The Burmese media had covered the anarchy that ensued in China after the outbreak
of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Rangoon was also afraid that the Cultural Revolution could possibly affect it. In November 1966, Ne Win gave a speech to the Burmese Socialist Programme Party (BSPP) assembly and reprimanded the Overseas Chinese for their ‘illegal revolutionary action’. Thereafter, Rangoon heightened security measures to control the China–Burma border and clamped down on illegal Chinese migration.84 ‘It is conceivable that after the long series of Chauvinist exercises in the Chinese community [in Burma] the authorities wished to teach the Chinese a lesson and that cadres of BSPP were encouraged to stir up popular feeling.’
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