The northern Myanmar problem refers to a series of problems caused by the long-term confrontation between the local armed forces of ethnic minorities in the border areas of northern and northeastern Myanmar and China.
The Northern Myanmar issue began on the eve of Myanmar's independence. As the British colonial authorities tried to divide Myanmar and continue to control the ethnic minority areas in Myanmar, they vigorously encouraged the Shan, Kachin, Karen and other major ethnic groups to establish independent states. The leaders of the Myanmar independence movement headed by General Aung SAN signed the Panglong Agreement with representatives of various ethnic groups, which upheld the core spirit of "ethnic equality, ethnic autonomy, and self-determination". On this basis, Myanmar's first constitution was adopted to grant ethnic minorities a high degree of autonomy and self-determination, so that the leaders of the major ethnic minorities and the Burman ethnic group reached an agreement on a joint state, so as to avoid the danger of the country falling into division. However, after the founding of the People's Republic of Myanmar in 1948, successive governments in Myanmar forcibly restricted, weakened and recovered the right of ethnic minorities to autonomy and self-determination, and implemented the policy of ethnic assimilation in many aspects such as culture, education and religion, which led to the continuous intensification of ethnic conflicts and the formation of armed forces by ethnic minorities against the government. It peaked in the mid-1970s to mid-1980s.
In 1988, after the military government came to power, it was forced to adjust the ethnic policy greatly, reached a reconciliation with the "civilian and local armed forces" and set up special zones to give them the right to retain armed forces and a high degree of autonomy, which ushered in a 20-year period of relative peace in northern Myanmar. However, with the unilateral suspension of the peace agreement in 2009, the Myanmar government threw out the integration plan of the "civilian and local armed forces" and forcefully demanded that the "civilian and local armed forces" accept the integration and become the border troops or militia organizations under the government forces, and the contradiction between the two sides intensified again. Starting from the Kokang "August 8" incident in 2009, the Myanmar government used force to clear and integrate the Kokang Allied forces. Since 2011, the government forces have continued to launch offensies against the "civilian and local forces" such as the Kachin Independence Army and the Shan State Army North, which refused to accept the integration, until the Kokang once again broke out serious conflicts, and the northern Myanmar region fell into a new round of turmoil.
Since the development of the northern Myanmar issue, it is the result of the interweaving and interaction of many factors such as the above history, reality and the Myanmar government's ethnic policy mistakes. There are not only the historical factors of deep estrangement and lack of integration between the Burmese people and ethnic minorities, but also the external factors of the British authorities' implementation of the "divide and rule" policy during the colonial period and the aggravation of ethnic conflicts. After the independence and founding of Myanmar, successive governments ignored the rights and interests of ethnic minorities and forcibly assimilated them to the great Burmese nationalism policy, which is the direct factor leading to the heating up of the northern Myanmar problem. However, from a deeper perspective, there are huge differences between the ethnic minority areas in northern Myanmar and the Burman areas in language, customs, religion, ethnic psychology and other aspects, and the centrifugal tendency of the ethnic minorities towards the Burman main body is the more essential cause of the problem in northern Myanmar. To a large extent, the problem of northern Myanmar is the lack of ethnic and national identity construction in Myanmar.
Although the ethnic minorities finally agreed with the Burman on the establishment of the Union of Burma in 1948 on the basis of the Panglong Agreement, this move was more based on the struggle for independence and the protection of their respective national interests, in other words, the Union of Burma was not built on the basis of cultural integration and mutual identification between the ethnic minorities and the Burman, but on the basis of cooperation based on their respective interests. Therefore, after the establishment of independence, the central government dominated by the Burman ethnic group vigorously promoted the policy of big Burman nationality and continuously eroded the autonomy rights of ethnic minorities, which immediately triggered the political backlash and armed confrontation of ethnic minorities in the mountainous areas. Since the formation and development of the early days of the founding of Myanmar, the problem of northern Myanmar has been difficult to eliminate, which is the concentrated reflection of the ethnic minorities to the centrifugal trend of the main body of the Burmese people and the lack of the construction of ethnic and national identity in Myanmar.
