In the shadow of Myanmar's brutal and bloody civil war, a rebel army with close ties to China and the illicit drug trade is spreading out and bulking up without a fight.
Since the start of the year, the United Wa State Army, the largest and most powerful of Myanmar's many ethnic armed groups, has been moving hundreds of its soldiers into new positions across the central part of Shan State, in the country's east next to China, Laos and Thailand.
Officially, the UWSA says it is only trying to contain the fighting that has been spreading across Shan between the Myanmar military and other rebel groups since last year, and to shield its own properties and satellite offices. A spokesman for the group did not reply to VOA's request for an interview.
With the junta's control waning, analysts tell VOA the group sees a golden opportunity to build on its already formidable might, and that its growing footprint is likely both to advance China's interests in Myanmar and give an already booming drug trade a boost.
"Part of what the UWSA strategy is here is to basically expand its power, influence and territorial control at very low cost," said Jason Tower, Myanmar program director for the United States Institute of Peace, a U.S.-government funded think tank.
The UWSA is by far Myanmar's biggest and best-equipped rebel army with some 30,000 soldiers. Tucked away in the rugged hills of the eastern part of Shan State, it controls two enclaves on the Chinese and Thai borders over an area greater than that of Belgium, running them much like an independent state for the ethnic minority Wa.
Secure in its remote strongholds, the UWSA has largely stayed out of the civil war that has followed the military's 2021 coup, even after a trio of ethnic armed groups it allies with joined the fight on the side of those across Myanmar vying to oust the junta.
In January, though, the UWSA quietly took control of two towns recently seized from the junta by its rebel allies north of the Wa's enclaves. In the last two months, it has moved hundreds more soldiers into other towns to the west, some recently seized by allied rebel groups, others still held by the junta.
The moves give the UWSA valuable new footholds west of the Salween River, which splits Shan in two from north to south.
Having built and nurtured relationships with all sides in the conflict, from business deals with the military to arms trades with other rebels, the UWSA has pulled it all off without having to do any of its own fighting.
"They do not have [to fire] a single shot … and they already occupy two [new] townships at least, and they have more influence in at least three to four," said Amara Thiha, a Myanmar analyst at the Peace Research Institute Oslo in Norway.
Now, he added, "they can try to use this leverage to extend their influence. And they are playing a role in providing logistics, in providing all these armaments, and they can gain all the economic benefit out of it, so they are probably the biggest winner, without losing anything yet."
Anthony Davis, a security analyst with the Jane's intelligence company, says the UWSA has been creeping into south and central Shan since the coup, but in the guise and support of another allied rebel group, the Shan State Progress Party. What is new, he adds, is how big and bold its moves have become.
"The scale of Wa military movement west of the Salween is certainly something new, but perhaps as important is the fact that it's public, in the open, in their own uniforms," Davis told VOA.
"They see the [Myanmar military] as in a historically weak position, so I don't think this is necessarily aimed at putting their finger on the scales, if you like, one way or the other. They're basically taking advantage of a situation which is to their own benefit while remaining ostensibly neutral," he said.
The analysts say the UWSA's growing reach may also end up working to the advantage of China, which has billions of dollars invested in energy and mining projects across the country.
While Beijing has publicly stood by the junta, it is widely believed to be frustrated with its abject failure to end the fighting. It is also known to have long-running political and military ties with some of the armed groups on its border, none closer than with the UWSA.
Given the close ties, Tower said, the UWSA's recent expansion could help give China more influence over eastern Myanmar, the overlapping Mekong River system, and the notorious Golden Triangle, where the crime-riddled borders of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand meet. He said China could gain especially if the UWSA can realize its longtime goal of linking its two enclaves on the Thai and Chinese borders.
Davis says the growing reach of the UWSA could, for one, help China move forward on planned hydropower dam projects if and when Myanmar is stable enough, a prospect, he adds, is probably some years away.
If a long-stalled Chinese dam project in the far north, the Myitsone, continues to flounder, for example, he said damming the Salween would look that much more attractive, and feasible, with the Wa in a position to help.
"If the UWSA is dominant along both banks of the Salween through much of Shan state, that can hardly be bad for China's infrastructure objectives in the long term," said Davis.
The UWSA is also known for playing a major role in the multibillion-dollar illegal drug trade radiating out of the Golden Triangle, which has only grown since the coup, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
The UWSA has repeatedly said it abandoned the drug trade long ago.
But in 2008 the U.S. Treasury Department called the group "the largest and most powerful drug trafficking organization in Southeast Asia."
Davis too says the UWSA has remained deeply involved, with most of its methamphetamine business set up east of the Salween.
"But there are indications that the expansion of Wa influence west of the river via the close relationship with the SSPP [Shan State Progress Party] may already have seen some production outsourced to the west, and in future this is only likely to grow," he said.
Tower too said the UWSA's growing reach could serve the crime syndicates it protects.
"The Wa are one of the main players in terms of providing an umbrella and protection to that trade, and so the expansion of Wa power, the expansion of Wa territory would give … individuals involved in that trade new spaces to exploit," he said.
