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Golden Triangle (Southeast Asia)
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Golden Triangle (Southeast Asia)
The Golden Triangle is a large, mountainous region of approximately 200,000 km2 (77,000 sq mi) in northeastern Myanmar, northwestern Thailand and northern Laos, centered on the confluence of the Ruak and Mekong rivers. The name "Golden Triangle" was coined by Marshall Green, a U.S. State Department official, in 1971 in a press conference on the opium trade. Today, the Thai side of the river confluence, Sop Ruak, has become a tourist attraction, with the House of Opium Museum, a Hall of Opium, a Golden Triangle Park, and no opium cultivation.
The Golden Triangle has been one of the largest opium-producing areas of the world since the 1950s. Most of the world's heroin came from the Golden Triangle until the early 21st century when opium production in Afghanistan increased. Myanmar was the world's second-largest source of opium after Afghanistan up to 2022, producing some 25% of the world's opium, forming part of the Golden Triangle. While opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar had declined year-on-year since 2015, the cultivation area increased by 33% totalling 40,100 ha (99,000 acres) alongside an 88% increase in yield potential to 790 t (780 long tons; 870 short tons) in 2022 according to the latest data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Myanmar Opium Survey 2022. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has also warned that opium production in Myanmar may rise again if the economic crunch brought on by COVID-19 and the country's 2021 Myanmar coup d'état persists, with significant public health and security consequences for much of Asia.
In 2023, Myanmar became the world's largest producer of opium after an estimated 1,080 t (1,060 long tons; 1,190 short tons) of the drug was produced, according to a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report, while a crackdown by the Taliban reduced opium production by approximately 95% to 330 t (320 long tons; 360 short tons) in Afghanistan for the same year.
The following districts make up the approximate geographical area of the Golden Triangle:
In the late 1940s, as the Chinese Communist Party gained power, it ordered ten million addicts into compulsory treatment, had dealers executed, and opium-producing regions planted with new crops. Consequently, opium production shifted south of the Chinese border into the Golden Triangle region. Small-scale opium production in Myanmar dated back to the Konbaung dynasty in 1750, chiefly for the consumption of foreigners.
The Chinese troops of the Kuomintang in Burma (KMT) were in effect the forebears of the private narcotic armies operating in the Golden Triangle. In 1949, thousands of the defeated Kuomintang troops crossed over the border from Yunnan Province into Burma, a nation with a weak government, and the Kuomintang seized control of the border regions of Burma. Almost all of the KMT opium was sent south to Thailand. The KMT-controlled territories made up Burma's major opium-producing region, and the shift in KMT policy allowed them to expand their control over the region's opium trade. Furthermore, Communist China's eradication of illicit opium cultivation in Yunnan by the early 1950s effectively handed the opium monopoly to the KMT army in the Shan State. The main consumers of the drug were the local ethnic Chinese and those across the border in Yunnan and the rest of Southeast Asia. They coerced the local villagers for recruits, food and money, and exacted a heavy tax on the opium farmers. That forced the farmers to increase their production to make ends meet. One American missionary to the Lahu people of Kengtung State testified that the KMT tortured the Lahu for failing to comply with their regulations.[citation needed]
Annual production increased 20 times, from 30 tons at the time of Burmese independence to 600 t (590 long tons; 660 short tons) in the mid-1950s.
Myanmar is the world's largest producer of illicit opium, and has been a significant cog in the transnational drug trade since World War II.[citation needed] According to the UNODC it was estimated that in 2005 opium was cultivated in an area of 430 km2 (167 sq mi) in Myanmar. Opium and heroin base produced in northeastern Myanmar are transported by horse and donkey caravans to refineries along the Thailand–Burma border for conversion to heroin and heroin base. Most of the finished products are shipped across the border into various towns in North Thailand and down to Bangkok for further distribution to international markets.[citation needed]
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Golden Triangle (Southeast Asia)
The Golden Triangle is a large, mountainous region of approximately 200,000 km2 (77,000 sq mi) in northeastern Myanmar, northwestern Thailand and northern Laos, centered on the confluence of the Ruak and Mekong rivers. The name "Golden Triangle" was coined by Marshall Green, a U.S. State Department official, in 1971 in a press conference on the opium trade. Today, the Thai side of the river confluence, Sop Ruak, has become a tourist attraction, with the House of Opium Museum, a Hall of Opium, a Golden Triangle Park, and no opium cultivation.
The Golden Triangle has been one of the largest opium-producing areas of the world since the 1950s. Most of the world's heroin came from the Golden Triangle until the early 21st century when opium production in Afghanistan increased. Myanmar was the world's second-largest source of opium after Afghanistan up to 2022, producing some 25% of the world's opium, forming part of the Golden Triangle. While opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar had declined year-on-year since 2015, the cultivation area increased by 33% totalling 40,100 ha (99,000 acres) alongside an 88% increase in yield potential to 790 t (780 long tons; 870 short tons) in 2022 according to the latest data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Myanmar Opium Survey 2022. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has also warned that opium production in Myanmar may rise again if the economic crunch brought on by COVID-19 and the country's 2021 Myanmar coup d'état persists, with significant public health and security consequences for much of Asia.
In 2023, Myanmar became the world's largest producer of opium after an estimated 1,080 t (1,060 long tons; 1,190 short tons) of the drug was produced, according to a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report, while a crackdown by the Taliban reduced opium production by approximately 95% to 330 t (320 long tons; 360 short tons) in Afghanistan for the same year.
The following districts make up the approximate geographical area of the Golden Triangle:
In the late 1940s, as the Chinese Communist Party gained power, it ordered ten million addicts into compulsory treatment, had dealers executed, and opium-producing regions planted with new crops. Consequently, opium production shifted south of the Chinese border into the Golden Triangle region. Small-scale opium production in Myanmar dated back to the Konbaung dynasty in 1750, chiefly for the consumption of foreigners.
The Chinese troops of the Kuomintang in Burma (KMT) were in effect the forebears of the private narcotic armies operating in the Golden Triangle. In 1949, thousands of the defeated Kuomintang troops crossed over the border from Yunnan Province into Burma, a nation with a weak government, and the Kuomintang seized control of the border regions of Burma. Almost all of the KMT opium was sent south to Thailand. The KMT-controlled territories made up Burma's major opium-producing region, and the shift in KMT policy allowed them to expand their control over the region's opium trade. Furthermore, Communist China's eradication of illicit opium cultivation in Yunnan by the early 1950s effectively handed the opium monopoly to the KMT army in the Shan State. The main consumers of the drug were the local ethnic Chinese and those across the border in Yunnan and the rest of Southeast Asia. They coerced the local villagers for recruits, food and money, and exacted a heavy tax on the opium farmers. That forced the farmers to increase their production to make ends meet. One American missionary to the Lahu people of Kengtung State testified that the KMT tortured the Lahu for failing to comply with their regulations.[citation needed]
Annual production increased 20 times, from 30 tons at the time of Burmese independence to 600 t (590 long tons; 660 short tons) in the mid-1950s.
Myanmar is the world's largest producer of illicit opium, and has been a significant cog in the transnational drug trade since World War II.[citation needed] According to the UNODC it was estimated that in 2005 opium was cultivated in an area of 430 km2 (167 sq mi) in Myanmar. Opium and heroin base produced in northeastern Myanmar are transported by horse and donkey caravans to refineries along the Thailand–Burma border for conversion to heroin and heroin base. Most of the finished products are shipped across the border into various towns in North Thailand and down to Bangkok for further distribution to international markets.[citation needed]
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