MAE SOT, Thailand -- "Thailand and Myanmar are friendly and close neighbors separated only by a strip of water," proclaims Hong Kong-based Yatai International Holding Group in a Facebook video promoting its purported contribution to a China-Thailand-Myanmar economic corridor.
Along that strip, the Moei River, Shwe Kokko Yatai New City has been conceived as a fantastic $15 billion city of the future. Development is well underway in Myanmar's malarial and strife-torn Karen (Kayin) state, where ethnic Karen forces continue a grinding insurgency against the central government that dates from 1948.