As per various reports, Chinese businessmen are defrauding its own people to fund the terrorist organizations in Myanmar which have waged war against the government. Crisis Group, a Belgium based think tank which specializes in conflict watch, reported that a Chinese businessman defrauded a million Chinese investors through a Ponzi scheme to provide financial support to United Wa State Army (UWSA), Myanmar’s largest ethnic armed group.
Between 2014 and 2016, the Chinese businessman earned 7.6 billion dollars by defrauding Chinese investors and gave 1.5 billion dollars to a Myanmar based terrorist group. Given the fact that Chinese government actively supports funding of Myanmar based terrorist organizations, the state took no action against funding of a terrorist organization by the businessman.
“The United Wa State Army (UWSA), Myanmar’s largest ethnic armed group, received massive private financial support from a Chinese businessman – as much as $1.5 billion, according to Chinese media reports – through a Ponzi scheme that defrauded nearly a million Chinese investors of some $7.6 billion from 2014 to 2016. Chinese authorities cannot have been unaware of such large transfers to an armed group it had close relations with,” reads the report by International Crisis Group.
Last month Myanmar Army spokesperson alleged “one foreign country” is providing sophisticated arms and financial support to Myanmar based insurgent groups. Brig Gen Zaw Min Tun, the spokesperson for Tatmadaw (Myanmar military), said that Arakan Army, Ta’ang National Liberation Army, the Kachin Independence Army the Shan State Army-North, and United Wa State Army (UWSA) – all of which are ethnic rebel armies based in Myanmar’s northern province which share border with China’s Yunnan province- are being supported by Chinese businessmen and the Chinese Communist Party.
U Min Zaw Oo, executive director of Myanmar Institute for Peace and Security, said that most of the weapons used by ethnic armed rebel groups, are made in China. “There are two ways of arms trade,” he said. “Authorities of Yunnan Province and the armed groups might have economic connections. Some corrupt authorities might sell the arms to the groups. Another way is allowing the trade of arms in the black market,” he added.
Chinese Communist Party has special affection towards United Wa State Army (UWSA), armed wing of United Wa State Party (UWSP), which is a secessionist party of Wa people, an ethnic minority group in Northern Myanmar. UWSA was formed in 1989 after the collapse of Communist Party of Burma- which Communist Party of China actively supported. After the collapse of CPB, Chinese government placed its bet on UWSA, the largest ethnic armed force with 20,000-25,000 soldiers.
The official ideology of UWSA is Wa nationalism and Maoism. UWSA was in peace with Myanmar Army for the last three decades but it never severed ties with other armed ethnic groups like- Arakan Army, Ta’ang National Liberation Army, the Kachin Independence Army the Shan State Army-North, against whom Myanmar government is fighting a war. UWSP is the ruling party of Wa State although Myanmar government never recognized its sovereignty over the territories. The regions administered by UWSP are one party socialist state, just like China.
The Communist government of China has been an outspoken supporter of UWSP, and its leader Bao Youxiang. “In the mould of Xi Jinping, Bao is the head of the army, party and government and has been confirmed in those positions for life,” Bangkok-based security analyst Anthony Davis told AFP.
“The UWSA is the largest non-state military actor in East Asia,” Davis said, adding it “has unquestionably been armed by China” despite producing its own China-designed rifles.
This shows that China has little respect for sovereignty of neighboring nations and it actively supports terrorist groups which wage war against government of neighboring nations. Even if the Chinese Communist Party has to loot its own people to finance terror operations in neighboring state, as in UWSA case, it would not hesitate.