a move which paved the way for Thailand to join the South-East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO) in 1954.Footnote ⁹⁴

It was also within this general anti-communist environment that the Thai Border Patrol Police (BPP) was conceived. The US was initially interested in setting up a defence network in Thailand in the event of a Chinese invasion.Footnote ⁹⁵ In 1953, following the intensifying communist insurgency in Indochina, the new Eisenhower administration approved the use of psychological warfare in Thailand.Footnote ⁹⁶ Under the command of General Phao, the CIA oversaw the training of a select group of police in May 1953. The group was initially termed the Border Defence Police General Headquarters in the North-East Region, but officially changed its name to the BPP in January 1955.Footnote ⁹⁷ The BPP was formed through the close collaboration of the CIA and relevant parties in Thailand, and had significant royal support. It was designed to wage “unconventional warfare” in the borderland and rural regions.Footnote ⁹⁸ The BPP was not simply a law enforcement unit, as its name suggests; it was also tasked with a whole set of state- and nation-building duties, including building roads and schools, running education and Thai language programmes, fostering highland economic development, promoting “Thainess” among the highland ethnic minorities, and much more.Footnote ⁹⁹

Furthermore, by helping the US with its covert activities against China, key figures in Thailand's military and police forces benefited personally from the US military aid as well as from the lucrative opium trade run by the KMT. The huge expansion of poppy plantations to support the war economy of the Shan States led to the KMT gaining almost exclusive control of the opium trade between Burma and Thailand, thanks to its military superiority and close ties with the Thai police force and military. With the support of the CIA, the head of the Thai police, Phao, was able to significantly increase the size and capacity of his force. Moreover, owing to his extensive contacts with the KMT, he also had a virtual monopoly on the Burmese opium trade in Thailand.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ Alfred McCoy maintains that Phao “supported KMT political aims in Thailand and its guerrilla units in Burma … [he] protected KMT supply shipments, marketed their opium, and provided … miscellaneous services [for the KMT].”Footnote ¹⁰¹ Later, when Field Marshall Sarit ousted both Phao and Phibun in a 1957 coup, he continued to rely upon the lucrative opium trade to fund the fast-growing Thai army.Footnote ¹⁰² By the early 1960s, Thailand had become the world's largest distributor of opium from Burma's Shan State, and it was the KMT that smuggled the Shan opium into Thailand before distributing it to the rest of the world.

Following their final defeat by the Burmese–Chinese military coalition in 1961, the remaining KMT troops relocated their main bases to Thailand. They still roamed the borderland areas and were able to continue smuggling opium into Thailand using caravans, thanks to their military organization and deep connections with the Thai military and government. The most prominent of the remaining troops included the Third Army, led by Li Wenhuan 李文焕 and based around the town of Tam Ngob in Chiang Mai province, and the Fifth Army, led by Duan Xiwen 段希文 and stationed in Mae Salong in Chiang Rai province. The Thai government tolerated the KMT's presence for many reasons. One was obviously the lucrative opium trade from which key figures in the border police and military benefited. In fact, it was reported that Li Wenhuan threatened to expose the complicity of the Thai forces if his troops were ordered to leave.Footnote ¹⁰³

Additionally, the KMT offered other advantages for the Thai government. Because of their extensive caravan networks and close working relations with many ethnic groups in mountainous areas, the KMT troops provided excellent intelligence on the political situations in China and Burma's tumultuous Shan State.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ More importantly, the Thai government tolerated the existence of the KMT troops in the belief that their familiarity and presence in the rugged mountains could create a potential barrier and buffer against possible communist infiltration from China. Following the start of the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) insurgency in northern Thailand, both the American and Thai governments began to take the view that “the KMT could usefully be employed against dissident hill tribes in the North and that this had overtaken their earlier desire to get rid of the KMT altogether.”Footnote ¹⁰⁵ It seems that in the late 1960s, the KMT was willing to help with Thailand's anti-insurgency efforts on the condition that it would be provided with sufficient funding and equipment.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ Indeed, many remaining KMT forces offered military assistance to the Royal Thai Army in the campaigns to suppress the CPT insurgency.

External Threats, Borderland State Consolidation, and the Implications of the Chinese Civil War in South-East Asia

The literature on state building, as pioneered by Charles Tilly and others, has consistently emphasized the crucial role that war has played in the development of the modern state. In the European context, in order to effectively fund their war-making enterprises, European rulers became more efficient in revenue collection, improved civil administration in exchange for civilian cooperation, and established nationalist symbols to unify their people. It was through such processes that the foundations of the modern bureaucratic state were built. As the famous phrase goes, “states make war, and war makes the state.”Footnote ¹⁰⁷ Empirical studies have generally found support for this argument among the early modern European states and great powers, although scholars have cautioned that the actual effects of war on state capacity building are conditioned by many other factors.Footnote ¹⁰⁸

Scholars have also suggested that instead of looking at the actual waging of interstate wars, which has become much more infrequent, we should look for the effects of other forms of external threat on state building. Cameron Thies, in his analyses of state building in Central and Latin America, argues that interstate rivals, and not just actual wars, can have similar effects on state building.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ In his analysis, he finds interstate rivalry has an overall positive effect on a state's extractive capacity. Additionally, studies have also looked at how transnational rebel groups, after they flee from their native country into neighbouring states, can become a threatening force for the home government.Footnote ¹¹⁰ Indeed, a positive relationship has been found between transnational rebels, military intervention against those rebels and the effectiveness of state building.Footnote ¹¹¹ That is, the presence of transnational rebels in neighbouring states often generates a perceived threat to the security of the incumbent regime, which effectively feeds into the regime's measures to consolidate its control over the border.

Having said that, we can also theorize that the effects of such an external threat on state building and consolidation should be uneven. Some states seem to respond better than others in the sense that they are more capable of counteracting external threats with effective measures to reinforce their control while others are more likely to succumb in the face of such a crisis. As seen in the borderland area between China, Myanmar and Thailand, whether a state can effectively respond to an external threat depends on existing state capacity. This is more of a reflection of the scale of the external threat in relation to existing state capacity. When an external threat is moderate, it is more likely that the state can successfully counter that threat with effective state consolidation measures. On the other hand, when the threat becomes excessive, the existing state apparatus can be overwhelmed and the state's territorial control of its national borders can be compromised.

The end of the Chinese Civil War has had deep repercussions in South-East Asia. Not only did it give momentum to other communist movements in the region but it also attracted a robust anti-communist response from the United States and its allies. Specifically, in the borderland area between China, Burma and Thailand, the KMT presence created different outcomes for each of the three countries. Of the three, obviously Burma was the most adversely affected. As a weak and divided nation, the newly independent Burma bore the brunt of the negative impact of the KMT invasion and occupation. The Shan State has followed the road of fragmentation ever since. The new communist government in China also took notice of the KMT presence across the border and demonstrated both ruthlessness and sensitivity in its military campaigns and recruitment of local ethnic-minority elites, thereby successfully consolidating its control over the borderland region. The Thai government was the most opportunistic player, taking advantage of the United States’ security interests in the region and benefiting from both its largess and the KMT presence along its northern border. Yet, it was the KMT that expanded the production and trading of opium in the Golden Triangle, flooding South-East Asia and the rest of the world with drugs. It is here that the end of the Chinese Civil War set in motion a series of developments in the borderland region between China and mainland South-East Asia that has come to define the region's history ever since.