THE border between Yunnan province and northern Myanmar
(formerly Burma) has always been porous. To the people who live
in the region, the border is a crooked mark on other people’s
maps, an arbitrary boundary snaking its way 2,400 kilometres
through rugged and wild terrain. The authorities in Beijing have
seen the same land as a lawless borderland, a place to be
controlled. In October 2012 the trial of a Burmese drug lord,
Naw Kham, who was sentenced to death for the killing of 13
Chinese sailors on the Mekong river in northern Thailand,
sharpened the sense in China that the Sino-Burmese border
remains a breeding ground for criminal gangs and drug
traffickers. The Chinese are also growing steadily more alarmed
about the conflict between Myanmar’s army and the Kachin
Independence Army (known by the perhaps inauspicious initials
“KIA”) and the potential of its spilling over into China. Last
month, the generals in Myanmar ordered a major offensive,
deploying fighter jets and heavy artillery against KIA position