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The Key West Citizen
Key West, Monroe County, Florida
What is this article about?
Chinese Nationalist troops in northeastern Burma receive regular supplies through an opium-for-guns smuggling arrangement in northern Thailand near the Burmese border. The operation links to the Chinese embassy in Bangkok and involves about 10,000 troops since 1949, prompting anxiety and accusations from communist governments, denied by the US State Department.
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Chinese Nationalist troops who have taken refuge in Northeastern Burma are being supplied regularly through an opium-for-guns smuggling arrangement in Thailand.
This correspondent spent five days looking around the area extending from Chiang Mai 75 miles to the north and within 10 to 20 miles east of the Burmese border.
Sources in most cases cannot be named for publication, but they include teachers, missionaries, official foreign observers, leading merchants, local newsmen, army officers, senior Thai civil servants and police officials.
This is how the barter arrangement works:
A Chinese posing as a merchant, but reported to be a Nationalist army colonel, maintains headquarters in Chiang Mai as the link between the Chinese embassy in Bangkok, Thailand's capital, and the Nationalists in Burma.
His job is to funnel supplies received from Bangkok by air and rail, as well as locally produced food and clothing, across the border.
In exchange the Chinese Nationalists in Burma send raw opium to Chiang Mai for forwarding to Bangkok and onward. The opium is grown in Burma's Shan States and the Yunnan Province of China.
Since 1949 the trade has been stimulated by the presence of about 10,000 ill-equipped and hungry Chinese Nationalist forces who were pushed over the Burma border by the Chinese Reds.
These troops have been a source of acute anxiety to the Burmese and Thai people and the governments of the United States and Britain.
The Russian and Chinese Communist governments have accused the United States of helping supply and reinforce them with troops flown from Formosa, and have charged that an act of aggression against Communist China was being readied in Southeast Asia.
(In Washington the State Department reiterated today its denial that the United States is assisting Chinese Nationalist forces in Burma in anyway.
(A department spokesman said the denials were based on investigations of reports that American military personnel were seen in the area. He also said no American reporter claimed to have seen personally Americans or American equipment in the area and the information appears to come from shadowy and unspecified sources.)
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Where did it happen?
Foreign News Details
Primary Location
Northern Thailand Near Burmese Border
Event Date
Since 1949
Outcome
ongoing supply of approximately 10,000 chinese nationalist troops via smuggling; international accusations of us involvement denied by state department
Event Details
Chinese Nationalist troops in northeastern Burma are supplied through an opium-for-guns barter arrangement coordinated from Chiang Mai, linking the Chinese embassy in Bangkok to the troops. Supplies include food, clothing, and items from Bangkok by air and rail; in exchange, raw opium from Burma's Shan States and China's Yunnan Province is sent to Bangkok. The arrangement supports troops pushed across the border by Chinese Communists in 1949, causing anxiety to local populations and US/British governments. Communist governments accuse the US of aiding the troops from Formosa for aggression against China; US denies involvement based on investigations.