China, Russia undermine international Myanmar response, EU's top diplomat says

REUTERS

By Kate Abnett
APRIL 11, 2021

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The European Union’s top diplomat said on Sunday Russia and China were hampering a united international response to Myanmar’s military coup and that the EU could offer more economic incentives if democracy returns to the country.

“It comes as no surprise that Russia and China are blocking the attempts of the U.N. Security Council, for example to impose an arms embargo,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a blog post.

“Geopolitical competition in Myanmar will make it very difficult to find common ground,” said Borrell, who speaks on behalf of the 27 EU member states. “But we have a duty to try.”

Security forces have killed more than 700 unarmed protesters, including 46 children, since the military seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in a Feb. 1 coup, according to a tally by the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) activist group.

၁၉၆၇ တရုတ္ ဗမာ အေရးအခင္း အေၾကာင္း တေ ေစ့တ ေစာင္း

တင္ေမာင္

၁၉၆၇ တရုတ္ ဗမာ အေရးအခင္း အေၾကာင္း တေ ေစ့တ ေစာင္း
========================================
ျမန္မာျပည္မွာ လူမ်ိဳးမတူမႈ ဘာသာမတူမႈ ခံယူခ်က္မတူမႈ အစရွိတဲ့ အေၾကာင္းရင္းမ်ား ကို အေျချပဳျပီး ပဋိ ပကၡမ်ား အစဥ္အဆက္ ေပါက္ဖြားခဲ့တဲ့ အနက္ ၁၉၆၇ ခုႏွစ္မွာ ျဖစ္ပြားခဲ့တဲ့ တရုတ္ ဗမာ အေရးအခင္း ဟာ လည္း တစ္ခုအပါအဝင္ ျဖစ္ခဲ့ပါတယ္။

ဒီလုိ ျဖစ္ခဲ့တဲ့ ပဋိပကၡေတြကို သင္ခန္းစာယူျပီး ေနာင္မျဖစ္ေစဖို႔ ၾကိဳးပမ္းအားထုတ္ဖို႔ အတြက္လည္း အဲ့ဒီလုိ အျဖစ္အပ်က္ေတြကို ျမန္မာသမိုင္းတေလ်ာက္ မွန္မွန္ကန္ကန္ တရားဝင္မွတ္တမ္းတင္မႈ ျပည္သူလူထုကို မွန္ကန္တဲ့ နည္းလမ္းနဲ႔ ပညာေပးမႈ ေတြဟာလည္း အားနည္းလြန္းတဲ့အတြက္ ပဋိပကၡေတြဟာ တမ်ိဳးျပီးတမ်ိဳး ဆက္တိုက္ ေပါက္ဖြားခဲ့ရတာပဲျဖစ္ပါတယ္။

ယခုတင္ျပမဲ့ တရုတ္ဗမာ အေရးအခင္းလုိ႔ လူသိမ်ားတဲ့ အေရးအခင္းဟာ တကယ္ေတာ့ ဗုိလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေနဝင္း အာ ဏာသိမ္းျပီးေနာက္ ၅ ႏွစ္အၾကာမွာ ေပၚေပါက္ခဲ့တာျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ျမန္မာျပည္တြင္းက တရုတ္ အမ်ိဳး သား မ်ား နဲ႕ ဗမာ မ်ားအၾကား ရက္အတန္ၾကာ ျဖစ္ပြားခဲ့တဲ့ အေရးအခင္း တစ္ခုျဖစ္ပါတယ္။

