People drive and ride around a busy road at Myawaddy town, Karen State.

Political parties, civil society organizations, and residents of Myawaddy have decided to form a committee to register and monitor Chinese nationals living illegally in the city amid an increase of criminal activities involving them, RFA reported.

During a brawl involving drunken Chinese nationals and some Myawaddy residents on Sept. 13, police arrested five people involved in the incident, while two others are on the run.

The groups and residents want the government to enforce laws requiring foreigners to stay only at hotels, to remove Chinese-language signboards from businesses, to check the eligibility of Chinese nationals to work in Myanmar, and to take action against those found to be breaking the law.

Some of the thousands of Chinese nationals in Myawaddy employ local armed groups to protect them as they flout local law by staying in local homes and not hotels, drive unregistered vehicles, operate casinos, and work in the illicit narcotics trade, residents said.