The recent intensification of the war in Myanmar, China'ssouthwest neighbor, has brought the so-called "fire at the gate" tothe pool. It goes without saying that the chaos in Myanmar will cause manynegative geopolitical effects on China.

Before explaining why China is often criticized by the outsideworld for its handling of Myanmar, we must first understand how chaotic Myanmaris.

First,war-torn countries

From the map, the country is a unique whole, which is the mostdeeply rooted subconscious of ordinary people, in fact, it is not. Theinformation marked on the map is often only a political meaning, and does notrepresent the real scope of control, especially in countries with chronic civilunrest.

For example, in Syria, the map of actual control looks likethis:

Red is the area controlled by the Assad government, yellow isthe area controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (backed by the UnitedStates), and the Syrian Democratic forces will cede some territory to the Assadgovernment forces in the face of Turkish threats, that is, the orange area; Thegreen zone adjacent to the northern border is occupied by Turkish-backed Syrianrebels.

Or consider Yemen:

Green is controlled by the Houthis and supporters of formerPresident Ali Abdullah Saleh (Shia), red is controlled by supporters of YemeniPresident Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi (Sunni), white is controlled by al-Qaida inthe Arabian Peninsula (Sunni), and brown is controlled by the SouthernTransitional Council.

Like the Houthis, who have been in the headlines recently, theycontrol 40% of Yemen's population of more than 23 million, including thecapital, Sana 'a, and their power is not to be underestimated.

Does a similar map exist in Myanmar?

I'm sorry, no one's been able to draw it completely yet.

Compared with the pattern of three or five armed forces in Syriaand Yemen, there are at least dozens of "civilian and local armedforces" in Myanmar, with complex and changeable components, leading tothis situation, and everything starts from the ethnic contradictions innorthern Myanmar.

Two,the broken jade

The main ethnic group of Myanmar is the Burman people, whooriginated from China and belong to the Tibeto-Burman tribe, and migrated tothe middle reaches of the Irrawaddy River in present-day Myanmar around the 1stcentury AD.

Today, the Burman population is about 34 million, accounting for69 percent of Myanmar's total population.

But in northern Burma, the Burman are a serious minority.

In northern Myanmar, there are several ethnic groups that arealso of Chinese origin, such as the Shan (Dai), Kachin (Jingpo), Kokang (Han),Wa, and so on. The customs and language of these ethnic minorities aredifferent from those of the Burman people, and they do not even think of beinga family with the Burman people.

Therefore, for more than a thousand years, the northernprovinces of Burma never submitted to the administration of Burma, and most ofthe time they were under the administration of the three departments of Yunnanof China, and there were frequent wars with the Burmese dynasty.

But before Burma and northern Burma could play out, the Britishcalled.

In 1886, the British occupied the main part of Burma (commonlyknown as Lower Burma), and in 1890 the British conquered northern Burma and setup the Shan Federation here.

Of course, out of the need to suppress the main ethnic group ofthe Burmese, the British gave the chieftain here greater autonomy, and was notruled by the British colonial government of Burma.

Since then, northern Burma, which originally belonged to China,has been completely cut off from Chinese territory.

After the end of World War II, Myanmar was seeking independence,and Shan State in northern Burma also wanted independence, so on February 12,1947, Shan State, Kachin State, Chin State and Myanmar headquarters signed thePanglong Agreement, decided to jointly fight for independence from the British.After independence, the various ethnic groups in Shan State enjoyed a highdegree of autonomy.