Chinese president stands by Suu Kyi
NAYPYIDAW, MYANMAR: China and Myanmar inked dozens of mammoth infrastructure and trade deals after a meeting on Saturday between President Xi Jinping and leader Aung San Suu Kyi, as Beijing doubles down on its support for a government under fire for its treatment of Rohingya Muslims.
The Chinese leader’s two-day state visit to Myanmar’s purposebuilt capital comes as Western investors cast a wide berth around the country due to the
Rohingya crisis.
A 2017 military crackdown on the Muslim minority, which UN investigators have called genocide, forced some 740,000 people over the border into Bangladesh.
Beijing has stood strongly beside Myanmar and the Asian giant is now the country’s largest investor even as distrust of its ambitions lingers among the public. More than 30 agreements were signed on Saturday, Xi’s final day of his visit.
Details on the amount of the package were scant but among the 33 deals was a concession and shareholders agreement on the $1.3 billion-dollar Kyaukhphyu deep-sea port and economic zone.
After arriving on Friday Xi called the visit a “historical moment” for relations between the two neighbours, according to state-run newspaper the Global New Light of Myanmar.
Myanmar leader Suu Kyi said the country will 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.