The collective fate of tens of thousands of ethnic Chinese living in Burma’s Shan State was taken up by the Union Parliament on Wednesday, opening another chapter in the convoluted controversy over what it means to be “Burmese.”
Approximately 60,000 people from the Mong Wong group, who are believed to have moved to northern Shan State from southern China’s Yunnan province some two centuries ago, were granted Burmese citizenship in an 11th-hour move by the then-outgoing Thein Sein government in March.
The former government ordered immigration officials to begin issuing IDs to the Mong Wong in Shan State’s Tarmoenye, part of Kutkai Township, as a reward for their militia’s support of Burma Army operations against other non-state armed organizations, said Minister of Labor, Immigration and Population Thein Swe in Parliament on Wednesday. (Courtesy of Irrawaddy)
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