Amid border disputes, China cuts off electricity to Myanmar's village

Owing to border demarcation disputes between Beijing and Naypyidaw, China has cut off electricity in the northern Shan State of Myanmar for nearly nine months, media reported quoting residents.

The residents of the Myanmar village claim that China is trying to encroach and grab their lands near the border, reported The Irrawaddy.

Nawng Kham village in Namkham Township (in Shan State) is to the north of the Shweli River and was supposed to be supplied electricity by the Chinese border village of Nawng Hsawng.

A joint venture between Myanmar's electricity ministry and China's Yunnan United Power Development Co Ltd, the Shweli 1 hydropower project, is near the village but has never supplied it with power.

As per Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF) reports this week, China has cut the power in July 2021 over the demarcation dispute.

China has been attempting to build fences over its border with Myanmar citing the prevention of the spread of coronavirus. In October 2020, the Chinese authorities started building a double layer of border fencing, 15 to 20 meters apart, near Nawng Kham.

According to the reports, the fence is 7 meters high on the Chinese side and 5 meters on Myanmar's side and cuts through fields stretching across the border. In July last year, Beijing attempted twice to build more fences on Nawng Kham villagers' fields however it later stopped because of protests.

In a conversation with Myanmar's local media outlet, The Irrawaddy, an SHRF spokesman said, "The Chinese have not encroached since the dispute over the border fence. But they still plan to build a bridge near the fence. Farmers fear they might lose land again because they encroached when they erected the fence in 2021. Because of those disputes, electricity has been cut off to Nawng Kham since October 2021."

The power cuts began after July last year. The power was briefly restored in October however only to be cut again on October 19 after a house in Nawng Kham caught fire.

"Some villagers can afford generators and solar panels. But rising diesel prices mean they can't run generators anymore. They asked Myanmar's authorities to supply electricity but they were told to buy power from China," said the spokesman.

Myanmar's Nawng Kham has 161 homes and around 2,000 residents. Villagers have been buying Chinese electricity for 20 years and paid for Chinese meters in 2002. Costs fell by about 40 percent when the Shweli project opened, according to the report.

A villager said, "I think they cut off the power because we opposed the land grab. When we filed a complaint they said they were too busy to handle it."

Notably, a bilateral protocol was signed in 1961 for the 2,227 km border agreeing to conduct joint demarcation inspections every five years, although this only occurred in the 1980s and 1990s.

The agreement banned construction near the border.