A CONVERGENCE OF OLD WARRIORS AND NEW MONEY

Myanmar's city of Mong La is a garish mix of tribal army commanders and
wealthy Chinese tourists

MONG LA, MYANMAR -- Available soon: Luxury condos with a spectacular view of
an immaculately groomed golf course, surrounded by an idyllic Asian
landscape of rice paddies and lakes.

Slight disadvantage: Your neighbours will be opium merchants, guerrilla
leaders, drug lords, prostitutes, loan sharks and gamblers.

Chinese-style capitalism has arrived in the heart of the Golden Triangle,
the notoriously lawless region where much of the world's opium and heroin
are produced, and the result is a bizarre boomtown of the nouveaux riches
and the old warriors.

The new city of Mong La, which has sprung up from the wilderness of northern
Myanmar in barely a decade, is a garish mix of wealthy Chinese tourists,
tribal army commanders, drug traffickers, casino clients, thrill-seekers,
Russian burlesque dancers, Thai transvestites and migrant businessmen.

As many as 600,000 Chinese tourists cross the frontier every year to visit
the exotic attractions of this fast-growing border town, built on profits
from the opium trade. Because gambling is illegal in China, the casinos are
a huge draw for Chinese tourists, who fly to an airstrip on the Chinese side
of the border, then travel a short distance by road across the border to
reach Mong La.

For more than a century, opium poppies were the only cash crop in this
remote region of mountain villages and obscure tribes. But the former
guerrilla fighters who command the region are under heavy pressure to ban
the opium trade. Now poppy fields are giving way to a new economy of
casinos, karaoke bars, golf courses, brothels, hotels, bowling alleys and
tourist gimmicks such as elephant polo.

On the outskirts of Mong La, a luxury housing development with several dozen
condominium units is being constructed beside the gleaming greens and
fairways of a nine-hole course, where the town's elite are fond of golfing.
Every afternoon at 4 p.m., local government leaders -- mostly ethnic Chinese
-- show up for a round. The course's official logo is a dollar sign -- with
two golf clubs crossing the S to form it.

The night sky of Mong La is brightly lit by the neon lights of the gaudy
casinos and posh hotels. One of its central squares is little more than
dozens of brothels and strip clubs. Its wide boulevards and newly paved
streets are a sharp contrast to the poverty of the farmland and villages
surrounding it.

Chinese gamblers stake as much as $100,000 (U.S.) on a single wager at Mong
La's casinos. Loan sharks hover near the betting rooms, ready to lend money
to desperate gamblers at exorbitant interest rates -- enforced by violence
against those who don't repay their loans.

Mong La's booming casino economy was created by a local drug boss, Lin
Mingxian, who heads the tribal army in Myanmar's eastern Shan State. "When
he comes to town, everybody stands at attention," said a local restaurant
owner, one of many migrants from China's Sichuan province who have moved to
Mong La to make their fortune.

The restaurateur tells stories of the guns and drugs that he sees in town,
including bales of opium as big as a suitcase. But while the opium traders
pass through Mong La, it is the Chinese businessmen who really control the
town, he says. "The whole place is run by people from Sichuan."

Many tribal leaders in Myanmar are convinced that Mong La is the model for
the future: an economic paradise to replace the lost revenue of the illegal
narcotics business when opium is banned across most of this region next
year.

United Nations aid workers worry the casinos will create as many problems as
they solve, including gambling addictions. They are trying to persuade local
leaders to switch to livestock or fruit orchards instead of creating new
cities of vice and tourism. But the revenue from Mong La is an alluring
temptation for the tribal leaders.

In the border town of Pang Sang, leaders of the Wa tribe have built a
shopping mall with a massive three-storey casino, open 24 hours a day. So
far, however, the casino is failing to draw Chinese tourists. Instead it is
filled with hundreds of impoverished local residents, including soldiers who
spend much of their tiny monthly salary (less than $6 Canadian) on wagers.

All across the territory of the Wa and Shan tribal armies, the Chinese
influence is increasingly obvious. Shops are filled with Chinese goods. The
main currency is the Chinese yuan. Street and road signs are written in
Chinese characters. Stores and hotels set their clocks to Chinese time,
rather than Myanmar time. Much of the business and labour is conducted by
Chinese migrants. The biggest investments, including a new swath of rubber
plantations, are financed and promoted by Chinese investors.

The tribal region is still officially part of Myanmar. But as China's
economy booms, Myanmar's grip on the region weakens.

"Basically," said a Western diplomat in Myanmar, "this region is drifting
away to China."