The Shwe pipeline shaves an angry bald strip across the red clay hills and disappears into the morning mist. A sign hanging above an area cordoned off by bamboo fencing warns in English, \u201cSevere punishment on pipeline destruction\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cFamilies were forced to move,\u201d says Omar, a 31-year-old Palaung village chief based just outside Hsipaw town in northern Myanmar on the road to China. \u201cThey were given some money but left with nowhere to grow crops.\u201d No one has attempted to sabotage the pipeline here, he says, but further north fighting between Burmese troops deployed\u00a0to protect the energy project\u00a0<\/a>and various armed ethnic groups have forced thousands of people to flee their villages. In Arakan State to the south, 17 locals working on the pipeline\u00a0were arrested for setting fire to a warehouse<\/a>.<\/p>\n The US$5 billion Shwe pipeline is a\u00a0Sino-Burmese project<\/a>\u00a0intended to bring imported oil and gas from the Indian ocean across Myanmar to China\u2019s south-west. It is strategically important for China, which aims to reduce the country\u2019s dependence on energy transported by ship through the pirate-infested Strait of Malacca. But there has been\u00a0fierce opposition<\/a>\u00a0in Myanmar \u2013 over land expropriation, soil erosion and pollution, enflaming longstanding conflicts between ethnic groups and the Burmese military.<\/p>\n The Shwe scheme is one of a slew of controversial Chinese investment projects in Myanmar that have run into trouble in recent years. Since the civilian government came to power in 2011, rolling up the red carpet previously laid out for China and opening the way for a newly assertive civil society, the country has become a more difficult place for Chinese companies to operate. A flood of cheap Chinese goods and people across the border has meanwhile fomented broader anti-Chinese sentiment across the country.<\/p>\n In spite of these challenges \u2013 and the level of investment at stake \u2013 Chinese companies have taken little meaningful action to address concerns. Instead, their failures to appease local communities have made them a focus of protest for Myanmar\u2019s conflicted and ethnically diverse population to rally around. \u201cThe move away from reliance on China is growing,\u201d says Vicky Bowman, director of the Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business in Yangon and former British ambassador to the country. \u201cThe government is welcoming western companies as a deliberate policy to diversify.\u201d<\/p>\n President Thein Sein\u2019s liberalisation in 2011 was in part fuelled by elite concerns that Myanmar had become too dependent on China, and his government reform programme sought to rebalance Chinese influence with Western investment and political relations. As a result, there has been asharp drop in Chinese investment<\/a>\u00a0in Myanmar since 2011, though China remains an important presence in hydropower, oil and gas, and mining.<\/p>\n At a popular level, anti-Chinese resentment abounds. Travelling around Myanmar, I spoke to many who said they felt the Chinese had trampled over local interests, propped up the unpopular military regime and pillaged the country\u2019s natural resources. That significance cannot be overstated. The 6,000-megawatt dam was planned for the source of the Irrawaddy \u2013 a sacred place for local Kachin and also considered the founding place of Burmese civilisation. Pictures of the iconic Myitsone hang in tea houses and small eateries across the country. The dam, which rekindled fighting between Burmese and ethnic Kachin armies after a 17-year-long ceasefire, has been suspended until after the next elections in 2015, but many people believe it will never go ahead.<\/p>\n Attempts by the company building the dam,\u00a0China Power Investment Corporation<\/a>\u00a0(CPI), to woo local communities with piecemeal promises failed. It\u2019s well known that almost all the hydropower will be exported to China\u2019s Yunnan province and local people will see little benefit.<\/p>\n In a recent\u00a0interview with\u00a0the Irrawaddy<\/i><\/a>, Jiang Lizhe, CPI\u2019s director of public affairs, spoke of his determination to resume the dam project. \u201cLocal people are, in fact, not against this project. They just misunderstand it because they don\u2019t know the reality, and because of rumours and wrong information,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n But the company is still not listening to public opinion. \u201cCPI just don\u2019t seem to get that people don\u2019t want the dam, or why,\u201d says Bowman. Burmese NGOs are now coordinating action against unpopular projects, including Myitsone. One coalition is working to identify gaps in the existing\u00a0environmental impact assessment for the dam, with support from more experienced Chinese NGOs in Yunnan province.<\/p>\n The Letpadaung copper mine in central Myanmar offers another example of increased citizen action against Chinese projects. A joint venture between Wanbao Mining (a subsidary of the Chinese arms manufacturer Norinco) and a company controlled by the Burmese military, the project went\u00a0into lockdown<\/a>\u00a0at the end of 2012 after farmers complained of the environmental and health problems caused by acid waste.