On the ‘New’ Burma Road: From Mule Caravans to Motorcycle Bands

Abstract

Since the opening of the Sino-Burmese border trade in 1988, the movement of goods and people from both sides has increased rapidly. In 2011, China became Burma's largest trading partner and over half the total volume of goods was accrued in cross-border trade via Yunnan. However, national figures on import-export volumes are derived solely from legal flows, while contraband is largely overlooked. To date, academic studies on contraband have remained insufficient, partly due to the difficulty accessing Burmese border areas, and partly due to the mere challenges in obtaining information about smuggling from those who engage in such activity. This paper, based on multiple fieldwork sites over several years, examines a particular contraband – the smuggling of Chinese motorcycles to Burma on the ‘new’ Burma Road. This shadow economy thrived between 2000 and 2014. While highlighting its economic rationality beyond state control, I attempt to make diachronic and synchronic comparisons by engaging with dialogues within the historical trading mechanism of the mule convoys in the region and also with theories of shadow economies generated from contemporary case studies in other parts of the world. I argue that the formation of this shadow economy is not haphazard but adheres to the ethos of the mule caravan trade, predicated on local knowledge and social networks.

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“…Meanwhile, large volumes of industrial commodities are smuggled from Jiegao to Muse by informal border crossings over land and along the River Ruili. Chang (2017) provides a detailed account of how smuggled Chinese motorcycles constituted an essential component of the shadow economy that links Jiegao and northern Myanmar through massive social and economic networks geared to evade state regulations. Likewise, spare parts and accessories come into Jiegao at a very low rate of duty, and are assembled into final products in Jiegao for export back to Muse without any customs checks.…”

“…In 2001, the Ministry of Commerce of Myanmar fasttracked the building of a new area with a border post and customs house about 10 miles (16 km) from the border checkpoint. Located in Mang Yu village, this newlyestablished trade area is called the Muse 105mile Trade Zone, as it is located 105 miles (roughly 170 km) from Lashio, a key commercial city in northern Myanmar (Chang, 2017). By August 2006, the zone was offering a onestop service to enable legal commodity flows to pass quickly through customs checks, but its infrastructure was inadequate to handle the The donation was used for concreting the whole freight yard and installing the latest filtering and quarantine facilities in the 105-mile Trade Zone.…”

“…These elites include corrupt Han cadres in Ruili and military and political personnel in Muse. Most of the smuggling networks between Muse and Ruili are coordinated by people from Yunnan, including Han Chinese and Muslims, who have established a vast transnational business empire spanning Yunnan, Myanmar, Laos and Thailand (Chang, 2017).…”