There are many Chinese in Mandalay and elsewhere in Myanmar. The Chinese began moving into Mandalay in a big way in the 1990s. By the late 2000s, 80 percent of the foreign investment in the city came from China.
and many Burmese there don’t like the Chinese. Mark Magnier wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “Distrust of Beijing stems in part from fears, particularly in the north, of being overrun by China. “No one likes the Chinese,” said Yan Naing, 38, a Mandalay disc jockey. “It feels like an invasion.” Residents recall a 1984 fire that gutted downtown Mandalay and was followed by a government order to rebuild quickly using more expensive materials. Many had lost everything, even as Chinese citizens from neighboring Yunnan province appeared with ready cash. “Burmese couldn’t compete,” said Kyaw Yin Myint, with the weekly Journal newspaper. “Many were forced to sell and leave the city.” [Source: Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times, March 24, 2013 ]
“Anti-China sentiment had been building for years, say foreign academics, Yangon businessmen and former military officials. That apprehension grew even within the nation’s armed forces, where officers believed Myanmar was being exploited by its giant neighbor. The influx expanded after 1988, locals say, when a crackdown on democratic activists spurred Western sanctions. Myanmar fell further into China’s arms, especially after Beijing used its U.N. veto to quash Western human rights resolutions.
“Culture followed the money, locals say, and Chinese red lanterns, barbecue restaurants, lion dances and televised opera washed across northern Myanmar. Also drawing ire is the trafficking of women to southern China, either as sex workers or wives purchased to help rectify China’s male surplus. China accounts for about 80 percent of human trafficking victims, Myanmar police reported in late 2012. “The Burmese are very keen to get out of the embrace of the Chinese,” said Morten Pedersen, a senior lecturer with the Australian Defense Force Academy. “Myanmar was angry with the sanctions, but it was never anti-Western. They have a traditional view of autonomy and saw they were losing that.”
Ben Blanchard of Reuters wrote: “Ask residents of the dusty Chinese border town of Ruili what they think of their neighbour and supposed friend Myanmar and one word features prominently — “luan”, or chaotic. This has not, however, engendered much goodwill towards the government of Myanmar. Though nor does it appear to generate Chinese disdain of the often obviously poorer Myanmar citizens in their midst. “We all know how bad the government there is,” said Chinese businessman Li Hai. “It’s poor and horribly corrupt. If I were from Myanmar, I’d want to come to China too.” [Source: Ben Blanchard, Reuters, January 29th, 2010 /]
“Ask the Myanmar traders, in their sarong-like longyis and cheap plastic sandals, what they think of China and their answer is completely the opposite — stable, giving them a chance to escape the poverty and mismanagement of their ruling generals. Yet there is little love lost between the Myanmar businessmen, farmers and massage girls who flock to booming China and their host nation. Many harbour a burning resentment not necessarily of their own government, but of the Chinese.
“All these new Chinese now own Mandalay,” a shop in Mandalay complained to Newsweek. “they’re aren’t many Burmese-owned businesses like mine in Mandalay’s commercial section anymore. The rest are owned or controlled by a Chinese from the border.” “There are so many Chinese in Mandalay, at least half the population now,” Myanmar jade trader Ye Kaw, speaking in the flawless Mandarin he has picked up after many years living in Ruili, China, told Reuters. “We hate them,” he added, when asked how residents of his home town look upon the Chinese migrants, looking fearfully around to see if any of his customers had heard him. “But we have to come here. There is no future for me at home.”
“In Myanmar, there has been growing alarm among some people at illegal mass entry of Chinese into their country through the border controlled by major ethnic armed groups such as the ethnic Chinese United Wa State Army. Anti-Chinese feeling in the former Burma is not new. The Burmese kings, who ruled before the British came, had long been wary of their powerful neighbour. More recently, in 1967, anti-Chinese riots in then capital Rangoon — today called Yangon — lead to the sacking of China’s embassy and dozens of deaths, if not more.