"On August 27-30, 2009, fighting broke out between the Kokang ceasefire group (MNDAA) and the Myanmar/ Burma government army, sending 30,000 refugees across the border into Yunnan province in southwest China. To some observers, the timing of the conflict -- less than a fortnight after a visit to Myanmar/Burma by U.S. Senator Jim Webb -- seemed to indicate a calculated maneuver on the part of the ruling generals in Nay Pyi Taw to test international reactions as well as responses from its neighbors with regards to its exercise of power in the country's borderlands. The actuality is that the event itself was part of a political process that the military government embarked upon already twenty years ago. What is special about this summer's conflict itself, though, is where it occurred and the ethnicity of the population involved, which has implications for peace on the border and ultimately for bilateral relations between China and Myanmar/Burma."