တ႐ုတ္-ျမန္မာ နယ္စပ္ေဒသ၏ သမိုင္းေၾကာင္း အက်ဥ္း

75 AD
လြန္ခဲ့သည့္ ႏွစ္ေထာင္ေသာင္းမ်ားစြာကတည္းက ယေန႔ခတ္ တ႐ုတ္-ျမန္မာ နယ္စပ္ေဒသ၌ ယဥ္ေက်းမႈ၊ ဘာ သာစကား မတူညီ ကြဲျပားသည့္ လူမ်ိဳးေပါင္းစုံ ယွဥ္တြဲေနထိုင္ခဲ့ၾကသည္။ လြန္ခဲ့ေသာ ႏွစ္ ၂၀၀၀ ခန္႔ ဧရာဝ တီျမစ္ဝွမ္းေဒသတြင္ ၿမိဳ႕ျပယဥ္ေက်းမႈ ဉီးဆုံး ေပၚေပါက္လာခ်ိန္က ယေန႔ေခတ္ ယူနန္ျပည္ အေရွ႕ပိုင္းေဒ သ ကို ဒီယန္ဘုရင္မ်ား ေခတ္အဆက္ဆက္ အုပ္စိုးခဲ့သည္။ ဒီယန္ဘုရင္မ်ားသည္ ျမန္မာဘာသာႏွင့္ ဆက္စပ္ေန သည့္ ဘာသာစ ကား တစ္မ်ိဳးကို အသုံးျပဳခဲ့ဟန္ တူေသာ္လည္း အတိအက် မဆိုနိုင္ပါ။ ယူနန္နယ္သားမ်ား သည္ အျခားေသာ တိဘက္-ျမန္မာႏြယ္ ဘာသာစကားမ်ား၊ တိုင္ဘာသာႏွင့္ ၾသစထရိုအာရွ ဘာသာစကား မ်ား (ေခတ္သစ္မြန္ဘာသာကဲ့သို႔) ကိုလည္း အသုံးျပဳခဲ့ၾကသည္။

Myanmar’s Brutal Military Was Once a Force for Freedom – but it’s been Waging Civil War for Decades

INTERNATIONAL POLICY DIGEST

Tharaphi Than

APRIL 5, 2021

With great fanfare – but few guests – Myanmar’s armed forces recently celebrated their 76th anniversary in the nation’s capital of Naypyitaw.

Only Russia, China, Thailand, and a handful of other Asian countries sent representatives to attend the March 27th parade showing off Myanmar’s modern war machines – mostly imported from Russia and China over the past decade, to the tune of $2.4 billion.

The Myanmar military has been terrorizing civilians since a coup two months earlier. On the day of the parade, soldiers killed over 90 people for protesting military rule, including a 5-year-old boy and three teenagers. An estimated 564 people have been killed in Myanmar since the Feb. 1 coup.

Myanmar crisis: Asean's next moves

Bangkok Post

PUBLISHED : 6 APR 2021

Myanmar's Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin takes part in a virtual meeting of Asean foreign ministers in Nay Pyi Taw last Friday. AFP

The recent call by Indonesian President Joko Widodo for a meeting with his colleagues on the Myanmar crisis is gaining traction. It is now possible to say that the proposed leaders' meeting could take place at the end of this month, after the Songkran break and the Muslim Ramadan festival.

Senior Asean officials will have to decide tomorrow whether to have the physical meeting either in Bandar Seri Begawan or the Asean Secretariat and the preferred date. Both places have their own merits in discussing the Myanmar crisis. Therefore, the right timing is imperative for a face-to-face rendezvous. Asean has learned to its cost that a teleconference on the Myanmar crisis could cause harm and bitterness due to the lack of clarifications and personal rapport in virtual meetings. This time, the Asean chair wants to ensure that all Asean leaders, including Senior Gen Min Aung Hlaing, join the meeting.

China to support ASEAN mediation on Myanmar crisis

AA

Riyaz Ul Khaliq 

ANKARA

01.04.2021

China on Thursday said it supports the idea that leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) hold a “special meeting as soon as possible to mediate” in Myanmar, which is witnessing mass demonstrations against the military coup launched last on Feb. 1

“Myanmar is a member of the ASEAN family, and a close neighbor to China. We all hope different forces in Myanmar can start a dialogue as soon … to solve divergence under the framework of the law and the constitution and promote hard-won democratization,” Wang told a news conference alongside visiting Malaysian Foreign Minister Hishammuddin Hussein in China’s eastern Nanping city.

Myanmar's Armed Groups Shifting Loyalty To China?

THE ASEAN POST

Maria Siow

29 March 2021

This file photo shows Rakhine ethnic people attending an ANP (Arakan National Party) event in Yangon for the Myanmar general election. (AFP Photo)

After weeks of silence as Myanmar ’s military cracked down on civilians protesting against the 1 February coup, the Arakan Army (AA), a major player among the country’s more than two dozen ethnic armed groups, this week announced it was on the side of the people.

“The current actions by the Burmese army and police are very cruel and unacceptable,” AA spokesman Khine Thu Khahe said on Tuesday (23 March), adding that “the oppressed ethnic people as a whole will continue to fight for their freedom from oppression”.

The AA’s statement was significant, as it comes just weeks after Myanmar’s junta removed the militia from its list of terrorist groups as a means of establishing peace across the nation of 55 million.

