'China Is Paradise': Migration and Diasporic Solidarities among Burmese Muslim Traders in the Yunnan-Burma/Myanmar Borderlands

Abstract

The past two decades have witnessed massive migratory movements from Southwest China towards northern Myanmar (Burma). Existing studies have primarily focused on the increasing economic dominance that Yunnanese/Chinese migrant communities have gained there since 1988. Benefiting from the opening up of the Yunnan-Myanmar borderlands and the late 1980s politics of regime change in Yangon (Rangoon), between one and two million Yunnanese migrants are said to have crossed the borders to invest, trade or simply look for leisure in Myanmar. Although seldom researched, this phenomenon is quite known for the socio-political implications it has generated inside the country. The literature notably reveals that old-age sinophobic sentiments have been revived among Burmese indigenous populations, wary at seeing an increasing economic and cultural dominance of Chinese communities. Little is known, however, about the reverse migratory flows observed from northern Myanmar towards Yunnan, flows which have been fostered by China’s recent rapid economic growth. Whilst Chinese traders have swiftly moved into Burmese territory to secure new commercial opportunities, various Burmese communities have on their side migrated to the Chinese borders to find a more favorable business environment, good fortune, and, interestingly, shelter and sociopolitical refuge from authoritarian Myanmar. This paper aims to explore these pioneering northwards migration dynamics. Most specifically, it focuses on the Burmese Muslim communities that have gradually migrated from Burma to several Yunnanese border towns since the 1990s. Drawing on recent fieldwork conducted in Ruili, Jiegao and Baoshan – three bustling commercial towns near the Burmese borders – the paper first looks at their histories of migration: whence did these Burmese Muslim communities migrate, how, and why? It argues that two main driving forces lie behind this recent phenomenon. The search for safety has forced many Burmese Muslims looking for more secure places to live and practice their religion. And interestingly, Yunnan offers a safer environment than authoritarian and Buddhist-dominated Myanmar, interviews reveal. Also, the search for a transnational place to work and develop businesses has drained a wide range of Burmese fortune-seekers towards Yunnan. Most notably, Myanmar’s gem-&-jade industry – with which Burmese Muslim communities have a long history of association – has been recently thriving thanks to a booming demand from jade-crazed China. It therefore fostered new types of Burmese economic migrations, many converging on the jade markets of these Yunnanese border towns. The paper then underscores the transnational mobility and transborder practices of these Burmese Muslim communities. How do they make the most of the Sino-Burmese borderlands? What types of cross-border networks and transnational solidarities are they relying upon for their migration, and then life and trading activities in their new Chinese hostland? Exploring the singularities of their cross-border ethnocommunal and kinship linkages, this research illustrates how Burmese Muslims have been able to foster their global trading capacities through farreaching solidarities and mobilities; and this beyond Myanmar or Yunnan, into Hong Kong, India, Malaysia, and as far as the Persian Gulf. Eventually, this presentation will conclude by situating this Burmese Muslim diasporic community and its multiple solidarities in the more global context of Burmese migrations in Asia, whilst offering new directions for the study of the evolving political ecologies observed along the China-Myanmar borders.