By Monitoring
Naypyidaw: Myanmar and China on Saturday signed 33 bilateral agreements that will bind the south-east Asian country closer to its giant neighbour, including rail and deep-sea port projects along an economic corridor linking China’s south-western interior to the Indian Ocean.
Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, and Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi agreed the projects — long under discussion as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative global infrastructure plan — on the second day of Mr Xi’s two-day visit to the capital Naypyidaw.
Xi doubled down on his support for fallen rights icon Aung San Suu Kyi, signing dozens of infrastructure and trade deals and meeting with the Myanmar army chief accused of overseeing a genocide against Rohingya Muslims.
The agreements’ signing reflects deepening ties between Myanmar and China at a time when Aung San Suu Kyi’s government is under intense criticism internationally for the 2017-8 military campaign targeting minority Rohingya in Rakhine state, which killed thousands and exiled more than 730,000.
As part of China’s signature BRI project for the country, the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, the two sides on Saturday signed agreements on railways linking China to Kyaukpyu on the Bay of Bengal in Rakhine, and a final agreement on the building of a deep-sea port there.
There was also a letter of intent for "new urban development" in Myanmar´s biggest city Yangon and feasibility studies for rail links.
The two sides also inked agreements providing for a special economic zone at the Chinese border and made oblique reference to New Yangon City, a planned new industrial quarter in Myanmar’s biggest city that the Chinese state-owned construction company CCCC has proposed building.
The aim is to carve out a "China-Myanmar Economic Corridor" -- a path of infrastructure from China´s landlocked south to Myanmar´s western Rakhine state which would serve as Beijing´s long-awaited gateway to the Indian Ocean.
Myanmar leader Suu Kyi -- whose reputation lies in tatters in the West´s eyes due to her defence of the army over the Rohingya crisis -- said the country would always be at China´s side.
"It goes without saying that a neighbouring country has no other choice, but to stand together till the end of the world," she said during a celebration late Friday.
However, an official familiar with the agreements told the Financial Times that while they declared broadly that these projects would be built, they left some key bidding, financing and other details open to future negotiation.
Myanmar’s powerful military and civilian government remain wary of China’s embrace at a time when BRI projects are coming under question in some other Asian countries because of their cost and claims they serve primarily Chinese interests.
Left off the table in the visit was the Myitsone hydropower dam, a $3.6 billion Chinese mega-project in Myanmar’s northern Kachin state that was frozen in 2011 by the country’s previous government, after widespread opposition.
China had over the past year been pressing Myanmar to relaunch it, but Aung San Suu Kyi, whose National League for Democracy will face voters in national election later this year, resisted doing so.
“Like a lot of south-east Asian countries, Myanmar is more ambivalent about China than we often think,” said Hervé Lemahieu, director of the Asian Power and Diplomacy Programme at Asia’s Lowy Institute. “But economically, the relationship has gotten stronger.”
China has proved an indispensable ally for Myanmar, using its seat on the UN Security Council to shield the country from some of the international censure as it entrenches economic interests there.
China is Myanmar’s biggest trading partner and one of its largest sources of inward investment. About 1m Chinese tourists visit the country every year. Mr Xi’s visit to Myanmar was the first by a Chinese leader in 19 years, and his first state visit in the calendar year.
In 2018 Myanmar renegotiated the Kyaukpyu deep-sea port project down to $1.3 billion, from $7.3 billion before, for fear it would saddle the country with excessive debt, as was the case for a BRI port project in Sri Lanka.
The Myanmar project is an important one for China because Kyaukpyu is the terminus of previously built oil and gas pipelines running to China, and it provides Beijing with an alternative route for energy imports that avoids the narrow and geopolitically sensitive Malacca Strait.