“One village, two countries” used to be the tagline for Yinjing on China’s south-eastern edge.
An old tourist sign boasts of a border with Myanmar made of just “bamboo fences, ditches and earth ridges” – a sign of the easy economic relationship Beijing had sought to build with its neighbour.
Now the border the BBC visited is marked by a high, metal fence running through the county of Ruili in Yunnan province. Topped by barbed wire and surveillance cameras in some places, it cuts through rice fields and carves up once-adjoined streets.
China’s tough pandemic lockdowns forced the separation initially. But it has since been cemented by the intractable civil war in Myanmar, triggered by a bloody coup in 2021. The military regime is now fighting for control in large swathes of the country, including Shan State along China’s border, where it has suffered some of its biggest losses.
The crisis at its doorstep – a nearly 2,000km (1,240-mile) border – is becoming costly for China, which has invested millions of dollars in Myanmar for a critical trade corridor.
The ambitious plan aims to connect China’s landlocked south-east to the Indian Ocean via Myanmar. But the corridor has become a battleground between Myanmar rebels and the country’s army.
Beijing has sway over both sides but the ceasefire it brokered in January fell apart. It has now turned to military exercises along the border and stern words. Foreign Minister Wang Yi was the latest diplomat to visit Myanmar’s capital Nay Pyi Taw and is thought to have delivered a warning to the country’s ruler Min Aung Hlaing.
Conflict is not new to impoverished Shan State. Myanmar’s biggest state is a major source of the world’s opium and and methamphetamine, and home to ethnic armies long opposed to centralised rule.
But the vibrant economic zones created by Chinese investment managed to thrive – until the civil war.
A loudspeaker now warns people in Ruili not to get too close to the fence – but that doesn’t stop a Chinese tourist from sticking his arm between the bars of a gate to take a selfie.
Two girls in Disney T-shirts shout through the bars – “hey grandpa, hello, look over here!” – as they lick pink scoops of ice cream. The elderly man shuffling barefoot on the other side barely looks up before he turns away.
