China’s top diplomat on Saturday arrived on his first visit to Myanmar since the military seized power last year to attend a regional meeting that the Burmese government said was a recognition of its legitimacy and opponents protested as a violation of peace efforts.
Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) is to join counterparts from Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam in a meeting of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation group in the central city of Bagan, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
The grouping is a Chinese-led initiative that includes the countries of the Mekong Delta, a potential source of regional tensions due to an increasing number of hydroelectric projects that are altering the water flows and raising concerns of ecological damage.
Photo: EPA-EFE
China has built 10 dams along the upper stretch of the Mekong River, the part it calls the Langcang River.
Burmese Deputy Minister of Information Major General Zaw Min Tun told a news conference in the capital, Naypyidaw, on Friday that the attendance of the foreign ministers at the meeting was a recognition of Myanmar’s sovereignty and its government.
The ministers are to sign memorandums of understanding and contracts, he said without elaborating.
It is unclear whether Wang would meet Burmese Army Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the head of the military government.
Myanmar’s military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1 last year. It was quickly met by nonviolent nationwide demonstrations and triggered armed resistance that some UN experts now characterize as civil war.
According to a detailed list compiled by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, 2,053 civilians have died in the crackdown on the resistance movement.
Wang last visited Myanmar to meet with Suu Kyi just three weeks before the military ousted her.
China is Myanmar’s largest trading partner and an long-time ally. Beijing has invested billions of dollars in Myanmar’s mines, oil and gas pipelines, and other infrastructure, and is its major arms supplier.
Many in Myanmar suspect China of supporting the military takeover, and Beijing has refused to condemn the army’s power grab. China says it follows a policy of noninterference in other countries’ affairs.
The minister of foreign affairs in Myanmar’s shadow government, which opposes the ruling military council, protested the Bagan meeting, saying that such efforts in partnership with Myanmar’s military violate the will of the people and undermine community building.
The statement said that holding the foreign ministers’ meeting in Myanmar is in direct opposition to an ASEAN peace plan.
Myanmar, although a member of ASEAN, has done little to implement the plan, and its stonewalling led fellow ASEAN members to block government leaders from attending major ASEAN meetings.
Since the military seized power, Chinese special envoy Sun Guoxiang (孫國祥) has visited Myanmar twice, and Wang has met his Myanmar counterpart, Wunna Maung Lwin, twice in China.
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
Former Chinese ministers of national defense Wei Fenghe(魏鳳和) and Li Shangfu (李尚福) were both sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve over graft charges, state news agency Xinhua reported on Thursday, underscoring the severity of the purge in the military. The armed forces have been one of the main targets of a broad corruption crackdown ordered by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) after coming to power in 2012. The purges reached the elite Rocket Force, which oversees nuclear weapons as well as conventional missiles, in 2023. Earlier this year they escalated further, resulting in the removal of the top general in
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
IN PROTECTION: Video released by the Senate showed Ronald dela Rosa being chased through the halls of the upper chamber, pursued by National Bureau of Investigation officers Philippine authorities on Monday said that they would not arrest for now a lawmaker wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his alleged role in former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war, capping a lengthy Senate standoff. Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa, who served as police chief and Duterte’s top enforcer during the bloody drug crackdown, would be treated as if in the custody of the Senate, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Director Melvin Matibag told reporters after the politician had taken refuge in the legislative building. “We respect that they are a co-equal branch,” Matibag said after the Senate refused
RSS