Myanmar has produced 1,010 tons of illicit opium this year, the highest level in ten years, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Myanmar’s opium cultivation area has increased by 17 percent this year from the previous year to 53,100 hectares, according to a UNODC report released on December 3.

Of the opium cultivation, Shan State accounts for 80 percent of the country’s total, making it a major opium-producing region, according to the UNODC.

In 2024, Shan State had 39,700 hectares of opium cultivation, which is expected to increase to 46,700 hectares in 2025. The opium-growing areas are mainly in eastern and southern Shan States.

According to data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), instability is pushing farmers to grow opium, but increasing conflict and insecurity are making it harder to maintain their crops.

“Myanmar is at a critical juncture. The expansion of opium cultivation in recent years suggests that the opium economy has been recovering and could grow further in the long term,” said Ms. Delphine Schantz, UNODC’s Regional Representative for South-East Asia and the Pacific.

By 2025, the area under opium cultivation will be 4,250 hectares in Kachin State, 628 hectares in Kayah (Karenni) State and 552 hectares in Sagaing, according to the UNODC report.

Against this backdrop, Channel News Independent (CNI) recently conducted an interview with Khuensai Jaiyane, patron of the SHAN and primary founder, now still actively involved in peace negotiation process as a former director of Pyidaungsu Institute, which is very interesting.

Concerning the current issue of illegal cyberscam operation, known as “Kyar Pyant”- a Burmese transliteration of the Chinese word for “scam”. It is a fraudulent online gambling, romance scams, phishing schemes, and job fraud. These scams, often disguised as legitimate digital casinos or job ads, are run by criminal syndicates and frequently rely on forced labor, including trafficked victims from across Southeast Asia, according to a new study published in the Journal of Academics Stand Against Poverty, on June 4, 2025.

Khuensai was asked if he has studied the issue and to express his opinion. What he said make sense, although some might disagree.

He said: “No. Simply put, illegal cyberscam operation is a result of our political consensus and our inability to implement it. In 1947, we decided to govern the country with a federal system. However, after the death of General Aung San, we adopted the federal system in name only and then in practice we governed with a unitary system.

That is why our country was unstable and civil war broke out. Many consequences have emerged because of this. If you look at it in a simple way, if you look at the rough picture, the first thing is opium, opium trafficking and then the power building. Then not only opium, but also heroin and then the power building. Finally, the Yaba, often referred to in Thailand as “crazy medicine,” is a potent stimulant drug that typically contains a combination of methamphetamine and caffeine. and the power building from there. Finally, the illegal cyberscam operation or farming (scamming) that has emerged now is the latest.

So, as long as we cannot implement the original agreements and agreements that we made politically, these consequences will continue. Opium is very bad, heroin is worse than opium, and now amphetamine is worse. If we let this continue, amphetamine will become even worse.

Therefore, before that situation comes, we need to make concerted efforts to build the federation, the federal state that we agreed to in 1947, as soon as possible.”

Present situation

Simply put, the present political situation can be described as polarized atmosphere, seen from news and reports that we picked up from secondary sources.

For example, Euro-Burma Office Director Harn Yawnghwe quite recently gave an interview with SHAN in which he answered to the question of what the peace negotiation process is going to look like as: “ It is not possible to negotiate at this time.”

He noted that, for now, peace negotiations are unlikely, as the opposing sides remain deeply divided. This polarization reflects the overall atmosphere at present.

The prospect of peace negotiations remains bleak due to the rigid stances of both sides.

The military junta insists on negotiations only after disarmament, which means surrender of the ethnic armed organizations (EAOs), and recognition of its legitimacy, rejecting the NUG and EAOs as illegal entities. It continues to rely on brutal counterinsurgency tactics, including airstrikes on civilians, and shows no willingness to cede power.

The anti-junta forces, on the other hand, particularly the NUG and EAOs, are convinced that they are gaining momentum in the battlefield and see no incentive to negotiate from the superior position. The NUG has explicitly stated that it did not engage directly with the junta during the recent Indonesia’s talks, emphasizing that dialogue proposals reflect only the envoy’s view, not mutual agreement.

Moreover, deep historical distrust, rooted in decades of military oppression and broken ceasefire agreements, makes compromise difficult. The 2008 constitution, which grants the military 25% of parliamentary seats and control over key ministries, remains a major obstacle to federalism and self-determination demanded by ethnic groups.

Indonesian workshop

Reportedly the Indonesian Special Envoy on Myanmar invited Myanmar resistance forces to a workshop in Yogyakarta from November 25 to 30.

The meeting was attended by the National Unity Government (NUG), National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC), Karen National Union (KNU), Chin National Front (CNF), Arakan Heritage Foundation (AHF), Committee Representing Pyithu Hluttaw (CRPH), Reconstruction Council for Shan State (RCSS), Harn Yawnghwe (Euro-Burma Office – EBO), Pao National Liberation Organization (PNLO), Pa-O National Federal Council (PNFC) and other groups from the revolutionary forces.

