Kokang is a border town with a majority ethnic Chinese population,with a sprinkling of Shans,Kachins and Wa people.Kokang was an independent entity by itself,although they paid a notional tribute to the Baoshan in Yunnan,China.Home to ethnic Chinese with a sprinkling of Shans, Kachins and Wa people,Kokang was independent entity in 188though they paid a nominal tribute to the Baoshan in Yunnan, China.A raft of villages dotted this picturesque land bordering China in the eastern portion of the Shan State. The Yang family migrated to Kokang from the north and immediately drew the attention of the British, after they worsted the Burmese in the third Anglo Burmese war and became the rulers of Burma.
They also gave them the title of Duke in the Hsenwi state. Kokang enjoyed a reign of peace under the British occupation of Burma, until the Japanese invasion of Burma in 1942.Sao Yang Wen Pin the Shao Pha of Kokang decided to fight against the Japanese and crossed into Kuomintang ruled China to regroup. The British seized this golden opportunity to form the Kokang Levies militia with Wen Pin at its head.
Americans likewise were involved in supplying Chinag Kai Shek's forces and together with the Kachin Levies, this Kokang Levies achieved great many battle honours. The rout of the Japanese in 1944 made Wen Pin a hero and by 1951 Wen Pin ruled as a Sao Pha.
By 1959 the Shan State Sao Phas or Sawbwas as the Chiefs of the independent prinapacities are called,that totaled eighteen plus in number lost their unique status.The Myanmar Army took control of the areas previously governed by the Sawbwas in the Shan State.
Ne Win the army commander who handled the Karen rebellion ably, in the U Nu government seized power in 1962, to plunge the democratic aspirations of Shan States and Kokang rulers.Kokang’s Sao Pha, Sao Edward Yang Kyein Tsai was incarcerated by the Burmese junta at a time when Kuomintang forces were locked in a war with Burmese army in the Shan States.The indignation of the Kokang people was complete and the wave of revolt across the Shan States from early 1960s swept Kokang. The man who joined the revolt was Jimmy Yang aka Yang Zeng Shen who belonged to the Yang family.
The war for the liberation came to a head with Burmese armies and to gain some advantage for the beleaguered forces of Kokang Ping Jiasheng,another rebel leader of“Kokang,moved to China when their fortunes were dipping.Jimmy Yang builds bridges with Shan State Army that was formed in early 60s to find safe refuge in the border region of the trijunction, more popularly called Golden Triangle.
The Kuomintang and Jimmy’s forces were together and that made the SSA resurgent, promoting Burmese army to activate a
pro-government militia or Ka-Kye-We from the ethnic Kokang”s under Lo Hsing Han. As Kokang had traditionally produced opium from the late nineteenth century onwards, Lo Hsing dabbled in narcotics smuggling to maintain his militia.
Kokang also saw a new visitor in the form of CPB (Communist Party of Burma)that filled into the same role as the Kuomintang forces, who were all but gone by then.Peng Jiasheng kept his revolt going in the face of a major defection engineered by his top leader Peng Zik Khun in 1965,and faced the full wrath of Burmese army and the Ka-Kye-We militias. Later as the odds ran too high against both Jimmy and Peng Jiasheng, there were always the big brothers of Chinese Communists to fall back upon. Both were taken into the fold of CPB. Jimmy was also made a member of the CMC(Chinese Military Commission),that made him a very important leader of Kokang.
But Jimmy realised that over the years the CPB has lost its Chinese colours and the Burmese leaders in CPB had started the same discrimination as was evident since the coup days.
That made Jimmy quit the CPB as also his role in CMC. Meanwhile in 1989 the CPB imploded and the Wa lesders like Baoshan Youxiang formed the UWSA(United Wa State Army) and Peng Jiasheng formed MNDAA(Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army).
The formation of BGF(Border Guarding Forces) that was protested by the Burmese military through the 2009-10 led to the creation of BGF by engineering a division of MNDAA and expulsion of Peng Jiasheng grew apace.The Kokang Autonomous Zone created in its wake was governed by a combination of the BGFs and the remnants of the anti-Peng Jiasheng group.Post 2021
coup of junta in Myanmar the MNDAA clearly had an advantage as they have forged the Three Brotherhood Alliance with TNLA and AA since 2019.
The Kokang bosses play another critical role in funding counter-insurgency operations by Myanmar’s Border Guard Forces (BGFs). The BGFs are critical to the junta’s control of trade and transport corridors in northern Myanmar. Chinshwehaw and Kunlong - two regions controlled by the Tatmadaw - are adjacent to the Kokang Special Autonomous Zone and home to one of the key Cross-Border Economic Cooperation Zones. The Kokang have come to play a key role in CMEC(China Myanmar Economic Corridor), but they come with a dark side. Rampant gambling, extortion, fraud, and trafficking inside the Kokang fiefdom has triggered campaigns by the Yunnan police to crack down on cross-border crime, which impacts Chinese citizens. China has publicly taken a very strong stance on criminal activities with the arrests of minor players, while turning a blind eye to the Kokang syndicate bosses, who are simultaneously the facilitators of the border trade.
In northern Shan State, a Cross-Border Economic Zone in Chinshwehaw has been approved. linking the Shan township of Laukkai, the capital of the Kokang Special Autonomous Zone, to Lincang in Yunnan province. Transit through this route also provides the shortest path from Kunming to the deep-water port of Kyaukphyu on the Bay of Bengal. However Laukkai, with its 30 casinos and 50 hotels, has gained a reputation as a violent and crime-ridden frontier town. China and the junta have both become dependent on the operations of a Myanmar-Chinese mafia in control of the small self-administered zone bordering Yunnan.
As Jason Tower, the country director Burma at the U.S. Institute of Peace, told The Diplomat, “China is doing business with the Kokang Special Autonomous Zone, an ethnic Chinese community under the control of Kokang clans that are involved in transnational crime,” including drugs and fraud based around casinos in Myanmar.