Resource information
Northern Burma’s borderlands have undergone dramatic changes in the last two decades. Three main and
interconnected developments are simultaneously taking place in Shan State and Kachin State: (1) the increase
in opium cultivation in Burma since 2006 after a decade of steady decline; (2) the increase at about the same
time in Chinese agricultural investments in northern Burma under China’s opium substitution programme,
especially in rubber; and (3) the related increase in dispossession of local communities’ land and livelihoods
in Burma’s northern borderlands.
The vast majority of the opium and heroin on the Chinese market originates from northern Burma. Apart
from attempting to address domestic consumption problems, the Chinese government also has created a
poppy substitution development programme, and has been actively promoting Chinese companies to take
part, offering subsidies, tax waivers, and import quotas for Chinese companies. The main benefits of these
programmes do not go to (ex-)poppy growing communities, but to Chinese businessmen and local authorities,
and have further marginalised these communities.
Serious concerns arise regarding the long-term economic benefits and costs of agricultural development—
mostly rubber—for poor upland villagers. Economic benefits derived from rubber development are very
limited. Without access to capital and land to invest in rubber concessions, upland farmers practicing swidden
cultivation (many of whom are (ex-) poppy growers) are left with few alternatives but to try to get work as
wage labourers on the agricultural concessions.
Land tenure and other related resource management issues are vital ingredients for local communities to
build licit and sustainable livelihoods. Investment-induced land dispossession has wide implications for drug
production and trade, as well as border stability. Investments related to opium substitution should be carried
out in a more sustainable, transparent, accountable and equitable fashion. Customary land rights and institutions
should be respected. Chinese investors should use a smallholder plantation model instead of confiscating
farmers land as a concession. Labourers from the local population should be hired rather than outside
migrants in order to funnel economic benefits into nearby communities.
China’s opium crop substitution programme has very little to do with providing mechanisms to decrease
reliance on poppy cultivation or provide alternative livelihoods for ex-poppy growers. Chinese authorities
need to reconsider their regional development strategies of implementation in order to avoid further border
conflict and growing antagonism from Burmese society. Financing dispossession is not development.
