Neighborly Incursion

The 1,000-mile frontier between Burma and Communist China runs through some of the world's wildest country. In its southern reaches, the limestone mountains of the Shan States rise to almost 9,000 feet, and at its northern end, snowcapped Himalayan peaks push up to more than twice that height. At lower altitudes, an average annual rainfall of 200 inches produces thick jungle cut only by swift-running rivers and an occasional trail. Scattered through this wilderness is a confusing melange of primitive peoples--gentle Shans, timid Palaungs, and the warlike little Kachins who, under U.S. officers, harried the Japanese unmercifully throughout World War II. Most primitive of all are the wild Wa, who live in hill villages that can be entered only through tunnels. The Wa believe that a village's supply of human skulls must be replenished each year to ensure good crops.

The border, snaking across an area seldom explored and inadequately mapped, has been in dispute ever since the British seized Upper Burma in 1885. On a variety of dubious grounds, including the fact that a 9th century Burmese kingdom once paid tribute to China's T'ang emperors, Chinese rulers from the Empress Dowager to Chiang Kai-shek claimed large chunks of northern Burma. The Chinese Reds, after their conquest of mainland China in 1949, redrew the map to show the disputed areas as part of China, and then waited for history to confirm their map.

Limited Invasion. Last week Rangoon's leading daily Nation broke the story that Chinese Communist troops had moved into Burma along a 500-mile front running from Putao in Kachin State down to the

Wa States (see map). In some places, Chinese outposts were reported 60 miles within Burma.

For two days, Neutralist Premier U Ba Swe's government, fearful of incurring the wrath of the giant on its northeastern border, denied the Nation's report, though the news had obviously been leaked by worried Burmese army officers. Finally, bit by bit. the government began to admit facts which it had been suppressing for more than a year. The Chinese "invasion," said the government, was limited to the Wa States, where Red troops began to cross the border in the 1954-55 winter. By May of last year, Chinese Communist forces had established semipermanent outposts inside the Wa States, and in November a Burmese army column on routine "flag march" in the Wa country was attacked by a Chinese force which finally retired after suffering ten casualties.

What the situation was as of last week nobody in the Burmese government really knew, since all roads leading to the Wa States had been washed out by monsoon rains. The Burmese army estimates that the Chinese Reds have expanded their occupation forces to "a few thousand men" and now hold about 1,000 square miles of Burmese territory.

Five Principles, Two Protests. The Burmese could now tell, if they could not before, whom ex-Premier U Nu meant in his attack three weeks ago on unnamed "veritable sons of bitches for distant aunts" (TIME, Aug. 6). Now that the story was out in the open, the government admitted that it had quietly lodged two protests with Peking since last November; the first was brushed off, the second had gone unanswered even though, under the much-vaunted Panch Shila or Five Principles of India's Nehru, Burma and Red China had pledged to respect each other's territorial integrity.

At first, Peking radio said that the reports of a Communist invasion were obviously untrue, since such an incursion "would be devoid of military common sense." But at week's end Peking radio conceded that there were troops inside the "disputed" area "in a spirit of friendship. Under these circumstances there is fundamentally no such question as crossing into the territory of Burma."

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