Myanmar's jade traders are caught between the military and the rebels

[ASEAN NOW Content Team]

 

As the billion-dollar industry loses its lustre months after the coup, Myanmar jade traders are fleeing junta troops and avoiding rebel strikes in order to sell dwindling supplies of the green gemstone.

Since the February coup, the Southeast Asian country has been in upheaval, with the military attempting to repress widespread democracy rallies and the economy in shambles.

 

Fighting near the world's largest jade mine, Hpakant, in northern Kachin state, has stifled digging already impeded by the pandemic, limiting supply of one of the country's most lucrative products.

Myanmar is the world's largest producer of jade, with insatiable demand for the translucent stone from China driving the sector.

The majority of stones transit through Mandalay, Myanmar's second city, which is home to the 23-meter-high Kyauksein Pagoda, a Buddhist shrine constructed with thousands of kilogrammes of the valuable stone.

 

The structure is now deserted, with only a few believers worshipping beneath the gleaming blue and crimson dome.

"Business is bad," said one jade dealer, who spent months attempting to sell his stones on Mandalay's streets while the virus and instability shut down the city's main jade market.

 

"When soldiers arrive on patrol, some residents fear and flee...
When one person runs, others follow suit.
Soldiers then fire warning rounds to bring the situation under control."

 

"YOUR LIVES ARE IN DANGER"

 

The market reopened two days later, and authorities resumed collecting fees, one of many charged on the jewel to fund both sides of a decades-long civil war between armed ethnic groups and the military.

According to the NGO Global Witness, buying Myanmar jade without giving money to the military and its allies is "almost impossible."

 

Working with the stone has taken on a new hazard as a result of popular and frequently violent opposition to the generals, who regularly appear in public sporting rings set with high-quality jade.

Days before the market reopened, a message from Generation Z Power, a local dissident group, stated, "If you continue performing your trading business... We strongly warn that your life are in danger."

 

A week after the traders returned, a bomb exploded near the market, and while no one was injured, the same group threatened to detonate more if people continued to trade there.

Despite the dangers, the market is regaining some of its previous vigour.

One man, seated at a small camp table and scrutinising a fist-sized rock with a torch, speaks Mandarin into his smartphone.

 

Because of the pandemic and periodic violence along the border, Beijing has closed its border with Myanmar, but demand remains high - and Chinese purchasers are taking advantage of the upheaval to drive a harsh bargain.

"They are giving really low prices because of Covid and the political situation," claimed one 62-year-old trader who did not want to be identified.

 

"We don't have a choice, though.
They're required for the market.
We have no place to rely on for this business if they don't buy or if we don't sell "Added he.