Top leaders to host Suu Kyi on her 1st visit to China

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Top leaders to host Suu Kyi on her 1st visit to China
LOUISE WATT, Associated Press

BEIJING (AP) — Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi meets with Chinese leaders in Beijing this week to build ties with her country's most important neighbor while China hopes to shore up its declining influence in the Southeast Asian nation following recent democratic reforms.

The visit gives the Beijing leadership a chance to get to know Suu Kyi at a time when Myanmar has shifted toward Western countries, Japan and other potential investors. Myanmar's citizens, now more free to protest, have stalled a Chinese-backed dam and other projects out of environmental concerns, and China is upset about fighting between the Myanmar military and rebels in the border area.

"There are question marks on both sides as to where that relationship is headed," said Jurgen Haacke, a political scientist at London School of Economics. "It is useful for (the Chinese leadership) to play the Suu Kyi card to try and have a different approach, a different avenue to get their message across."

Suu Kyi is an international democracy icon for her years-long defiance of, and imprisonment at the hands of, an authoritarian military government in Myanmar that was supported at the time by China, which still keeps fellow Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo imprisoned for his calls for democracy.

However, Suu Kyi has consistently maintained since her release in 2010 that her country must maintain friendly relations with China, and the trip demonstrates her determination to accumulate the diplomatic credentials to potentially contest Myanmar's presidency no matter how it might clash with her past role.

Suu Kyi's first trip to China is a party-to-party meeting between China's Communist Party and her opposition National League for Democracy, which is expected to perform strongly in elections later this year. She is constitutionally barred from contesting the presidency because of a provision barring people who have been married to foreigners, but has campaigned for a change that would allow her candidacy.

China began reaching out to Suu Kyi's party when she became a member of parliament in 2012, said another NLD spokesman, Nyan Win. Chinese media now cover the party's events and news conferences, something they rarely did before 2010, he said.

As Myanmar has opened up, citizens have been emboldened to display anti-Chinese sentiment and protest Chinese-backed projects, succeeding in delaying some of them. Building of the Myitsone dam — a joint Chinese-Myanmar project on the Irrawaddy River — has been suspended since 2011.

Analysts expect the two sides to discuss controversial joint projects, also including a copper mine that has led to violent crackdowns by the Myanmar government on protesters, including Buddhist monks who were injured by smoke bombs. The sides also are likely to discuss fighting between Myanmar's military and rebels along the border that occasionally spills into China and how Suu Kyi sees Myanmar developing.

Qu Jianwen, a Southeast Asian affairs expert at Yunnan University, said Suu Kyi will be able to take "objective and reliable information" back to Myanmar's people about China's intentions in their country to counter their negative image of China.

China considers Myanmar strategically important as a gateway to the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal, and wants to secure oil and gas pipelines in its Southeast Asian neighbor.

"In the medium-term China is likely to remain the largest investor," said Omar Hamid, London-based head of Asia Pacific Country Risk at IHS, an independent economic consultant.

Meanwhile, Suu Kyi will seek to position herself as a leader who can draw support from both the West and China, Hamid said.
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AP writer Aye Aye Win in Yangon, Myanmar, and researcher Yu Bing in Beijing contributed to this report.


-- (c) Associated Press 2015-06-10

[Emster23]

Maybe they can share tips on how best to oppress Muslims.... good to find common ground and all

[nithisa78]

this will turn well.

[Srikcir]

"China considers Myanmar strategically important as a gateway"

China considers Thailand politically important as a lackey.

Same purpose, different approaches.