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Opinion | Why China sees difficult choices in Myanmar’s political realities

  • It is inconceivable that Beijing would have supported a coup; in fact it worked well with democratic icon Aung San Suu Kyi
  • Two factors will haunt China’s calculations as it navigates Myanmar’s new politics, says Yun Sun

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Aung San Suu Kyi, right, with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Presidential Palace in Naypyidaw, Myanmar, on January 18. Photo: EPA-EFE
Events in Myanmar this week have shocked the world. Yet while the West has moved rapidly to designate the military takeover as a coup, China has made no such determination – maintaining instead a neutral and non-committal position on the neighbouring country’s internal turmoil, and rejecting any political or moral judgments on it.

While this position is neither new nor surprising, it has a fully justified internal logic. However, Myanmar’s unexpected political developments will inevitably introduce challenges and uncertainties for bilateral relations down the road.

Geographical proximity, as well as the pair’s comprehensive and complicated historical, ethnic, political and economic ties, mean that whoever is in power in Naypyidaw will want to maintain a positive relationship with Beijing.

As such, China has been the most consequential external player in Myanmar’s key political and economic events of recent years, including its ethnic reconciliation process and economic growth.

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Myanmar junta leaders hold first meeting of military government the day after staging coup

Myanmar junta leaders hold first meeting of military government the day after staging coup
Over the past five years, relations with Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) government have been fairly smooth and cooperative, which – alongside China’s “shielding” of Myanmar in the face of international condemnation over the Rohingya crisis – has helped Beijing regain influence and repair its image, damaged during the previous Thein Sein government. Those who believe that China cannot work with a democratic icon are very much mistaken.
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