As the convoy of trucks laden with precious Burmese teak and sandalwood snakes its way into China from Myanmar, it comes perilously close to a ravine in the Himalayan foothills of Yunnan province.
The caravan of timber being transported to China hails from Myanmar’s lawless northern state of Kachin. The resource-rich region bordering China and India is at the centre of a multibillion-dollar illicit economy fuelled by mining, logging and drug trafficking, according to observers and law enforcement officials.
The war-torn state is also at the heart of a power struggle between China’s encroaching economic interests in Myanmar and the battle-hardened ethnic militias engaged in fragile peace talks with the quasi-civilian government in Naypyidaw.
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