Kunming and much of the rest of Yunnan have been enjoying idyllic cloudless days for most of the last five months, but the azure skies have concealed an increasingly dire issue: Yunnan is running out of water.

In November of last year, Kunming officials were asserting that should Kunming not receive any precipitation this winter, there would still be enough water in the city's reservoirs to provide the city with water until late spring 2010.

Fast-forward to today, and the government's no-need-to-worry tone has given way to grim statistics that underscore the severity of the current drought, the worst the province has seen in 60 years.

What's the damage looking like at this point? Nearly five million people are having difficulty accessing drinking water, forest fires are up 600 percent and hydropower generation has been halved. Estimates of drought-related agricultural losses are currently at 6.5 billion yuan (US$952 million).

Aside from Kunming, areas suffering most from the drought include Lincang, Pu'er, Jianshui, Yuxi, Chuxiong, Dali and Baoshan, where 300,000 people lack access to enough drinking water. The drought is also causing water prices to skyrocket. In Wenshan one cubic meter of drinking water is reportedly selling for as much as 100 yuan.

In some of Yunnan's more remote areas, villagers have to walk to other villages and towns up to 20 kilometers away in order to buy water at high prices, then carry the water home on their backs.

The provincial government has set aside 389 million yuan for drought relief, which will be allocated for distributing drinking water to the areas most in need and irrigating more than 700,000 of the 2 million hectares of crops affected by the drought.

Officials estimate that more than 500,000 hectares of crops have already been destroyed by lack of water. Yunnan is also expected to produce 40 percent less grain during this summer's growing season. Farmers are also struggling to provide water for 3.3 million large livestock.

To make matters worse, the drought is fueling an increase in forest fires before the rainy season begins in late spring. Firefighters around the province have battled about 59 blazes in the past five weeks, according to Xinhua Net, though most have been small enough to have been successfully extinguished in one day. There is now a jumbo helicopter stationed at Kunming Wujiaba International airport to assist in firefighting.

Several fires have burned in the areas around Kunming recently, including on Qipan Mountain to the west, forests near Shuanglong in the northeast, and Changchong Mountain in the north.

We followed up our recent bicycle trip to Chongchang Mountain with a visit to survey the fire damage over the weekend. Though the mountain retains its verdant, forested slopes and panoramic views of Kunming, it has lost some of its charm: the summit is a mass of rock and black charred grass and smells strongly of smoke.

The timing for the drought conditions couldn't be much worse, as Chinese New Year approaches and people around the province stock up on fireworks to set off in celebration of spring's arrival. In light of the drought and superdry conditions, the Kunming municipal government has shortened the 25-day fireworks sales season to 12 days, with sales ending February 19.

Update: Fireworks sales are now banned after February 16.

Crop image: CCTV

Yunnan's border with Myanmar was back in the news yesterday after officials from China and Myanmar agreed to work together on maintaining stability in the area. The agreement comes after fighting in August between the Myanmar army and an ethnic Chinese militia caused more than 10,000 refugees to spill into Yunnan.

Chinese Vice-Premier Li Keqiang met with Myanmar minister Tin Aung Myint Oo in Nanning yesterday, saying that the two countries should increase cross-border exchanges and cooperation to ensure stability in the area.

In August Myanmar's army took control of Kokong, which had previously been administered by a primarily ethnic Chinese militia outside of the control of the military junta that rules the country.

Many of the refugees who fled into Lincang prefecture on the Yunnan side of the border said that their businesses and homes had been looted by soldiers during the conflict. Fighting edged close to the border between the two countries and one Chinese soldier was killed on the Yunnan side.

In September relations between China and Myanmar had cooled noticeably, with Beijing taking the rare step of criticizing its strategic Southeast Asian ally for the violence and demanding that Chinese interests in the country be protected. Around the same time, a mass email calling upon Chinese volunteers to join the fight against the Myanmar army was circulating in China.

Yesterday's meeting in Nanning suggests that relations are back to normal between the two countries. For the ruling junta in Myanmar, China is a major source of revenue as well as political legitimacy and protection. China in turn benefits from access to Myanmar's vast energy resources and its Indian Ocean ports.

A nearly monthlong conflict between Myanmar's army and ethnic fighters has led to what may be more than 20,000 refugees in an information dead zone, with foreign journalists being ordered out of the area, according to a New York Times article.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that as many as 30,000 refugees have crossed the border into China since fighting between the Myanmar army and an alliance of four area ethnic groups known as the Myanmar Peace and Democracy Front (MPDF) broke out on August 8 in the Kokang region of northeastern Myanmar's Shan State.

China's Foreign Ministry said it was providing humanitarian assistance to the refugees, many of whom are Chinese businesspeople. At present, China's plans for dealing with the remaining refugees have yet to be made public. The government is also declining to comment on the current state of affairs in the several refugee camps in the towns of Nansan and Genma, located in Yunnan's Lincang prefecture.

China is one of the few Asian countries to have signed the 1951 Refugee Convention, which codified non-refoulement, or the principle of refusing to send refugees to places where they are likely to be under threat again.

It is estimated that approximately 4,000 refugees have returned to Myanmar since fighting ceased two days ago.

Media in Thailand are reporting that Myanmar's ruling junta has sent troop reinforcements into Shan State for the purpose of consolidating control over the region – a move that could provoke more violence between Myanmar soldiers and ethnic militias and worsen the refugee situation.

