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Radio War Nerd #271 — Burma's Ethnic Militias (Patreon)

Published:
2021-03-07 13:32:56
Imported:
2026-06
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Guest: Gabriel Ernst, journalist 

Recorded: March 3, 2021

We discuss Myanmar's numerous ethnic militias & civil wars, some of which have been raging for over half a century, with guest "Gabriel Ernst" who has spent years researching and writing about the region. 

First: taking up a commenter's challenge, we try to find a New York Times exposé on China's repression of Uyghurs that doesn't lead back to fundamentalist loon Adrian Zenz...

At 28:00 - we're joined by Gabriel Ernst to learn about Myanmar's numerous ethnic militias and breakaway regions.

Links:

Open Burma (openburma.org)

Din Deng (dindeng.com)

Din Deng on Twitter (@dindength)

Mutual Aid Myanmar (mutualaidmyanmar.org)

Maps:

*Myanmar states

*Myanmar ethnoliguistic map

*Myanmar topographical map

*Map of Myanmar insurgenies

Interlude music by Brendon Anderegg. Check out his group Mountains here.

Buy John Dolan's book "The War Nerd Iliad" and his audiobook "Pleasant Hell".

Total time: 2:22:58

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

Files

Comments

mickthebrick

Youghal is pronounced like Y'all not You'll. I hope this information gets to you before you speak to the locals lol

The Fakir

Call me parochial, but looking at the maps on openburma.org, it is fascinating what Google has done with the Indo-Chinese border in Arunachal Pradesh

Nicolas Meier

I didn't take any offence at your last episode, wouldn't worry too much about it

MD

Weird how you take your own audience criticizing your line that “all” of the evidence for extreme measures in Xinjiang trace to one guy when they don’t as some outside force telling you “what you’re not supposed to talk about.” The claim is wrong, people said it was wrong, the people saying that were not government censors or w/e. Appreciate John’s walk back to “most” of the claims in this episode, closer to the truth!

MD

I also appreciate the comparative honesty of shifting from “all claims are zenz” to “most articles contain zenz among other evidence”

Thomas

Thanks for setting the lib-media-believers straight on Zenz and China. Interestingly, NED tweeted about funding seperatism in the region for two decades. A UN Resolution of global south nations:https://undocs.org/pdf?symbol=en/A/HRC/41/G/17 "We express our firm opposition to relevant countries’ practice of politicizing human rights issues, by naming and shaming, and publicly exerting pressures on other countries. We commend China’s remarkable achievements in the field of human rights by adhering to the people-centered development philosophy and protecting and promoting human rights through development. We also appreciate China’s contributions to the international human rights cause." Organization of Islamic Cooperation praises Chinese handling of Xinjiang:https://www.oic-oci.org/docdown/?docID=4447&refID=1250 "Welcomes the outcomes of the visit conducted by the General Secretariat's delegation upon invitation from the People's Republic of China; commends the efforts of the People's Republic of China in providing care to its Muslim citizens; and looks forward to further cooperation between the OIC and the People's Republic of China."

MD

I guess for me I just fundamentally disagree with your focus. Your attitude appears to be “let’s focus on debunking the worst claims because the empire is pushing it, but also I’m sure bad things are clearly happening.” I get being a “team player” for anti US takes, but I think the attitude should fundamentally be, “these very bad things are well documented and happening. What does it mean for people on the US left that the largest allegedly-communist country is doing these things, despite the fact that the US is layering false claims on top of that.” It might be a generational thing, it might be a political difference, but it just strikes me as taking your eye off the ball. Also, we’re all in good faith here. If we can comment on this, we’re giving you $5 a show lol.

B. Carter

So is the ball here that we're supposed to condemn China for doing something comparable to the US penal system? I think it's more telling that we're only expected to care about crimes against humanity in countries which are on the State Department's shitlist, while the US and its allies do the same exact things only to be completely ignored by liberal watchdogs so long as a Democrat is president. What Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Turkey do is objectively worse but I have yet to see anybody on Tik Tok post twee videos about Yemen or Afrin. There's no generational divide between suckers.

MD

I don’t think the US penal system is erasing languages lmao, the better point of comparison here is Native American schools in the 19th century, and yeah we should condemn that. If you’re so intellectually stunted that you can’t look at facts divorced from your simple conception of who the “good guys” and “bad guys,” are, I think you’re probably the sucker in this situation. Furthermore, we’re all RWN listeners here so you can probably safely assume we care about what the saudis are doing in Yemen! Stop arguing with the Henry Kissinger you keep in your head (ironically enough the IRL one is a china dove) and actually talk about the people bringing this up right now. The ball here is that socialism is a necessary but insufficient condition for overcoming ethnic hatred and oppression. If we want to genuinely stop those things we need to learn the lessons of the 20th century and this and move forward, not engage in petty denialism and team playerism

HeyB00B00

Incredible job with the maps in this one guys!

