China wants closer ties with Myanmar’s military to help protect regional peace and security, a senior Chinese general told the visiting head of the Southeast Asian country’s army.
China and Myanmar have had close diplomatic and economic ties for years, including increasingly in the strategically important oil and gas sectors, and China has offered its support to its southern neighbor throughout a crisis over its treatment of its Rohingya Muslim minority.
More than 600,000 Rohingya have fled from Buddhist-majority Myanmar’s Rakhine State, most to neighboring Bangladesh, since a Burmese military crackdown in response to attacks on security forces by Rohingya insurgents in August.
Meeting in Beijing, General Li Zuocheng (李作成), chief of the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission, the command organ of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, told Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, commander-in-chief of the Myanmar Armed Forces, that China’s development and prosperity were an important opportunity for Myanmar’s development, the Chinese Ministry of National Defense said in a statement.
“In the face of a complex and changeable regional security situation, China is willing to maintain strategic communication between the two countries’ militaries,” Li was quoted as saying in the statement issued late on Wednesday.
China wants greater contact between the two armed forces and deeper training and technical exchanges, and to promote border defense cooperation to ensure peace and stability along their common border, Li added.
China has been angered by fighting over the past few years between the Burmese military and autonomy-seeking ethnic minority rebels close to the Chinese border, which has at times forced thousands of villagers to flee into China.
The ministry made no direct mention of the Rohingya issue in the statement.
China built close ties with Myanmar’s generals during years of military rule, when Western countries imposed sanctions on Myanmar for its suppression of the democracy movement.
More recently, their ties have included oil and gas, as Myanmar pumps natural gas from the Bay of Bengal to China. A new oil pipeline, opened this year, also feeds crude oil from the Middle East through Myanmar to a new refinery in China’s Yunnan Province.
This has opened a new oil supply route to China, avoiding the Strait of Malacca and Singapore.
The US and other Western countries have stepped up engagement with Myanmar since the military began handing power to civilians in 2011, and especially since Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s party won a 2015 election.
However, an international outcry over Myanmar’s violations of the rights of the Rohingya has raised questions in Western countries about that engagement.
Rights group Amnesty International has called for a comprehensive arms embargo against Myanmar, as well as targeted financial sanctions against senior Burmese military officials.
The ministry cited Min Aung Hlaing as thanking China for its support in helping Myanmar ensure domestic stability.
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