China's Xi visits Myanmar to drive home Belt and Road plan

MYITSONE, Myanmar (AFP) – China's President Xi Jinping arrives in Myanmar this week to nail down multibillion-dollar infrastructure deals in a country abandoned by many in the West appalled at the ''genocide'' of Rohingya Muslims on leader Aung San Suu Kyi's watch.

Xi's two-day visit, his first as president, will seek to cement Beijing's position as Myanmar's largest investor and strategic partner.

The much-trumpeted China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) aims to connect the Middle Kingdom to the Indian Ocean, a key route in Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative that envisions Chinese infrastructure and influence spanning the globe.

In addition to offering tens of billions of dollars in investment, China shields its neighbor at the United Nations, where pressure is mounting for accountability over the Rohingya crisis.

Yet the relationship between the countries is tangled.

Ethnic conflicts sizzling in border zones and the impact of dams, pipelines and transport links risk awakening hostility over Chinese intentions.

For China, it is ''time to get things back on track,'' historian Thant Myint-U wrote in his latest book.

The Xi visit is also to ''show support to Suu Kyi in the context of the Rohingya crisis,'' analyst Yun Sun said.

Luo, the Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister, focused on extolling China's role in mediating between Bangladesh and Myanmar over the Rohingya.

China plays a shadowy yet influential role behind the scenes of other festering conflicts with rebel groups, particularly on the countries' shared border.