The Communist Party of China (CPC) has invited Myanmar’s military proxy Union Solidarity and Development Party, People’s Party, Arakan Front Party (AFP) and Shan and Ethnic Democratic Party (SEDP) to pay a seven-day visit to China.
The invitation by China’s ruling party to the four parties – members of a working group of parties registered under the junta’s election commission – comes after junta chief Min Aung Hlaing again vowed to hold the long-delayed election next year.
The coup leader has repeatedly failed to hold the promised election after ousting the elected government led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) and annulling the 2020 election results that secured the NLD a second term. The junta has imprisoned senior NLD members and dissolved the party.
Myanmar people have condemned the election plan as a ruse to legitimize military rule that has brutalized their lives since the 2021 coup. The poll plan has also been dismissed as a sham by much of the international community, including the United States.
However, China – the junta’s major ally and arms supplier – has offered to assist the process.
According to the invitation seen by The Irrawaddy, a 17-member delegation from the four parties will visit China from 20 to 27 July.
The trip aims to strengthen relations between the CPC and Myanmar’s political parties, the invitation stated. The delegation will consist of seven representatives from the military proxy USDP and three each from the People’s Party (PP), AFP and SEDP.
Airfares and expenses will be borne by the Chinese side, the invitation added. The delegation will travel to Yunnan and Qinghai for field studies and talks with Chinese experts on rural development and the Belt & Road Initiative, it said.
People’s Party leader U Ko Ko Gyi confirmed that he would be among three PP representatives in the delegation.
“Our ties with the CPC have existed since the PP’s founding,” he told The Irrawaddy, adding that he would not comment on the trip until after the visit, as he does not know what will be discussed yet.
U Ko Ko Gyi told the pro-junta Eleven Media outlet that his party’s delegation would discuss stability and restoring democracy in Myanmar while explaining to Chinese officials the fear and insecurity people face due to armed conflict.
Former general Thein Sein, whose quasi-civilian government ceded power to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s party following landmark elections in 2015, left the country for the first time since the coup to visit China last month.
Junta deputy chief Soe Win followed in his footsteps a few days later to explain election preparations to Chinese officials.
Igor Blazevic, a human rights campaigner and Myanmar expert, commented that China is pushing for an election to shore up the junta as a viable, if weak, central government.
The giant neighbor is exerting pressure and offering incentives to military elites to proceed with votes in territories still under junta control, he added.
This raised the likelihood that Myanmar would see a “Chinese election” heavily influenced by Beijing.
“This is nothing but very serious meddling in the internal matters of a neighboring state,” Blazevic said.
The four parties’ participation in Chinese preparations for the junta’s election amounted to high treachery, he added.
The junta last year dissolved 40 political parties including the NLD, whose leaders including Daw Aung San Suu Kyi remain in regime prisons.
Myanmar boasted more than 90 political parties at the 2020 election. So far, the junta’s election body has approved registration applications of 49 parties.
