Myanmar: Instability in Kachin and a Powerful Neighbor to the East

Recent fighting between government troops and militant separatists in Kachin, Myanmar’s northernmost state, has centered around two Chinese hydroelectric plants, but the issue goes deeper than that. The clashes are the largest since the official status of the ethnic separatists went from “cease-fire group” to insurgent group in October 2010. Naypyidaw’s strategy was to impact the movement economically and weaken its cohesion, but China’s involvement as a mediator could achieve a degree of autonomy for the separatists that they have been seeking all along.