The Chinese government is building walls along the China-Myanmar border in Yunnan Province to prevent illegal border crossings. The Twitter account of the first special zone of Myanmar’s northern Shan State, where the Kokang ethnic group resides, recently posted that in order to prevent its citizens from illegally emigrating to Myanmar, the Chinese government has completed the first phase of the project which is code-named “Great Wall of the South” – a 660-kilometer-long wall of barbed wire. The second phase of the project will be completed by the end of next year. By then, more than 2,000 kilometers of the Myanmar-China border will be completely detached.
The Twitter of Myanmar’s northern Shan State also claimed that the third phase of the “Great Wall of the South” will be completed in October 2022, and high-voltage electric wiring will be installed at key smuggling passages. Video surveillance cameras and infrared alarms will be installed everywhere.
Si Ling, a scholar on China-Myanmar relations, told Radio Free Asia that the Chinese government’s construction of a high wall on the China-Myanmar border is not to prevent the influx of the coronavirus.
Si said that China’s decision to build this wall was not made overnight, but after very rigorous planning. In the past, it was easy to cross the borders between China and Vietnam and China and Myanmar. The people of the two countries would be in China today, and go to Vietnam tomorrow, and even go back and forth within the same day. The purpose of Beijing’s construction of this wall is to prevent the people from leaving China.
Source: Radio Free Asia, December 14, 2020
https://www.rfa.org/cantonese/news/wall-12142020073935.html