A recent report in Jane's Intelligence Review says China has replaced Cambodia and Thailand as the main supplier of weapons to insurgent groups in India's Northeast, Myanmar and Sri Lanka and also to the TalibanINDIAThe report said insurgent groups in the Northeast get most of their arms supplies from China. The United Wa State Army (UWSA), a rebel group in Myanmar, acts as the "middleman" between Chinese arms manufacturers and insurgent groups in the Northeast, with most weapons routed through China's Yunnan province. From here, it takes the land route to Myanmar and from there, it is moved to the Indian border at Tamu, opposite Manipur.In 2001, Myanmar intercepted a consignment of several hundred Chinese assault rifles that the UWSA was transporting to Manipur, possibly to the Manipuri UNLF and other possible factions. MYANMAR Much of the arms that get into India's Northeast is routed through Myanmar. Apart from the UWSA, China has allegedly stepped up its illicit arms trade with another rebel group, the Kachin Independence Army. While China maintains friendly relations with the Myanmarese junta, it has also been sustaining the UWSA with a range of Chinese weapons. SRI LANKA The Sri Lankan conflict sustains almost entirely on Chinese arms. Ironically, while China's leading state-owned arms corporations, NORINCO and Poly Technologies supply to the Sri Lankan government, China's black market supplies arms to the LTTE. Jane's says that recent photographs of rebel troops show a range of evidently new Chinese weaponry, "including the modern 5.56 mm QBZ-95, which cannot not have been captured from government forces". AFGHANISTAN The Taliban, since its revival in 2003, have had access to Chinese small arms and ammunition across either the Iranian or Pakistani territory. Apart from the anti-aircraft heavy machine guns, landmines and RPGs, the Taliban have managed to get the HN-5 MAN-PADS missiles, which were not in the Taliban's inventory before the US 'war on terror' in 2001. Jane's says that in February 2008, two HN-5 missiles, ready for firing, were reportedly got from Kandahar.THE ROUTE Much of the export is shipped from the Chinese ports of Zhanjiang, Guangzhou and Hong Kong. Jane's says that the buyers of these arms usually take delivery of the ammunition at the Chinese docks and do the shipping themselves. But at times, the consignment is shipped to third countries where controls are lax and it is then distributed from there. Shihanoukville, on the southern coast of Cambodia was one such point, where Chinese arms, in particular headed for the LTTE, were shipped on to ports in the Gulf of Thailand for land transport to ports such as Ranong on the Andaman Sea coast.
