Myanmar rebels’ crowdfunding restricted by China
Politics & Current Affairs
Top politics and current affairs news for March 22, 2017. Part of the daily The China Project news roundup "Microsoft Windows — Chinese government edition."
- Myanmar praises China for suspending rebels’ bank account / Reuters
On Tuesday, the Agricultural Bank of China (aka Agbank and ABC) suspended an account used by ethnic fighters in Myanmar to crowdfund military activities against their government. The ethnically Chinese rebels, known as the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), led attacks on government outposts in the Kokang region of Myanmar earlier this month, leaving 30 dead and over 20,000 refugees flooding over the border into China. Since 2015, when a Chinese blogger began publicizing its cause, the MNDAA raised more than $500,000, which was deposited directly to its account or sent to the account via WeChat Pay and Alipay.
On Wednesday, the Myanmar government praised China’s restriction of financing for the MNDAA, though Reuters confirmed that, technically, AgBank had broken no laws.
- China denies work planned for monitoring station in South China Sea shoal / SCMP
- Rex Tillerson’s deferential visit to China / The New Yorker
- South Koreans now hate China even more than Japan, new opinion poll says / Shanghaiist – see also the The China Project story on anti-Korean sentiment in China
- Xi Jinping is only halfway through his rule yet China’s already trumpeting his legacy / Quartz
