Some evidence that China’s presence in Myanmar might be doing a bit of good:
Thanks in part to Chinese pressure, the area of Myanmar along the Chinese border that once produced about 30 percent of the country's opium was last year declared opium-free by the United Nations. Local authorities, who are from the Wa tribe and are autonomous from Myanmar's central government, banned poppy cultivation and welcomed Chinese investment in rubber, sugar cane and tea plantations, casinos and other businesses."China has had an underestimated role," said Martin Jelsma, a Dutch researcher who has written extensively on the illicit drug trade in Asia. "Their main leverage is economic: These border areas of Burma are by now economically much more connected to China than the rest of Burma," he said, using the former name for Myanmar. "For local authorities it's quite clear that, for any investments they want to attract, cooperation with China is a necessity."
China’s relations with the Wa go way back. Until 1993, the PRC sponsored an insurgency by the Burmese Communist Party, which in its latter stages had degenerated into the Wa’s ethnic militia.
There’s an obvious compare and contrast here with Afghanistan. The report mentions that growing conditions are better in places like Helmand, so some transfer was always likely once the country had been opened up to the trade following the invasion in 2001. But the major pull factor out of the trade seems to be economic integration with neighbours, which may explain why the parts of Afghanistan under Iranian influence seem to be doing better.
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