Cross‐border market building for narcotics control: A Polanyian analysis of the China–Myanmar border region

Abstract

AbstractFor decades, narcotics control has been unable to overhaul the durable and arguably self‐regulating socio‐economic networks driving heroin production and distribution in northern Myanmar, the second biggest drug production area in the world. To overcome this territorial barrier, the Chinese state introduced in 2000 an opium substitution programme that involved bringing Chinese agribusiness firms together with ex‐poppy farmers and local elites in northern Myanmar to form a formal cross‐border market. The programme raises a unique empirical puzzle: how could formal market building play a socially progressive role when it is superimposed in a border region underpinned by a well‐established informal, if also mostly illegal, market structure? This paper addresses this question through a reflexive Polanyian analytical framework that examines the “market” through its connections with non‐economic factors over time. It makes a distinct conceptual contribution by incorporating the border as a tangible anchor from which to assess how the processes of redistribution, reciprocity, and market exchange constitute the opium substitution programme as a social “countermovement.” Findings indicate Yunnanese firms negotiate border politics to engage in exchange with ex‐poppy farmers, establish reciprocal relations with local military elites, and implement the redistributive strategies of the Chinese state. Despite some success, this formal market‐building process continues to experience barriers generated by the pre‐existing informal market structure across the border region. Whether market building could further impact on economic restructuring in this border region and fully remove opium production from the border economy therefore remains an open question.