"For well over a century, Myanmar’s remote mountains and valleys have played a central role in the regional supply chains for illicit drugs. Initially, opium poppies were grown in Myanmar; later, high-purity heroin was produced to meet global demand. In more recent years, though, illicit drug production in Myanmar has increasingly moved from plant-based heroin to synthetics like methamphetamine. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime World drug report 2017 revealed that criminal groups operating in Myanmar have become significant players in the global production of synthetic drugs. It’s easy to blame the growing problem of synthetic drug production in Myanmar on ethnic insurgency groups like the United Wa State Army and Shan State Army. However, while these groups are far from innocent, the problem has much more to do with the globalisation of organised crime and the domestic drug policy of the Chinese government. A brief review of Myanmar’s 100-year connection with drug production can shed light on these relationships. Following the opium wars between China and Britain in the mid-1800s, the demand for opium in China seemed unquenchable. To be fair, the demand was created and then nurtured by the British forcing opium on China rather than by a deliberate Chinese government policy decision. Opium poppy quickly became a highly valuable cash crop for farmers in Myanmar’s remote hills and valleys. In 1901, the Chinese Qing Dynasty embarked on a program to suppress the production of opium. While the policy resulted in a reduction in the production of opium in Chinese territory, it drove greater demand for production in the Golden Triangle of Myanmar, Laos and Thailand..."