China considered drone strike on foreign soil in hunt for drug lord

Liu Yuejin, director of the public security ministry’s anti-drug bureau, said one of the original plans to end the months-long manhunt for drug lord Naw Kham was to strafe a mountain hideout in north-eastern Myanmar using unmanned aircraft.

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Mekong drug lord Naw Kham is restrained by two Chinese police officers. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 4:05pm, 19 Feb 2013Updated: 11:44pm, 19 Feb 2013

The hunt for a Myanmese drug lord convicted of massacring 13 Chinese sailors more than a year ago could have ended with a “drone strike” launched on foreign soil, China’s top drug tsar told the Global Times newspaper in a story published on Monday.

Liu Yuejin, director of the public security ministry’s anti-drug bureau, said one of the plans to end the months-long manhunt for drug lord Naw Kham was to strafe a mountain hideout in north-eastern Myanmar using unmanned aircraft.

Naw Kham was the ring leader of a large drug trafficking outfit based in the Golden Triangle – a mountainous drug-producing region in Southeast Asia covering areas of Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

“One plan was to use an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to carry 20kg of TNT to bomb the area, but the plan was rejected because we were ordered to catch him alive,” Liu told the Global Times.

It is a noteworthy revelation as senior Chinese officials rarely make public acknowledgents about the country's ability to project power overseas.

The disclosure also highlights the level of technological sophistication in terms of China’s ability to surveil targets in Southeast Asia. This will likely draw concern from the Asean neighbours wary of China’s military capabilities.

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