The main ethnic group of Myanmar is the Burman people, who originated from China and belong to the Tibeto-Burman tribe, and migrated to the middle reaches of the Irrawaddy River in present-day Myanmar around the 1st century AD.
Today, the Burman population is about 34 million, accounting for 69 percent of Myanmar's total population.
But in northern Burma, the Burman are a serious minority.
In northern Myanmar, there are several ethnic groups that are also of Chinese origin, such as the Shan (Dai), Kachin (Jingpo), Kokang (Han), Wa, and so on. The customs and language of these ethnic minorities are different from those of the Burman people, and they do not even think of being a family with the Burman people.
Therefore, for more than a thousand years, the northern provinces of Burma never submitted to the administration of Burma, and most of the time they were under the administration of the three departments of Yunnan of China, and there were frequent wars with the Burmese dynasty.
But before Burma and northern Burma could play out, the British called.
In 1886, the British occupied the main part of Burma (commonly known as Lower Burma), and in 1890 the British conquered northern Burma and set up the Shan Federation here.
Of course, out of the need to suppress the main ethnic group of the Burmese, the British gave the chieftain here greater autonomy, and was not ruled by the British colonial government of Burma.
Since then, northern Burma, which originally belonged to China, has been completely cut off from Chinese territory.
After the end of World War II, Myanmar was seeking independence, and Shan State in northern Burma also wanted independence, so on February 12, 1947, Shan State, Kachin State, Chin State and Myanmar headquarters signed the Panglong Agreement, decided to jointly fight for independence from the British. After independence, the various ethnic groups in Shan State enjoyed a high degree of autonomy.