Khit Thit media report of December 4 on NUG position regarding Indonesian workshop concerning gradual phasing out of the military from politics as below.

“NUG has participated in discussions led by some ASEAN countries, not Indonesia, to help the world understand the true situation in Myanmar, and to let the world know the positions and attitudes of the NUG and the revolutionary forces. We have never had face-to-face discussions with the military officials in these discussions, nor have we had any discussions through intermediaries. NUG has officially announced six (6) political objectives, and there is no reason for such meetings to take place without guarantees,” said NUG Prime Minister’s Office Spokesman Nay Phone Latt.

“Recently, social media pages that troll news in a joking manner have emerged on social media, and these pages are distorting news and trying to mislead the political path, so the public should be careful when consuming news,” said Nay Phone Latt.

The NUCC also issued a statement simultaneously stating that there was no meeting with the military in Indonesia at all.

“NUCC received an invitation from the Office of Special Envoy on Myanmar Issue (Indonesia) to hold a workshop in Indonesia on 4 November 2025. After receiving the invitation, NUCC inquired to clarify the purpose of the workshop, other organizations and individuals to participate. According to the Office of Special Envoy on Myanmar Issue (Indonesia)’s responses to NUCC, the delegation was sent only after discussing and deciding within NUCC that the invitation did not include any representatives of terrorist groups. Two NUCC representatives attended the workshop on “Sharing Experiences in Indonesian Nation-Building” held from 25 to 30 November 2025, along with representatives of other revolutionary organizations, and did not meet with representatives of terrorist groups anywhere or under any circumstances. NUCC continues to pursue the success of the revolution in accordance with the commitments and political road map in the Federal Democratic Charter.” The National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) announced yesterday that it will stand by its decision.

Analysis

As it is, its now quite evident that Myanmar, and for that reason Shan State, is fast becoming the sin center of the country and region with no comparison.

First, it has been and now still is top opium production country, with the exception that Afghanistan was placed as number one for a few years earlier.

Second, in line with traditional drugs trafficking starting from KMT days in the 1950s up to these days, to synthetic drugs like yaba or methamphetamine, Shan State remains the narcotic drugs producing hub of the region.

The standard logic by all resistance armies is appropriately been expressed by General Tuan Shi-wen, commander of the Kuomintang Fifth Army (based in the Golden Triangle). And this remains the mindset on how EAOs in Shan State go about, including the Myanmar military, where securing funding for their movements are concerned.

“We have to continue to fight the evil of Communism, and to fight you must have an army, and an army must have guns, and to buy guns you must have money. In these mountains the only money is opium.” General Tuan Shi-wen, as quoted by Alfred William McCoy in his “The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia” of 1972, a non-fiction book.

Third, the illegal online gambling and cyberscam operation have grown with leaps and bounds after the ex-Kokang Self-Administered rulers, in cooperation with the Myanmar military junta evaluated it to a new height in a few decades, so much so that China had to use the northern EAOs to take it down and hauled them to China, to face persecution. So far, most top ex-Kokang Self-Administered rulers are given death sentences and are now awaiting implementation.

Ironically though, China now backed the military junta and even its upcoming sham general elections, which everyone rejected it.

Since then, scam centers have multiplied and mushroomed to an extent that nobody can keep track of the illegal trade.

However, practically tackling or reining in on the scam centers may not be at all easy, as we now see even the US has woken up to the transnational crimes and the US Justice Department (DoJ) has formed a new “Scam Center Strike Force” to go after online criminal groups operating in Southeast Asia.

Reportedly, according to the DoJ, the Chinese transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) behind these types of investment scams cost everyday Americans nearly $10 billion each year, according to cyber news report of November 14, 2025.

Furthermore, workers in the compounds run by the TCOs are “often victims of human trafficking, held against their will, abused, and under watch by armed groups as they are instructed to target Americans,” the agency said.

The move comes as the military in Myanmar (Burma) on Thursday announced a massive raid on one of the nation’s notorious scam compounds, KK Park, reporting to have demolished 150 buildings at the site, although the operation is said to be more likely propaganda than fact to appease the West.

Like Khuensai rightly pointed out to clean and resolve these transnational crimes, from drugs trafficking to cyberscam operations involving TCOs and other syndicates needs international cooperation and coordination. And it has to start where the problems originated, which is Shan State and Burma or Myanmar.

And this is none other than resolving the armed conflict or civil war, which means finding a political solution to satisfy all stakeholders who have been fighting for decades without end. Perhaps with the resolution of Myanmar’s internal conflict, tackling the transnational crimes maybe possible and much easier.

From this outgoing point, it is hoped that the international community, UN, EU, US, ASEAN and so on won’t look away, be indifferent like in the past and help to resolve Myanmar’s problems linked to transnational crimes that are also hurting everyone and globally.