"When rumors spread around the sugar-cane farms in northern Myanmar that the army was advancing, Li Jiapeng and his family packed some clothes, grabbed some cash and joined a long line of people fleeing in cars and on foot. Everyone was heading for safety on the other side of the border in China, just six miles away. The next day, he could hear the sounds of battle. ?We came to the Chinese side early in the morning, and we began to hear gunshots that afternoon from Laogai, our hometown,” Mr. Li, 23, a university student whose family grows walnuts, tea and sugar cane, said by phone from Yunnan Province in southern China. In the last six weeks, the Myanmar Army has been fighting rebels of the Kokang, a Chinese ethnic group that has lived in the mountains of northern Myanmar for more than 400 years, and keeps strong linguistic, education and trading ties to China. Myanmar has been afflicted with fighting between its various ethnic groups and the army for decades, but the current battle, fueled by rebels armed with weapons bought with the proceeds of a flourishing drug trade, is potentially more serious because it touches on the country?s sensitive relationship with China..."