Kyle

Does anyone know where someone could download these 400 Chinese government documents that the “Xinjiang Papers” NYT report is talking about? A few of them are shown in the article itself, but many of the claims made in the article are not accompanied by sources. Searching on google I could only find this website: https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-cables/read-the-china-cables-documents/ which seems to only provide 6 documents (and, interestingly enough, says right off the bat that their authenticity was confirmed by a Defense Corp guy and... Dr. Zenz) Not saying I doubt the documents’ authenticity exactly, I just have a little trouble trusting the New York Times to provide an accurate interpretation of their contents.

Matthew

Great ep

Exotic Instinct

Just want to know why John and Kathrine move so much.

James Whale

Great ep don't mind the haters

Benjamin Cheney

I had no idea there were Bolsonarista trolls on here before

Josiah bolth

Cancelling my subscription unless John and Mark issue an apology to Dr. Zenz, Mike Pompeo and all the Uyghurs forced into doing tai chi. I live in Louisiana, speak no mandarin and have never been to China but I will not have my views invalidated by CCP puppets like Mark Ames and Carl Zha

julio

Great discussion of the Zenz bullshit. Can you guys link the articles to NYT you discussed?

a clash of purple

Agreed. I was born in the United States but moved to Taiwan, even though I don't know any Chinese languages and don't even know what Chinese people look like, because my country of birth did not hate Red China enough. I unhesitatingly believe all anti-communist propaganda in the newspapers I scavenge every morning out of the dumpster I live in and I will not have literal mind-controlled puppets of Stalin and Mao like Carl Zha question anything I hear, ever.

Kevin Walsh

I discovered the other day after hearing John pronounce Boolavogue that logainm.ie has sound files where you can hear place names pronounced.

Rhys

I think Mark is referring to this article: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/world/asia/china-xinjiang-uighur-court.html "The authorities are also pursuing an expansive and troubling campaign to drastically reduce the birthrate among minority groups in Xinjiang using forced sterilization and abortions, according to an investigation by The Associated Press and Adrian Zenz, a German researcher." The AP article linked in the NYT is here: https://apnews.com/article/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c It's not an investigation at all. It's a summary of a preprint of zenz's report. From the AP: "The hundreds of millions of dollars the government pours into birth control has transformed Xinjiang from one of China’s fastest-growing regions to among its slowest in just a few years, according to new research obtained by The Associated Press in advance of publication by China scholar Adrian Zenz"

Rhys

I'm an International Relations post grad in the UK focusing on human rights issues. I first noticed this last summer when researching the Canadian parliaments investigation into HR abuses in Xinjiang. The HR committee took testimony from Zenze and as a secondary and confirmatory source cited the AP report. "First, we are concerned about the many reports of forced birth control, sterilization, tubal ligation and abortion, which are dramatically changing the demographics of Xinjiang. In the last three weeks, there have been two complementary reports—and you've heard from Mr. Adrian Zenz this morning, and from the Associated Press—documenting these activities. The British Foreign Secretary made a comment in Parliament this weekend about this very thing, as you probably all know." https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/43-1/SDIR/meeting-4/evidence So there was no secondary source. It was just Zenze.

Rhys

This was critical. The charge of genocide would unlikely have been levelled without the inclusion of zenz's testimony on forced sterilisation. It pushed it from the definition of 'severe human rights violations' into the UN definition of genocide. The Canadian parliament declared it a genocide in Feb this year. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-56163220

Rhys

Here in the UK foreign secretary Dominic Raab made reference to birth control in parliament but generally played it down and did not call events in Xinjiang a genocide. However he is being pushed by the tory right wing and by liberal democrats who are affiliated with the hard line Inter Parliamentary Alliance on China which demand the term genocide be used. The IPAC issued the demand through the organisation The Global Committee For The Rule Of Law. An organisation founded by the former leader of the Italian 'Radical Party', 'Partito Radicale' and long time pro Tibetan independence advocate Marco Pannella. As proof of genocide they cited Adrian Zenz and only Adrian Zenz. How well post brexit negotiations with China go is certain to determine the UK position. Anyway, I hope some find this interesting. Great show guys, you're the best podcast out there. http://globalcommitteefortheruleoflaw.org/china-new-report-on-the-ccps-campaign-to-suppress-uyghur-birthrates-in-xinjiang/

Paul Vd

The violence in the protests is the same as the Ukraine snipers. Instigated by the opposition

Matthew Wranovics

You should check out the work of University of Colorado’s Darren Byler on Xianjiang, who is not a Zenz-like wingnut. He uses the term “social re-engineering” rather than “genocide” to describe what’s happening to Uyghur society. He has shown that there is a deliberate campaign to reduce Uyghur birth rates, which he compares the American eugenics movement’s attacks on indigenous and black people. Again, he stops short of calling it genocide, and I’m fairly agnostic on the term, but it’s worth pointing out that deliberately attempting to reduce birth rates of an ethnic / religious minority does fit the UN’s definition of genocide

