Market Thrives on the China-Myanmar Border : Commerce: The Chinese eagerly pursue contact with neighbors to the south. The trade brings benefits to all sides.

Squatting Myanmar men in dirty sarongs offer fistfuls of deep red or green gemstones wrapped in handkerchiefs.

Garish costume jewelry from Thailand sparkles in rows on wooden counters, beneath bare light bulbs.

Bars and tape shops blare pop music from Taiwan, Myanmar and Hong Kong.

It is Border Market Street in Ruili, 2 miles from Myanmar (formerly Burma), where merchants of all skin colors call to passersby with a polyglot of languages and gestures.

Chinese leaders worry about nationalism and democratic ideas seeping into the north from former Soviet republics and Mongolia, but eagerly pursue contact with Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, their authoritarian neighbors on the south.

Ruili, in southwestern Yunnan province, was one of the first places in China to loosen border restrictions and promote trade.

In the beginning, it was a backwater with a two-story department store and not an inch of paved road. Now, multistory buildings line the paved main streets and Ruili is known throughout China in terms reminiscent of the American West: a frontier town where the daring can make fortunes.

Thousands of people arrive daily from from all over China and Myanmar, and from Thailand, Laos, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Hong Kong.

“Government policies are not so strict here, so there are more opportunities,” said a beauty salon owner from Canton in southern China, itself renowned for business.

After traveling throughout China, he settled in Ruili two years ago because, “if you have any abilities, you have a chance to test yourself here.” Following the practice of many Chinese, he would not give his name to a foreign reporter for fear of getting into trouble.

Dark-skinned Myanmar men seem to outnumber all others on Border Market Street, a wide, dusty road divided down the middle by a row of wooden counters and lined on either side with small shops selling everything from blue jeans to yapping puppies, bowls of greasy noodles to imported liquor.

Many traders speak only pidgin Chinese, but it is all they need to make 45 to 50 yuan ($8 or $9) a day selling cheap jewelry, cosmetics and perfume from Thailand or cheroots and Buddhist beads from Myanmar. The average urban Chinese worker earns about 10 yuan a day.

Chinese and Myanmar currencies can be exchanged at any stall. Local residents keep both currencies handy because they are allowed to cross freely into Myanmar.

On the bank of the Ruili River that borders China, half a dozen Myanmar crewmen loaded crates of detergent, batteries and medicine into a rusty boat with an outboard motor, their bare feet sinking into the mud.

About $75 million worth of goods were traded across the border at Ruili in 1991, accounting for more than one-fourth of Yunnan’s total frontier trade volume, said Ai Ban of the Ruili trade office.

Local officials believe doing business along Yunnan’s 2,500-mile border with Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam will bring economic prosperity to the remote, landlocked province.

For the moment, the trade is small scale and largely conducted by individuals or local companies in onetime barter deals, such as Chinese toilet paper for Thai face cream.

Major contractual trade arrangements between governments is the only way the trade will grow significantly, said Zhu Chenhua, assistant director of the provincial trade office. He said China is negotiating with Myanmar for joint-venture mine operations and with Laos about building cement factories.

Yunnan has applied to Beijing for permission to open a special economic zone in Ruili, which would allow it to offer preferential tax rates and reduce trade barriers even more.

Although the province is larger than Germany, it has only one major railway line, which does not reach Ruili. Narrow, winding mountain roads and a few small airports with chronically overbooked flights are the only transport links for the rest of Yunnan.

But even on a small scale, the border trade helps all sides.

Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam get much-needed light machinery and scarce consumer goods from Yunnan without having to spend precious hard currency. Yunnan can get produce, seafood and raw materials more easily from across the frontier than from elsewhere in China.