Origin | By MICHAEL FORSYTHEJUNE 11, 2015
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the Myanmar opposition, being greeted by President Xi Jinping of China in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Thursday. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
HONG KONG — Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace laureate who leads Myanmar’s opposition, met with President Xi Jinping on Thursday, the second day of her visit to China — a trip that appears likely to underscore her transformation from a global icon of democracy to a politician with ambitions to form her country’s next government.
Mr. Xi and Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi met at the Great Hall of the People, according to Xinhua, the state-run Chinese news agency, which provided few details of the meeting. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who was invited to Beijing by the ruling Communist Party, is also expected to meet with Premier Li Keqiang during her five-day visit, U Nyan Win, a spokesman for her party, the National League for Democracy, said before her arrival in Beijing on Wednesday.
Mr. Xi, the leader of the Communist Party, said the visit would help promote ties between the two countries and the two parties, Xinhua said on Twitter.
Though she has traveled around the world since her release from house arrest in 2010, this is Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s first visit to neighboring China, which had a close relationship with the military junta that imprisoned her for the better part of two decades. Despite that history — and the fact that a fellow Nobel Peace laureate, the writer Liu Xiaobo, is serving an 11-year prison sentence in China for advocating the same democratic principles that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has championed — Mr. Nyan Win said she was not expected to chide the Communist Party on its human rights record.
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party may move from opposition to governance after elections likely to take place late this year, and regardless of who is in power, managing ties with China — the country’s biggest trading partner — will be essential to keeping Myanmar’s economy growing.
“For her there would be very little value in getting offside with the Chinese government, and there would be much to be gained by increasing the level of confidence that the Chinese authorities would feel about her stepping into a senior position in Myanmar in the years ahead,” Nicholas Farrelly, the director of the Myanmar Research Center at Australian National University, said before the visit began.
But such an approach would probably cause further damage to Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s reputation as a champion of human rights, which has already been hurt by her refusal to condemn Myanmar’s persecution of its Muslim Rohingya minority. Tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled Myanmar in recent months, spawning a regional refugee crisis.
“Suu Kyi’s silence on human rights has damaged her credibility as a leader,” Sophie Richardson, China director for the New York-based group Human Rights Watch, wrote before the trip began. “If she is silent on rights in China, those questions will only deepen.” Ms. Richardson said Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi should push for Mr. Liu’s immediate release from prison and call for Chinese companies doing business in Myanmar, formerly called Burma, to end what she called their “abusive and environmentally damaging practices.” The latter position would probably be popular in Myanmar, where many people, including opposition supporters, are wary of China’s huge economic footprint.
Chinese companies in Myanmar mine copper and jade, cut down hardwood forests and build big infrastructure projects, including contentious gas and oil pipelines stretching from the Bay of Bengal to the Chinese province of Yunnan.
In an English-language editorial published on Wednesday, Xinhua said Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s visit was a sign that the Communist Party not only communicates with parties with “the same ideology, but also those with a different political vision.” It said that “China welcomes anyone with friendly intentions and it bears no grudge for past unpleasantness.”
Relations between Myanmar and China cooled as the Myanmar government forged better ties with the United States starting in 2011. Still, as of 2013, about a third of Myanmar’s overseas trade was with China, with which it shares a 1,370-mile border.
Ties were further strained in March, when Chinese officials said a bomb from a Myanmar warplane had exploded across the border in Yunnan Province, killing five farmers tending a sugar cane field. The Myanmar Army is fighting armed members of the ethnic Chinese Kokang minority in the border region.
Mr. Nyan Win said that the border issue would be on Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s agenda. “We need peace at the border for both countries,” he said.
On Tuesday, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Hong Lei, told reporters in Beijing that the visit would “promote the development of friendly and cooperative relations between China and Myanmar.”
But the Xinhua editorial on Wednesday sounded a warning about the border issue. “There is also a reminder: China has no intention to interfere in Myanmar’s internal affairs, but is determined to protect its citizens from being caught in war launched from the other side of the border,” the editorial said.
Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the Myanmar opposition, being greeted by President Xi Jinping of China in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Thursday. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
HONG KONG — Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace laureate who leads Myanmar’s opposition, met with President Xi Jinping on Thursday, the second day of her visit to China — a trip that appears likely to underscore her transformation from a global icon of democracy to a politician with ambitions to form her country’s next government.
Mr. Xi and Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi met at the Great Hall of the People, according to Xinhua, the state-run Chinese news agency, which provided few details of the meeting. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, who was invited to Beijing by the ruling Communist Party, is also expected to meet with Premier Li Keqiang during her five-day visit, U Nyan Win, a spokesman for her party, the National League for Democracy, said before her arrival in Beijing on Wednesday.
Mr. Xi, the leader of the Communist Party, said the visit would help promote ties between the two countries and the two parties, Xinhua said on Twitter.
Though she has traveled around the world since her release from house arrest in 2010, this is Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s first visit to neighboring China, which had a close relationship with the military junta that imprisoned her for the better part of two decades. Despite that history — and the fact that a fellow Nobel Peace laureate, the writer Liu Xiaobo, is serving an 11-year prison sentence in China for advocating the same democratic principles that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has championed — Mr. Nyan Win said she was not expected to chide the Communist Party on its human rights record.
Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party may move from opposition to governance after elections likely to take place late this year, and regardless of who is in power, managing ties with China — the country’s biggest trading partner — will be essential to keeping Myanmar’s economy growing.
“For her there would be very little value in getting offside with the Chinese government, and there would be much to be gained by increasing the level of confidence that the Chinese authorities would feel about her stepping into a senior position in Myanmar in the years ahead,” Nicholas Farrelly, the director of the Myanmar Research Center at Australian National University, said before the visit began.
But such an approach would probably cause further damage to Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s reputation as a champion of human rights, which has already been hurt by her refusal to condemn Myanmar’s persecution of its Muslim Rohingya minority. Tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled Myanmar in recent months, spawning a regional refugee crisis.
“Suu Kyi’s silence on human rights has damaged her credibility as a leader,” Sophie Richardson, China director for the New York-based group Human Rights Watch, wrote before the trip began. “If she is silent on rights in China, those questions will only deepen.” Ms. Richardson said Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi should push for Mr. Liu’s immediate release from prison and call for Chinese companies doing business in Myanmar, formerly called Burma, to end what she called their “abusive and environmentally damaging practices.” The latter position would probably be popular in Myanmar, where many people, including opposition supporters, are wary of China’s huge economic footprint.
Chinese companies in Myanmar mine copper and jade, cut down hardwood forests and build big infrastructure projects, including contentious gas and oil pipelines stretching from the Bay of Bengal to the Chinese province of Yunnan.
In an English-language editorial published on Wednesday, Xinhua said Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s visit was a sign that the Communist Party not only communicates with parties with “the same ideology, but also those with a different political vision.” It said that “China welcomes anyone with friendly intentions and it bears no grudge for past unpleasantness.”
Relations between Myanmar and China cooled as the Myanmar government forged better ties with the United States starting in 2011. Still, as of 2013, about a third of Myanmar’s overseas trade was with China, with which it shares a 1,370-mile border.
Ties were further strained in March, when Chinese officials said a bomb from a Myanmar warplane had exploded across the border in Yunnan Province, killing five farmers tending a sugar cane field. The Myanmar Army is fighting armed members of the ethnic Chinese Kokang minority in the border region.
Mr. Nyan Win said that the border issue would be on Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s agenda. “We need peace at the border for both countries,” he said.
On Tuesday, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Hong Lei, told reporters in Beijing that the visit would “promote the development of friendly and cooperative relations between China and Myanmar.”
But the Xinhua editorial on Wednesday sounded a warning about the border issue. “There is also a reminder: China has no intention to interfere in Myanmar’s internal affairs, but is determined to protect its citizens from being caught in war launched from the other side of the border,” the editorial said.
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