Jade, migration, and conflict across the Yunnan-Burma borders

Abstract

The exploitation of gemstones is often associated with various forms of violence. This paper lights on the relationship between the trade of Burmese-origin jadestones, the migrations it has generated, and conflict in the Sino-Burmese borderlands. Since the opening up of the Yunnan-Burma borders in the late 1980s, extraction and smuggling of Burmese lootable resources, gems-&-jade in particular, have intensified. In Northern Burma’s ceasefires context, internal and cross-border migrations driven by this thriving industry have transformed local polities. Since the 1990s, mine workers, foreign investors, smugglers, and state-run conglomerates or companies linked to the Burmese military-state have moved into gem-producing Kachin and Shan areas and border market enclaves, thereby generating new sites of conflict and violence. This paper identifies the social and political disruptions as well as the intercommunity violence caused or strengthened by these recent migrations and the jade boom. Drawing on recent field research in cross-border jade markets, it examines the inter-ethnic competition and political violence this specific trade has produced over the past two decades. The paper particularly focuses on Burmese Muslim communities of traders, who migrated to border areas to find a safer environment, as well as on Kachin jade dealers, whose influence is however declining. It indeed underscores the rising polarization between small-scale ethnic-based trading networks (Kachin, Shan and Burmese Muslim) and bigger Chinese-owned or Burmese state-run companies, and assesses its implications. It will conclude on the wider geopolitical impact these new conflictual dynamics generates for the China-Burma relationship.