BANGKOK — More than 50 government soldiers and police officers have been killed in Myanmar in recent days in clashes with an armed ethnic group, the state news media said on Friday, in the latest setback for the government’s national reconciliation efforts.
The fighting near the border with China between the Kokang, an ethnic Chinese minority, and government forces is a renewal of a longstanding battle for territory in an impoverished, mountainous area with a history of drug trafficking.
The clashes left 47 soldiers and seven police officers dead and 73 members of the government forces wounded, the state news media said. A statement attributed to the Kokang said three of their fighters had been killed. As during previous fighting in the area, civilians fled across the border into China, according to local Chinese officials who did not provide figures.
U Zaw Htay, the deputy director of the office of President Thein Sein of Myanmar, said the Kokang forces had made a “well-organized” attempt to seize Laukkai, the capital of the Kokang region, and had not acted alone. “Other ethnic groups are also involved,” Mr. Zaw Htay said.
Armed ethnic groups in Myanmar, including the nearby Wa, who have about 20,000 fighters, have in the past vowed to come to one another’s defense, raising the prospect of a wider conflict. But most clashes in recent years have been limited to single ethnic groups skirmishing with the government.
The government said in a statement that Kokang rebels had begun their offensive “from nearby.” But the same statement said the government had consulted with the Chinese military attaché in Myanmar, suggesting that rebels prepared the move across the porous border, in China, to some extent.
Mr. Zaw Htay said Burmese officials had complained to their Chinese counterparts about the fighting. The rebels use Chinese telecommunications networks and have deep business and family ties in China.
The government in Myanmar has repeatedly postponed plans for a national cease-fire over the past year. Ethnic groups in the resource-rich and relatively lawless border area have bridled at the government’s demands for them to disarm before agreements for a devolution or a sharing of powers are reached. Ethnic groups are demanding that the highly centralized state be replaced with a federal system.
Regular clashes between the army and ethnic groups are a main reason that peace efforts have foundered. In November, the army shelled a school to train cadets that was run by an armed ethnic Kachin group, killing 23 people.
The state news media calls the Kokang fighters “renegade troops,” and on Friday it printed maps showing “enemy” positions outside Laukkai.
Myanmar’s military has carried out at least five airstrikes against rebel positions in the past week, according to the state news media.
The Kokang forces are being led by Peng Jiasheng, 85, a veteran of Myanmar’s years of civil war and a former commander of the military wing of the Communist Party of Burma, which battled the central government until it disbanded in 1989.
Government rule is resented by many of the ethnic minorities in outlying areas of Myanmar, but the fighting in the Kokang region is also a highly personalized conflict.
Government forces attacked Mr. Peng and his fighters in August 2009, rupturing a two-decade cease-fire. The commander overseeing that offensive was Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, who has since been promoted to commander in chief of Myanmar’s armed forces. Mr. Peng has vowed several times to avenge the rout of his troops in 2009.
A statement signed by Mr. Peng that has circulated in recent days on Kokang microblogs spoke of “ethnic discrimination” against the Kokang in Myanmar and appealed for donations.
“I ask all the Chinese around the world to remind themselves of our common race and roots and give money and efforts to rescue our people,” the statement said.
On Thursday evening, the state news media said government troops had regained control over Laukkai.
A Chinese-language microblog of the Kokang regional administration said on Friday that government troops had completely retaken Laukkai. It also said one of Mr. Peng’s residences was seized.
U Aung Kyaw Zaw, a former rebel who monitors the ethnic conflicts in northern Myanmar, estimates that the Kokang rebel force numbers 2,000.
“Peng Jiasheng’s latest approach is to establish a new wave of guerrilla warfare against the government,” Mr. Aung Kyaw Zaw said on Friday. “He is old, but a new generation will play a significant role in this conflict.”