Matthew Wranovics

In other words, one doesn’t need to demonstrate slavery or mass killing to prove that “genocide” is occurring, strictly speaking. At any rate I think it’s not exactly the right conversation to be having, personally

MD

Ofc having just finished the episode feel compelled to say that the “main course” was your usual brilliance w/ someone who I never would have found otherwise

Gengeros

There is two genocides happening in the world today, none of them in China, one is Gaza and the other is Yemen.

pat

Always a delight to hear John try and describe the shape of geography

Gergely Gáli

I did, and he didn't show anything close to what you claim. His work isn't independent of but builds on Dr. Zenz's. In his PhD dissertation he states the hundreds of thousands detained figure and he refers to Zenz. Sometimes later in his testimony to the Canadian House of Commons repeats this figure and adds that maybe the figure is really close to a million. We observe here the exact same inflation of numbers that happened with Zenz's. The alleged campaign to reduce Uyghur birth rates also not his original research, he accepts Zenz's without questions and goes from there. As opposed to Zenz he at least speaks Mandarin and Uyghur, I give you that. Still, he also doesn't present enough hard evidence to his claims to us to verdict China guilty on the charge of genocide. This a serious claim and demands much more serious evidence than we currently have. He also works at a Washington think-tank called Wilson Center which is funded by the US Congress and the Embassy of the UAE among others.

mark

How do you spell what sounds like the "wa" armies? Couldn't figure it out. There's too much to untangle here. I was hoping for a more "burmese civil wars for dummies" sort of episode. Good episode non the less.

Kyle

Here’s Byler’s paper: https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/web.sas.upenn.edu/dist/b/732/files/2020/10/Darren-Byler_Human-Rights-in-China-The-Case-of-Xinjiang_Final.pdf This AP article is the source Byler uses on the claims of forced sterilization, abortions, etc: https://apnews.com/article/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c The data the AP article uses comes directly from Zenz’s work at Jamestown (his name first appears in the 9th paragraph down) The integrity or credentials of Byler or even Zenz aside—I find it troubling that we are asked to accept this “genocide/eugenics due to forced sterilization” narrative when it’s EXACTLY the same narrative that was peddled two decades ago about Tibet (that was thoroughly debunked by western experts: https://case.edu/affil/tibet/booksAndPapers/fertility.and.family.planning.in.rural.tibet.pdf), and is based on EXACTLY the same type of evidence (falling birthrates and the lurid tales of refugees). What is different in this case? In what way(s) are the evidence more credible?

radiowarnerd

We knew before we talked about this that it would get us in trouble, but we've also lived through a series of imperial lies that have been disastrous for other countries but for our own country too. To take the most obvious example, the lead up to the invasion of Iraq featured endless heart-rending stories which were used to justify destroying Iraq. I remember very well that at the time, if you doubted any of these stories, it was because you were a traitor or had no heart. Later, people were sorry but that didn't do much good.

radiowarnerd

Bolsonaristas are one of the biggest factions in right-wing Twitter. They're Trump's last suicide commandos.

Ciaran O'Connor

Everyone here seems to be talking about the Zenz stuff rather than Burma, so just wanted to say it was an interesting episode. I had no idea there was so many different groups and the scale is astounding.

Ander Pierce

IMO there is a world of difference between "erasing languages" and teaching people Mandarin so they can integrate with the national economy and be less susceptible to both poverty and extremist radicalization. I can't pretend to know exactly what is going on Xinjiang, I don't speak Mandarin, have never been to China, etc. That being said, after a few hundred terror attacks in a few decades, China absolutely had a responsibility to their citizens (not to mention a massive geopolitical incentive) to quash the terror that wracked Xinjiang. If Louisiana had an Al-Qaeda linked terrorist front which committed monthly terror attacks it would have (and should have) elicited a massive state response. To me the Chinese reaction to the terror in Xinjiang is comparable.

Ander Pierce

Lmao I will outright say I doubt the documents' authenticity, and I have no doubt about the spin the media will put on the documents 'revelations'.

quentin maher

Adding $1 to my patreon support for every nerd who believes CIA propaganda in this thread

john

Openburma.org is getting a 509 for me. Did it get taken down?

Dorst Savijeski

I'm not a kremlin troll just watching the news and concluded navalny knew what he was getting into before Berlin.

Dorst Savijeski

This might be new to some but our years of lead never got corrected, the one iq nazi crew is doing anything to ensure its hold on critical institutional power, their dinosaurus not bad people, but one teacher to many: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0d6I9bq_O8

Edward P Slocomb

I appreciate a healthy amount of skepticism, but too much of it can potentially have consequences every bit as ugly. There's very little independent information available in this case, and both the Chinese government and the Foggy Bottom Blob seem to be quite content to keep it that way. This isn't a situation where any of us should be getting our egos caught up in wizarding out which parts of whose stories are second-hand or outright fabrications, and which might be the kernels of truth you so frequently find doing load-bearing work in effectively crafted propaganda.

Steven

yeah i think it’s in bad shape for one reason or another