A Myanmar government MiG-29 fighter plane on March 8 flew over a Chinese village in the border province of Yunnan and dropped a bomb on a house believed to be a safe haven for the Kokang rebels. No major casualty was announced by either the Chinese or the Burmese side.
Witnesses at the site reported that the MiG-29 fighter jet flew at low altitude over the Chinese village known as Mengding, causing pandemonium among the villagers watching the tense firefight on the other side of the border between Myanmar government forces and the Kokang rebels. A Chinese ground intelligence agent has been cited by official Chinese news media as saying that Myanmar attack helicopters also were involved in the fight against the rebels.
Fighting between Myanmar and the rebels broke out about a month ago. Tens of thousands of refugees fled to China, and many are believed to be defeated rebels in search of a haven to regroup and rearm inside China to stage a counterattack against Myanmar forces.
Myanmar has accused local Chinese governments in the border region of aiding the rebels.
Thousands of Chinese illegal loggers and miners have flooded northern Myanmar in the rebel-controlled areas. The Myanmar government’s robust military campaign in the border region has forced many thousands of these illegal fortune-seekers back to China. The government has arrested up to 200 Chinese illegal business owners and slave labor ring leaders.
Hong Lei, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, protested the Myanmar warplane’s bombing of the village.
“We have expressed our grave concerns to the Myanmar side and demanded the Myanmar side find out the cause of such action as quickly as possible,” said Mr. Hong on March 10 in Beijing. “We also asked the Myanmar side to take effective measures to prevent such incidents from happening again.”
There has been no official explanation for the bombing incident.
PLA ACCUSED OF ORGAN HARVESTING
Dr. Jiang Yanyong, China’s most famous military whistleblower, known for his muckraking to debunk official lies about the 2003 SARS crisis, has alleged that the Chinese military medical establishment has been harvesting patients’ organs to sell for profit.
Dr. Jiang, now in his 80s, is a renowned military surgeon. He has investigated the criminally cruel practice of harvesting patients’ organs to save the lives of Chinese and foreign nationals willing to pay high prices for organ transplants.
In particular, Dr. Jiang accused the PLA’s Beijing Military Region’s General Hospital of operating a commercial organ transplant center since 2005, which would be illegal under Chinese military laws.
China’s military hospitals fall under the command of the PLA’s General Logistics Department, whose deputy chief, Lt. Gen Gu Junshan, was the first “Big Tiger” to fall during Supreme Leader Xi Jinping’s anti-graft campaign begun last year.
Since his challenge to the Chinese government in the 2003 SARS crisis, Dr. Jiang has been harassed frequently by the Chinese government and the PLA. He is the cousin of Chiang Yan-shih, a high official in Taiwan who once served, among other positions, as foreign minister.
That family connection, perhaps, helps Dr. Jiang from becoming a nonperson in communist China, as Beijing has been eagerly courting the upper crust of the ruling Nationalist Party in the island democracy.
CHINA CLAIMS RIGHT TO PICK DALAI LAMA
China’s top officials in charge of religious and Tibetan affairs have come out in swagger to insist that the right to appoint the next Dalai Lama — the 15th — rests with the Central Committee of the Communist Party, whose political ideology is atheism.
Zhu Liqun, China’s most senior official in charge of Tibetan affairs, told Chinese and foreign reporters in Beijing on March 11 that the Central Government of China has the right to appoint the successor to the current 14th Dalai Lama, who has been in exile in India since he was chased out of Tibet in 1959 after a failed rebellion against the communist rule.
The Dalai Lama, 79, has said openly since the mid-1970s that he might want to end the reincarnation of the next Dalai Lama to prevent China’s communist government from controlling the selection process.
Traditionally, the religious order of Tibetan Buddhists selects a young boy to be the Dalai Lama. The boy is usually considered as the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama.
Tenzin Gyatso was chosen as the current Dalai Lama in 1937, when he was 2.
• Miles Yu’s column appears Fridays. He can be reached at mmilesyu@gmail.com and @Yu_miles.
• Miles Yu can be reached at yu123@washingtontimes.com.
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