China's Relationship With Myanmar's Military: It's Complicated

KGOU

MICHAEL SULLIVAN

MAR 29, 2021

Originally published on March 29, 2021 11:37 pm

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

It was a bloody weekend in Myanmar. Security forces, again, used live ammunition against protesters all over the country, killing at least 114 people. It was the bloodiest single day since the coup began and drew condemnation from around the world but not from neighboring China, a country with a complicated relationship with Myanmar's military. Michael Sullivan reports from neighboring Thailand.

MICHAEL SULLIVAN, BYLINE: In mid-January, China's foreign minister Wang Yi made a high-profile visit to Myanmar and met with the leader of the democratically elected government, Aung San Suu Kyi - yet another sign of China's deepening economic ties with an approval of Suu Kyi's civilian-led government. Just two weeks later, she was in jail. Myanmar's military was back in charge, and the country was in turmoil.

We’re part of China’s BRI but India our ‘most important partner’: Bangladesh foreign advisor

THE PRINT

PIA KRISHNANKUTTY 

24 March, 2021 

'We are very willing to be a part of Indo-Pacific relationship,' Gowher Rizvi, international affairs advisor to Bangladesh PM, said at a virtual event hosted by London-based IISS.

Gowher Rizvi | Commons

New Delhi: Bangladesh has said it is “not going to choose” between India and China as it expressed desire to join the “Indo-Pacific relationship”, though it is part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

“We are part of China’s BRI but we are very willing to be a part of the Indo-Pacific relationship… we are not going to choose [between India and China],” Gowher Rizvi, international affairs advisor to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said during a virtual seminar hosted by London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies Tuesday.

US, EU, Britain Impose Sanctions on Chinese Officials Over Uyghurs

VOA News
Updated March 22, 2021

European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell speaks to media before a EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, on March 22, 2021.

The United States, the European Union and Britain have imposed sanctions on several Chinese officials for human rights abuses against the Muslim Uyghur minority in China’s Xinjiang province.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. sanctions were taken in solidary with U.S. allies.

“As part of their actions today, our partners also sanctioned human rights abusers in connection with the atrocities occurring in Xinjiang and other countries,” Blinken said in a statement Monday.

Myanmar’s Ethnic Chinese Deny Allegiance to Beijing as They Risk Lives Against Junta

THE IRRAWADDY 

18 March 2021

Kyal Sin (left), Khant Nyar Hein (middle), and Kyaw Win Ko (right)

“Please don’t hate Chinese in Myanmar. We were born here,” a mournful mother of an ethnic Chinese teenager appealed to the people of Myanmar shortly after her son was shot dead by police in Yangon.

An ethnic Chinese, Khant Nyar Hein or Lin Yaozong, 18, was shot down on the street by the military regime’s security forces on Sunday in Tamwe Township while he was taking part in a protest. He became one of more than 200 civilians killed by police and soldiers in a flurry of lethal force unleashed on peaceful protesters following the Feb. 1 coup.

Those who learned of the fate of the first-year medical student were saddened and sympathetic to his mother, who has lost her only son.

Fears of 'digital dictatorship' as Myanmar deploys AI

REUTERS
Rina Chandran,
Thomson Reuters Foundation
MARCH 18, 2021

BANGKOK, March 18 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Protesters in Myanmar fear they are being tracked with Chinese facial recognition technology, as spiralling violence and street surveillance spark fears of a “digital dictatorship” to replace ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Human rights groups say the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to check on citizens’ movements poses a “serious threat” to their liberty.

More than 200 people have been killed since Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi was overthrown in a Feb. 1 coup, triggering mass protests that security forces have struggled to suppress with increasingly violent tactics.

Security forces have focused on stamping out dissent in cities including the capital Naypyitaw, Yangon and Mandalay, where hundreds of CCTV cameras had been installed as part of a drive to improve governance and curb crime.

Human Rights Watch has expressed its “heightened concern” over cameras armed with AI technology that can scan faces and vehicle licence plates in public places, and alert authorities to those on a wanted list.

Crisis in Myanmar: Willing to engage with all parties

The Daily Star
Reuters
March 08, 2021

Says China as anti-coup protesters defy ongoing crackdown; official from Suu Kyi’s party beaten to death.

China is willing to engage with "all parties" to ease the crisis in neighbouring Myanmar and is not taking sides, the Chinese government's top diplomat State Councillor Wang Yi said, as thousands of anti-coup demonstrators defied an ongoing military crackdown yesterday.