<\/p>\n A protest camp \u2013 mainly of monks \u2013 was violently suppressed by Burmese security forces using\u00a0phosphorous grenades<\/a>, transforming a local dispute into a national cause. The project restarted months later only after the company was forced to renegotiate the contract giving 2% of revenue to the local community.<\/p>\n But this wasn\u2019t enough. \u201cThe company hoped to satisfy the community with schools and tree-planting, but that won\u2019t address their concerns,\u201d says Bowman. Tensions erupted again in March this year as people rallied against Wanbao\u2019s removal of an important religious building to make way for further mine expansion.\u00a0The company has now invested in a newenvironmental and social impact assessment<\/a>, conducted for them by an Australian consultancy, and available on their website \u2013 a first for any Chinese company in Myanmar.<\/p>\n Chinese companies also appear to have a poor track record compared to international competitors.\u00a0China National Petroleum Company (CNPC)<\/a>\u00a0has employed far fewer local workers along the upper section of the Shwe pipeline than the Indian company, Punj Lloyd, who built the lower section.<\/p>\n A recent\u00a0investigation<\/a>\u00a0by Chinese NGO Green Watershed revealed similar discrepancies. Although Korean companies provide some schools or health services, the Chinese companies do not. Even where Chinese companies do provide services, they do not get the credit because they do so through the unpopular government, or do not really benefit local people, according to Green Watershed.<\/p>\n \u201cAlmost all the controversial projects are Chinese projects,\u201d says Bowman. Resentment is not new \u2013 Chinese were targeted in riots in Yangon in 1967 and faced severe discrimination during the 1970s. Ethnic Chinese have, in fact, had a presence in Myanmar for centuries, with waves of immigration under British rule, and the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. Some are also members of the ethnically Chinese Kokang group who straddle the border.<\/p>\n But Chinese immigration and economic dominance have grown exponentially in recent decades, and current anti-Chinese feeling has to be understood against that backdrop.<\/p>\n The two countries are linked by the famous Burma Road \u2013 built in the 1930s to supply vital provisions for Chinese Nationalist forces battling the Japanese imperialist army. It has been the lifeline for an otherwise isolated Burmese regime since western sanctions were imposed in the 1980s. Trucks loaded with Burmese gems, jade, teak and food pour across the border into China \u2013 often illegally \u2013 and rumble back with cheap consumer goods.<\/p>\n These goods have flooded the market in a country whose manufacturing industry has yet to take off, causing inevitable resentment. As the local saying goes, \u201cWhen China spits, Burma drowns\u201d.<\/p>\n A common complaint among the residents of Mandalay \u2013 the ancient religious capital in the north of the country \u2013 is that the influx of Chinese money, goods and\u00a0people has inflated the prices of real estate and living, forcing locals out of the city centre. Almost half of the city\u2019s million or so inhabitants are now Chinese. It has also grown with the massive influx of drug money from wealthy ethnic Chinese Kokang heroin traffickers. These concerns have become a\u00a0political issue<\/a>\u00a0ahead of national elections in 2015.<\/p>\n Ethnic Chinese have preferred to keep their heads down and make money, rather than get involved in politics, as an eminent\u00a0Chinese historian Qin Hui noted<\/a>\u00a0after a trip to Myanmar in 2012. The growth in trade between Myanmar and China has provided plenty of opportunities to get wealthy.<\/p>\n When it comes to Chinese companies operating in Myanmar today, optimists believe they just need a little public relations boost. Gao Mingbo, former head of the political section at the Chinese Embassy in Yangon, has been spearheading efforts to repair the image of Chinese companies working in Myanmar. \u201cThe companies must retain the support of the local communities. That has been the consistent message of the embassy: to be open, to be engaged,\u201d he said. He created the\u00a0embassy\u2019s Facebook page<\/a>; although Facebook is blocked in China, Chinese officials in Yangon are using this to reach Burmese citizens.<\/p>\n
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\nGrowing resentment
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\nThe Chinese-backed Myitsone dam on the Irrawaddy River \u2013 suspended in 2011 amid widespread popular unrest \u2013 has been one of the few issues to unite the ethnically diverse country, argues Bowman, who has lived in Yangon for a total of eight years over the last three decades. \u201cAlthough environmental damage is the concern most prominently voiced by opponents to the dam, it is not the only reason they fight it. It is also the cultural significance of the area.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\nCitizen action
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\n<\/b><\/p>\nImmigration and cheap goods
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