BEIJING — China has told Burma to put an end to fighting with an ethnic militia that has sent 10,000 people fleeing across their border.
People were continuing to cross from Burma's Kokang region into China's Yunnan province late Friday, according to eyewitnesses reached by phone. Sounds of artillery and gunfire across the border in Burma rang out throughout the day, they said.
Chinese authorities were housing the new arrivals at seven locations and providing medical services, according to a Yunnan government statement.
In Beijing, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jiang Yu said China hopes Burma can "properly deal with its domestic issue to safeguard the regional stability in the China-[Burma] border area."
Burma must also ensure the safety and legal rights of Chinese citizens in that country, Jiang added in a statement posted on the ministry's Web site.
China maintains close ties with Burma's ruling military junta and usually takes care not to entangle itself in the regime's affairs. Beijing has consistently offered Burma diplomatic support based on its avowed policy of nonintervention, while China's border trade and oil and gas deals have thrown an economic lifeline to the ruling generals.
Pak K. Lee, an expert on Burma and China at the University of Kent in England, said Beijing was not changing its noninterventionist stance but was genuinely concerned about the fighting's effect on stability in Yunnan ahead of the highly sensitive Oct. 1 celebration of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic.
"Absent the factor of the 60th anniversary, China mightadopt a low-profile approach to the event. But now, it has to call on Burma to take prompt action to tackle the problem before it becomes unmanageable," Lee said.
Details of the fighting in Burma were murky, although reports say militants who have long fought for autonomy for Burma's ethnically Chinese Kokang minority attacked police near the town of Laogai on Thursday, killing several officers.
Burma's military rulers and the state-controlled media made no comment on the situation.
Burma's central government has rarely exerted control in Kokang and essentially ceded control to a local militia after signing a cease-fire with them two decades ago. The region is one of several areas along Burma's borders where minority militias are seeking autonomy from the central government.
But tensions between the government and the Kokang people have been rising in recent months, as the junta tries to consolidate its control of the country and ensure stability ahead of national elections next year, the first since the opposition National League for Democracy won by a landslide in 1990, a result the military ignored.
Kokang lies 1,400 miles southwest of Beijing and is surrounded by lush mountains in a region notorious for the production and use of heroin and methamphetamines, cross-border smuggling, gambling, and prostitution.
As the refugees poured in from Burma on Friday, Chinese authorities housed them in unfinished buildings, some still with no windows, said a local factory manager in the border town of Nansan who would give only his surname, Li.
A worker with an international medical charity, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals from the local government, said local authorities were caring for about 4,000 refugees. Several thousand more were staying in hotels or with friends and family on the Chinese side, he said.
The latest confrontation apparently began earlier this month after militia leaders refused to allow their guerrillas to be incorporated into a border guard force under Burma army command.
Soldiers raided the home of militia leader Peng Jiasheng on Aug. 8, and Peng's forces began mobilizing. Peng's troops were forced out of Laogai on Tuesday by government soldiers and a breakaway Kokang faction seeking to overthrow Peng.
China itself has taken a hard line against minority activists in Xinjiang and Tibet, crushing anti-government protests with overwhelming force, and Beijing has in the past said that Burma's policies toward minorities wasn't a concern.
However, analysts said the involvement of ethnic Chinese and Chinese citizens, and fears over border security, severely complicated matters for the government, prompting thestrong statement.
"China has a difficult time trying to reconcile its very firm issues of sovereignty while protecting its people abroad," said Drew Thompson, a China expert at the Nixon Center in Washington who has traveled in the border region.
While China is not dictating to Burma how they should manage ethnic minorities or manage the border area, it is "trying to urge [Burma's] government to stop causing this problem," Thompson said.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 08/29/2009