Nansan refugee camp image: Reuters via New York Times

An attempt by Myanmar's ruling military junta to bring rebel ethnic fighters under its control has led to escalating tensions, reports of fighting and a looming specter of war, with thousands of refugees fleeing into southwestern Yunnan, according to a Reuters report.

China- and Thailand-based media outlets have reported that on August 8 the Myanmar army sent hundreds of troops to the region of Kokang in the country's northeastern Shan State. Kokong, which has held to a 20-year ceasefire with the Myanmar government in Yangon, is home to many ethnic Chinese as well as other ethnic groups.

According to statements released by a recently formed alliance of four area ethnic groups known as the Myanmar Peace and Democracy Front (MPDF), soldiers in Kokang are under pressure from Yangon to become part of a border security unit under the army's control in the runup to next year's national election, the first in 20 years.

Army troops have reportedly attacked a factory used by ethnic rebel soldiers to maintain and repair weapons, claiming that it was a production facility for illegal drugs. An armed standoff between army and ethnic fighters allegedly followed, sparking a flow of refugees out of Kokang into the western region of southwestern Yunnan's Lincang prefecture.

"Tensions are extremely high, with anticipation of resurgence of war, tens of thousands of ethnic people have fled," the MPDF statement said.

Next year's election in Myanmar will be the first since the 1990 election in which Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won a clear victory, which was ruled null by the junta government. Would-be prime minister Suu Kyi was placed under house arrest shortly afterward and has spent most of the last two decades in the junta's custody.

Image: news.ifeng.com

The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has given China Eastern Airlines permission to reopen its previously suspended Kunming-Dali and Kunming-Jinghong routes, half a year after stripping the Shanghai-based airline of the routes because of mid-air protests by several of its Yunnan subsidiary's pilots.

In March of this year, China Eastern pilots are reported to have deliberately turned back midway through their provincial flights out of Kunming as a form of protest over dissatisfaction with strict lifetime contracts and low pay.

The airline quickly fired its Yunnan management, but that was not enough to prevent regulators at CAAC from discontinuing its Kunming-Dali and Kunming-Jinghong routes on May 4 and reducing feeder routes from Kunming to Lijiang, Shangri-la, Mangshi, Lincang, Pu'er and Wenshan by 20 flights daily, on April 26.

CAAC said that it had restored the routes plus increased the frequency of other China Eastern routes in Yunnan as a result of the airline's 'impressive contribution to Sichuan earthquake relief and rescue efforts', according to aviation trade publication ATW Daily News.

Analysts say the restoration of the routes may not help offset the estimated loss of 405 million yuan (US$59 million) in revenue from the route suspensions, as Chinese domestic tourism has been slumping since the Wenchuan earthquake in May.

Related articles:

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The Yunnan Provincial Hygiene Department announced that as of noon on Monday, 113 cases of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) had been diagnosed in Yunnan, apparently caused by intestinal virus Enterovirus 71 (EV71). The announcement comes one day after Kunming announced that all Kindergarten students would be checked for the disease.

59 of the reported cases, more than half of the provincial total, were diagnosed in Kunming. Other affected areas include Chuxiong (19 cases), Yuxi (13), Baoshan (12), Dali (5), Honghe (3) and Zhaotong and Lincang, which reported one case each. No deaths have been reported.

Although highly contagious among children, HFMD has a low fatality rate and is expected to be contained well before the Olympics. With SARS still in people's minds and the Olympics around the corner, the Chinese government has shown a greater degree of openness and transparency at both the central and local levels than with previous outbreaks.

As Jeremy Goldkorn at Danwei puts it:

"Despite foreign cable news reports screaming about a 'deadly' virus, the virus is treatable and not that deadly. On the other hand, Xinhua and CCTV have not shied away from reporting about the disease, a welcome change from the days of SARS in 2003, when a disease outbreak was treated as something to be ashamed of and covered up."

Related article:

Kindergartens to check for hand, foot and mouth disease

The regulatory fallout for China Eastern Airlines after an apparent organized act of protest by several of its Yunnan-based pilots in late March has finally hit the Shanghai-based carrier, which has been stripped of its Kunming-Xishuangbanna and Kunming-Dali routes, effective May 4, according to Kunming media reports.

The cancellation of the popular routes by aviation regulatory body the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) comes as a result of a rare public display of defiance by pilots on 21 flights last month. China Eastern Airlines had stated that pilots in its Yunnan subsidiary deliberately turned back midway through their provincial flights out of Kunming in late March – effectively going on strike in midair – with dissatisfaction with strict lifetime contracts and low pay both cited as reasons for the pilots' actions.

China Eastern released a statement in early April saying that two high-ranking officials in the company's Yunnan subsidiary had been fired and a deputy general manager from the company's Shanghai headquarters would serve as head of the branch.

In addition to the canceled Xishuangbanna and Dali feeder routes, CAAC reduced the number of flights China Eastern can fly from Kunming to Lijiang, Shangri-la, Mangshi, Lincang, Pu'er and Wenshan by 20 flights daily, effective April 26.

Details are unavailable regarding whether the routes will be available to other carriers or if China Eastern will later be eligible to service the routes again. Passengers who have purchased canceled flights are entitled to a full refund at China Eastern offices.

The cancellation of the Xishuangbanna and Dali routes comes as both regions prepare for an influx of summer and Olympics-related tourism.

Update: Bloomberg is reporting that Air China and three other carriers will receive the canceled routes beginning May 4.

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