Junta boss Min Aung Hlaing met with officials from the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA) on Sunday in an apparent bid to staunch the flow of arms to resistance groups through their eastern Shan State territory.
“There are channels through which weapons and ammunition from ordnance factories in Laos are supplied to armed groups like the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and the NDAA,” an ethnic affairs expert said. “The junta boss will have expressed concerns that they reach resistance groups.”
Interesting tidbit from the article: NDAA is another Chinese-run “ethnic” army.
NDAA founder Sai Leun was born on the Chinese island of Hainan. During the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, he fled to what is now Myanmar and joined the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) but later broke away. Mong La residents mainly speak Chinese.
Their enclave is sandwiched between northern and southern Wa State, which are under the control of the UWSA, the most powerful and well-equipped of the EAOs. Mong La’s economy is in a poor state, leaving its leadership open to persuasion from all sides.