In 2018, Myanmar renegotiated the terms of an agreement for a deep seaport in Rakhine State, which critics said ran the risk of ending up in Chinese hands because of a high debt load. Rights groups also condemned the project for trampling on the rights of local populations.
“The absolute lack of transparency over such agreements is deeply disturbing,” said Mr. Bequelin, of Amnesty International.
With firefights between ethnic armies and the Myanmar military continuing to flare along the border with China, Chinese investment has declined, said U Soe Nyunt Lwin, the minister of planning and finance for Shan State, another conflict-ridden region.
“I hope there will somehow be a solution for peace during Xi Jinping’s visit,” he said.
China’s government holds influence over some ethnic armed groups battling Myanmar’s military. Ethnic militia leaders seek refuge in China, and Beijing once chartered a plane from China to deliver ethnic representatives to a national peace conference in Naypyidaw, the capital of Myanmar. Like all others, that peace summit failed.
China, ethnic kingpins and the state of Myanmar, once known as Burma, have all profited from the bounty of the nation’s war-torn borderlands. There is jade, natural gas and hydropower, gold, timber and rare earth metals.
But many residents of these conflict zones have been mired in an endless cycle of displacement and poverty.
“Everyone, the Burmese, the Chinese, they all want what is in our soil,” said Daw Doi Bu, an ethnic Kachin activist and former lawmaker. “We don’t get to profit.”
Hannah Beech reported from Bangkok and Saw Nang from Mandalay, Myanmar.
Source : Nytimes
