![]() Meanwhile, a notorious lobbyist hired by the junta has claimed that the generals would seek to distance itself from China. China has denied offering direct support to the regime, and many rumours of Chinese involvement after the coup lack corroborating evidence, but tepid Chinese statements since the coup and failure to condemn the military violence have only served to further inflame local resentment. The general public of Myanmar views the Chinese government’s role with suspicion, believing it is assisting the junta and shielding it from international pressure. According to multiple sources, hundreds have been killed by security forces since, with many more injured or detained and held incommunicado. Leading figures in the NLD leadership were subsequently arrested and charged with a range of offences, with many going into hiding and setting up the Committee for Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, a government in exile representing NLD lawmakers deposed by the coup. This came after the military claimed fraud in the November 2020 election, in which Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) enjoyed a landslide victory. In February 2021, Myanmar’s military ousted the elected government, effectively ending the country’s nearly decade-long experiment with democracy. China, meanwhile, has provided diplomatic cover for the Myanmar authorities in international forums, and China’s importance for Myanmar’s economy has once again heightened. However, the Rohingya crisis that hit international headlines in 2017 pushed Myanmar back again to the receiving end of Western criticisms, and the anticipated influx of Western investment dissipated. Some Chinese investment projects were thwarted as Myanmar was expecting a rebalancing in terms of its relations with China and the rest of the world. When Western sanctions began to be lifted following Myanmar’s transition to semi-civilian rule in 2011, foreign investors showed great interest in Myanmar’s potential. In the following decades, China gradually became one of the most important economic partners of Myanmar, as the State Peace and Development Council military regime installed in 1988 became increasingly isolated internationally due to its human rights abuses. Concurrently, China also cut support for the withering BCP, causing the latter’s final collapse in 1989 and thus shelving this long-standing issue between the two countries. As both countries became targets of Western sanctions following their respective bloody crackdowns on pro-democratic movements-Myanmar’s in August 1988 and China’s in June 1989-they were drawn even closer together. ![]() Myanmar agreed to open up border trade with China in 1988, right before the uprising that brought down Ne Win’s government and ended its experiment with a ‘Burmese Way to Socialism’. Consequently, the country was sidelined in China’s diplomacy.Īfter China started the economic reforms in 1978, economic cooperation gradually picked up again. Moreover, the dramatic geopolitical shifts in the 1970s following the Sino–US rapprochement meant that Myanmar’s buffering role was no longer as important to China. The BCP continued to be a thorny issue between the two countries even though they re-normalised ties in 1971. At that time, China also moved away from its earlier constrained policy toward the Burma Communist Party (BCP) and began to support it openly, further aggravating the relations with the Ne Win military government that the BCP sought to overthrow. The relationship took a heavy blow in 1967, when anti-Chinese riots broke out in Rangoon (Yangon) in response partly to the perceived spread of China’s Cultural Revolution overseas. It was at that time that the term ‘pauk-phaw’ (literally, ‘fraternal’ in Burmese)-which to this day remains common in diplomatic rhetoric-started to be used to describe the special relationship. China settled the boundary disputes with Myanmar in 1960–61, the first such settlement among China’s neighbours. The next decade or so was a honeymoon period for the two countries. After an initial period of aloofness due to ideological differences, the bilateral relationship warmed up after 1954 as Beijing sought friendly neighbours against the US encirclement in the context of the Cold War. Myanmar was the first non-socialist country to recognise the PRC, a move it viewed as necessary for its own security. Myanmar’s relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have seen great ups and downs since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1950.
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