Since the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) captured the Kan Paik Ti border crossing in Kachin State it has allowed Chinese trucks to operate in Myanmar, depriving Myanmar truck drivers of work.
The KIA captured the Kan Paik Ti border crossing in Waingmaw Township in November 2024. Since then Chinese trucks have been allowed to cross the border and drive into Myanmar to mainly Chinese owned banana plantations near Waingmaw Town, where they pick up loads of bananas before returning to China.
Before the KIA took over the Kan Paik Ti border crossing Chinese trucks were not allowed to operate in Myanmar and allowing them to expand their operations to Waingmaw Town deprived Myanmar truck drivers of work.
A Waingmaw Town-based truck owner said to KNG: “We don’t expect a complete ban on Chinese trucks reaching Waingmaw Town. However, we would like the KIA or another responsible organisation to intervene and regulate the ratio of banana shipments—something like two trucks from China for every three trucks from Myanmar. We request such intervention to ensure fairness.”
An official from the Association of Plantation Entrepreneurs, a Myanmar organisation, which helped organise getting the Chinese trucks permission to go to Waingmaw Town, claimed that the banana growers need to use Chinese trucks to transport their bananas because there were not enough Myanmar trucks or drivers in Waingmaw Town due to the closure of the Myitkyina to Mandalay road.
Whether this is true is debatable as Waingmaw Town based Myanmar truck operators say there is a shortage of work for them because Chinese truck drivers are taking their work.
The official from the Association of Plantation Entrepreneurs also claimed that Waingmaw Town-based truck operators were not delivering bananas on time, leading to them becoming too ripe.
But this may no longer be an issue. Previously, due to frequent checkpoints manned by armed groups along the route between Waingmaw Town and Kan Paik Ti Town, the round trip could take anywhere from one week to 10 days and Waingmaw Town based trucks would make the journey about 30 times a year.
But, after the KIA-led coalition captured Kan Paik Ti on 20 November 2024, the checkpoints manned by the junta and its allied militias disappeared, reducing the journey time to just three days. The cost for the trip also decreased from around 3 million MMK to approximately 800,000 MMK.
But, despite these reduced travelling times and costs, Myanmar operated trucks are getting less work because Chinese trucking companies are now doing work that would normally be given to them.
The official from the Association of Plantation Entrepreneurs explained that banana growers were not abandoning Myanmar truck drivers saying: “We are not completely cutting ties with local truck operators. We still provide jobs for them. If there is no work available at one plantation, we connect them with another plantation.”
But despite such promises of work the reality is that the banana plantations have preferred using Chinese trucks to Myanmar trucks since the KIA allowed them into Myanmar, which is causing a shortage of work for Myanmar truck companies and drivers.
KNG reached out to the KIA about the problem being faced by Myanmar truck drivers in Waingmaw Town. The KIA claimed that it had encouraged Chinese owned banana plantation businesses to prioritise Myanmar trucks instead of only using Chinese trucks and the plantation owners had responded by claiming they had to use Chinese trucks because there is a shortage of local trucks, despite the Waingmaw-based truck companies saying they did not have enough work.
