"Chinese Move Into Burma’

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31983, 9 May 1969, Page 11

"Chinese Move Into Burma’

f N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) BANGKOK, May 8. Communist Chinese forces have moved quietly into northern parts of Laos and Burma, and have de facto control over extensive parts of the region bordering China, the Thai Foreign Minister, Mr Thanat Khoman, said today.

He told reporters that the Laotian province of Samnuea, on the border with North Vietnam, had been similarly occupied by Hanoi’s forces.

Mr Thanat said the Phongsaly province of Laos had

come under the de facto control of Chinese forces, while China had “construction battalions” in the Kachin state lof northern Burma.

The Thai Foreign Minister said that these developments in South-East Asia, coming after Peking's reaffirmation of support for so-called wars of national liberation, indicated Asian Communist plans and moves for the future.

. Strategic roads were being built in northern parts of Burma and Laos for the exI pansion of Communists southwards, he added. Mr Thanat said that hill tribes in the Phongsaly and Samnuea provinces of Laos had been forced to leave for southern areas and Communist hill tribes had moved in to replace them. North Vietnamese forces now were in virtual control of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, running down eastern Laos and its vicinity, leaving the [Laotian Government in control of populated centres. I But the Government- : controlled areas of Laos were also more or less encircled by the Communists, Mr Thanat said.