Economic attaché Quyang Daobing of the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar met with junta investment and commerce officials recently to advance China’s investments in the country.
The attaché and his team spent two days in the Myanmar capital Naypyitaw holding separate talks with officials of the Investment and Foreign Economic Relations Ministry and the Commerce Ministry on Jan. 30 and 31.
The Chinese Embassy said the two sides exchanged comprehensive views on cooperation on China-Myanmar megaprojects, the safety of Chinese citizens employed by those projects, and matters related to improving the quality of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) and Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), among other things.
China maintains a number of geostrategic and economic interests in Myanmar including infrastructure projects, an oil-and-gas pipeline connecting with Yunnan Province, and other projects designed to give it access to the Indian Ocean. The projects span a wide area, from its border in the northeast to the Bay of Bengal in the west.
A crucial component of Beijing’s BRI, the estimated 1,700-km-long CMEC, will connect Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province in southwest China, with Myanmar’s major economic hubs—linking first with Mandalay in central Myanmar, then forking east to Yangon and west to the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in western Myanmar’s Rakhine State.
Quyang’s meeting with the junta officials came after the junta and Chinese state-owned firm CITIC signed an addendum to the concession agreement for the Kyaukphyu SEZ and deep-sea port in December as the two sides seek to expedite construction of the stalled project in Rakhine.
China’s push to advance its projects in Myanmar comes at a time when resistance groups and ethnic armies in the Southeast Asian country are warring against the military regime that came to power in 2021 through a coup.
Unlike other countries that condemned the takeover, China referred to it as merely “a cabinet reshuffle.” Along with Russia, it has backed the regime at the UN, leaving the Security Council unable to take action against the regime, which has killed more than 4,485 civilians so far.
For the sake of its economic interests in the country, Beijing in January pressured an ethnic alliance over which it has influence to strike a peace deal with the regime. The alliance launched successful offensives against the junta in northern Shan State, which is home to major Myanmar-China border trade routes, as well as parts of the oil-and-gas pipeline and the CMEC. During the peace talks, China said, both sides agreed to protect the safety of Chinese citizens employed by the projects in Myanmar.
China’s plan to advance the Kyaukphyu SEZ and deep-sea port in Rakhine also comes amid renewed fighting between the ethnic Arakan Army (AA) and the regime in the western state since November.
Beijing also has influence over the AA, which is a member of the alliance that signed the Chinese-brokered ceasefire with the junta.
