Thailand
Myanmar: High hopes for deserted trading town on Myanmar-China border
Myanmar: High hopes for deserted trading town on Myanmar-China border
Thursday, 21 July 2016 – Last year, it was a ghost town. Racked by the fighting around Laukkai, Chinshwehaw’s once-booming economy, built on its location as a major trading camp on the border with China, had collapsed as workers fled and shops closed down. Fighting between the Tatmadaw and the Myanmar National Democractic Alliance Army (MNDAA) broke out in early 2015, driving away the masons and the sugar-cane workers who had come from all over Myanmar to work for mainly Chinese business owners.
But now, though the government’s efforts to end armed conflict through the 21st-Century Panglong Conference have barely begun, prosperity, if not yet a stable peace, seems to have returned to the town, in northeastern Shan State’s troubled Kokang region. Read More?