Myanmar's remote Wa State suffers as fewer Chinese come to party
From shopkeepers to moto-taxi drivers, local people claim Beijing’s tightening of visas for Chinese gamblers travelling to the Wa in recent years – part of Beijing’s anti-corruption campaign – has cast a shadow on livelihoods in the reclusive territory
In a remote casino in northeastern Myanmar, China’s pervasive campaign against graft has taken its toll. Hundreds of local traders and farmers place petty bets as low as 10 cents, outnumbering a few Chinese who were once the VIPs of a gambling hall decorated with chandeliers and Renaissance-style paintings.
“The business has been really bad since Chinese tourists stopped coming,” said casino waitress Ling Ling who was considering leaving Pangsan, capital of the self-proclaimed Wa State that borders China, to look for better paying jobs.
The three-storey gambling parlour, with some 1,000 workers, offers games from jackpot slot machines to high-stakes VIP rooms featuring bets of up to US$16,000. It is deep in the Wa hills in one of Asia’s poorest regions, where its majority ethnic Wa farmers earn an annual income of US$115.
In the statelet the size of Belgium controlled by the United Wa State Army (UWSA), Myanmar’s strongest ethnic armed group, the once bustling gambling industry is not the only casualty from the falling number of high-rolling mainland punters.
From shopkeepers to moto-taxi drivers, local people claim Beijing’s tightening of visas for Chinese gamblers travelling to the Wa in recent years – part of the anti-corruption campaign launched by President Xi Jinping – has cast a shadow on livelihoods in the reclusive territory.