Drugs, gambling, drugs, development, and more drugs on Yunnan's borders
Yunnan province’s prime location (see map) means that we sit right on the intersection of China (world’s fastest growing economy) and Southeast Asia (world’s premier destination for opiates, sex tourism, and, in the case of Myanmar, scary governments). In the last few weeks, this crossroads has been particularly busy, with the following fascinating news items:
Gambling! Asia Times reports on Mong La, an infamous gambling destination that was apparently “shut down” by the Chinese government in 2005 because too many officials were unloading their stolen public money there, is just across our border with Burma. The last time I was down that way (Fall 2004) you could hardly uncurl yourself out of the cramped overnight bus cot before people would swarm you, offering to take you across the border to Mong La (illegally):
According to people familiar with the situation, China briefly sent a small number of troops into the remote region to enforce the travel ban and pressure casino operators to close down their operations. At one point, Chinese officials threatened to cut Mong La’s power supply, which is provided by Yunnan-based electricity generators. That hasn’t deterred Lin Mingxian, more widely known by the alias Sai Leun, the town’s overlord, who currently commands a 2,000-3,000-strong militia known as the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA). Sai Leun is believed to have financed much of the city’s gambling infrastructure in the late 1990s from cash he allegedly earned in the narcotics trade.
Nothing like the PRC to kill a good party. Anyway, this guy Sai Leun sounds pretty cool. He’s building a new set of casinos specifically designed to allow corrupt officials to continue unloading China’s public money without leaving home:
From the comfort of their homes in Beijing, Kunming or Shanghai, Chinese gamblers watch the tables via a live video feed over the Internet and place their bets through agents on location at the jungle casinos. The arrangement, says the casino operator, allows the players and casino operators to circumvent recent Chinese efforts to prevent the outflow of cash into Myanmar’s black markets.
The whole article is worth a read, because the freelance reporters who wrote it basically schmoozed around with this guy for a while and got to check out his whole operation. I don’t know who to root for here, though, since all the parties (Burmese and Chinese governments, drug-dealing casino-owning warlord) are not exactly morally upstanding.
Drugs! While we’re on the topic of morally questionable, let’s talk about China’s latest effort at international aid:
By this June, southwestern Yunnan Province has helped its bordering Cambodia and Laos to plant over 900,000 mu (60,000 hectares) cash-bearing crops to relieve their dependence on growing opium poppy, said sources with the local government. Sun Dahong, deputy director of the provincial department of public security said on Friday at the mobilization conference on poppy alternative development, that by the end of last year, the Yunnan government has developed 700,000-mu cash-bearing crops in the northern part of Cambodia and Laos, among which nearly 400,000 mu soil had been planted poppy originally.
Sounds like a great idea, and it might help to cut down on that heroin soaked panties issue that has been plagueing us lately. On the other hand, I just have to wonder how effective this program is going to be, since the Chinese are helping impoverished farmers replace opium poppy with “grain, rubber, rice, sugar cane, longan, tea and corn,” and the program detailed doesn’t seem to extend beyond planting new crops. Opium grown in these regions is very valuable and mostly destined for “export” to major cities or richer countries (China), whereas crops like grain and corn aren’t likely to be worth a whole lot. Another critical issue is infrastructure, longan requires efficient transportation to prevent spoilage, rubber and sugar cane aren’t that valuable unless you can do the value-added processing somewhere nearby. I seriously doubt that there are adequate roads, refrigerated trucks, or processing factories in rural mountainous regions of northern Laos.
Thinking about this problem reminded me of a blog entry by Sarah Chayes I’d read in the NY Times last month (I think it may only be available through Times Select) called “Why Farmers Grow Poppies.” Although she was writing about Afghanistan, her arguments ring true here in East too. She adds water scarcity to the list of motivations leading farmers to grow poppy, and then mentions:
Opium eradication campaigns target the lowest rung of the opium economy, the struggling farmers. Yet well-known traffickers strut around town, flaunting their connections with senior officials. They drive late-model S.U.V.’s. They buy up property at fantastic prices and build wedding cake villas — the kind that used to be rented out to al-Qaeda members.
Development! Apparently Kunming will be even more connected, between plans for a superhighway between here and Bangkok, and the proposed railroad line(s) between here and Singapore. So much for our reputation as a dull backwater:
China, which last month launched a rail track from Beijing to Tibet, has also shown renewed interest in ASEAN’s plan for a rail line spanning 5,000 kilometers (3,000 miles) from Singapore to the Chinese city of Kunming […] A rail line already runs from Singapore to Bangkok. From Bangkok, Ong said there are plans for two separate rail lines to Kunming. One rail track will snake across Cambodia and Vietnam, with a connecting track to Laos, while the other line will cut west through Myanmar.
This is going to make it a lot easier for us to get our opiates here in Kunming, just a comfy overnight train ride away. Not that procuring opiates in Kunming is difficult at the moment. This migrant worker has heard a few stories from her friends in the HIV prevention/needle exchange field.
