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Aung San Suu Kyi's Beijing visit aims to strengthen Burma's ties with China
The opposition leader’s visit takes place against a background of a decline in Chinese influence in Burma and a rise in anti-Chinese sentiment and protests
The Burmese opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is greeted by the Chinese ambassador to Burma, Yang Houlan, before her departure for China, at Yangon International Airport on Wednesday. Photograph: Nyein Chan Naing/EPA
Associated Press
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Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi meets Chinese leaders in Beijing this week to build ties with Burma’s most important neighbour, while China hopes to shore up its declining influence in the south-east Asian nation following recent democratic reforms.
The visit gives the Beijing leadership a chance to get to know Suu Kyi at a time when Burma has shifted toward western countries, Japan and other potential investors. Burma’s citizens, now freer to protest than in the past, have stalled a Chinese-backed dam and other projects due to environmental concerns, and China is upset about fighting between the Burmese 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 the 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 icon of international democracy for her years-long defiance of, and imprisonment at the hands of, an authoritarian military government in Burma 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 contest Burma’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 the Chinese 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 Burma 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-Burmese 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 Burmese government on protesters, including Buddhist monks who were injured by smoke bombs. The sides also are likely to discuss fighting between Burma’s military and rebels along the border that occasionally spills into China and how Suu Kyi sees Burma developing.
Qu Jianwen, a south-east Asian affairs expert at Yunnan University, in south-west China, said Suu Kyi will be able to take “objective and reliable information” back to the Burmese people about China’s intentions in their country, to counter their negative image of their neighbour.
China considers Burma strategically important as a gateway to the Indian Ocean and Bay of Bengal, and wants to secure oil and gas pipelines in its south-east Asian neighbour.
“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.