Beijing has said the situation in Myanmar, where the military seized power last month, was "absolutely not what China wants to see" and has dismissed social media rumours of Chinese involvement in the coup as nonsense.

China worries over rare-earth supply disruption from Myanmar coup

NIKKEI ASIA

KENJI KAWASE, Nikkei Asia chief business news correspondent
March 4, 2021 

Decade after drastic cut in exports to Japan, Beijing sees the tables turned

China heavily relies on imports of rare-earth minerals, mainly from the U.S. and Myanmar. (Source photos by Reuters)

HONG KONG -- While China reigns as the largest producer of rare-earth elements, the recent military coup in Myanmar has reminded Beijing of its reliance on and vulnerability to its Southeast Asian neighbor.

China owns the largest reserves of these strategic minerals, which are indispensable in churning out a wide variety of tech products, from smartphones to electric vehicles, wind power generators and missile defense systems, but it also heavily relies on imports, mainly from the U.S. and Myanmar.

The latest annual report by the U.S. Geological Survey states that China produced 140,000 tons of rare-earth oxide equivalent in 2020, almost 60% of the global total. Its reserves were 44 million tons, double those of Vietnam, which are the second-largest in the world.

China role in Myanmar coup under scanner

THE FREE PRESS

By Agencies
Monday, March 1, 2021,

Different charges claim that Chinese soldiers were being transported into the country on flights, or that ‘Chinese-looking’ troops have been spotted around Myanmar's cities

A policeman points his weapon at people in Taunggyi, a city in Shan State, on February 28, 2021, as security forces continue to crackdown on demonstrations by protesters against the military coup. AFP

Naypyitaw: With most nations condemning military takeover in Myanmar and arrest of elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi, there have been reports that China has been supporting the coup.

Different charges claim that Chinese soldiers were being transported into the country on flights, or that "Chinese-looking" troops have been spotted around Myanmar's cities, The Taiwan Times reported.

China ready to ‘work with Asean’ to ease Myanmar coup turmoil

South China Morning Post

Laura Zhou in Beijing
20 Feb, 2021

• Chinese foreign minister tells Indonesian counterpart that unrest not in interest of Myanmar or region
• Beijing hopes all parties will ‘continue the process of democratic transition’

A man takes part in a protest against the military coup in Yangon, Myanmar, on Saturday. Photo: Reuters

China has said it is willing to work closely with Asean to ease political tensions in Myanmar as pressure mounts on Beijing to condemn the military coup in its Southeast Asian neighbour.

In a call with his Indonesian counterpart Retno Marsudi on Friday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said a peaceful and stable Myanmar was important to both China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Myanmar protesters urge China to condemn coup. Will Beijing act?

Aljazeera
Zaheena Rasheed
18 Feb 2021

Protesters accuse China of backing Myanmar’s generals, but analysts say Beijing does not favour a return to military rule.

Demonstrators display placards accusing China for supporting Myanmar's military during a protest against the recent coup outside the Chinese Embassy in Yangon, Myanmar Thursday, February 11, 2021 [AP]

Chanting “Shame on you, China” and holding up banners in English, Chinese and Burmese, dozens of pro-democracy protesters gathered on Monday at the Chinese embassy in Yangon to denounce what they called Beijing’s backing for Myanmar’s military coup on February 1.

“Myanmar’s military dictatorship is made in China,” read one placard.

How China has Tightened its Grip on Myanmar’s Economy

NEWS18

FEBRUARY 09, 2021

While China Was Rapidly Making Inroads Into Myanmar, Indian Economic Presence In Myanmar Has Been More Or Less Limited To The 2010 Trade Statistics Level, A Bilateral Trade Over 11 Times Smaller Than China.

The bilateral trade between Myanmar and China in 2010 was US$1.22 billion. China’s share in Myanmar’s imports was 19.81%, while it accounted for just 2.93% of Myanmar’s exports. Back then, Thailand was the biggest trading partner with US$3.65 billion in bilateral trade. But it was largely export driven with 35.83% share of Myanmar’s total exports, while Singapore was at number three with US$1.58 billion of bilateral trade, according to the World Bank data.

India’s bilateral trade with Myanmar stood at US$1.12 billion and it was largely import driven. Myanmar’s import share with India was just 3.32%, while India’s share in Myanmar’s export was 10.80%.

Beijing wins when democracy is extinguished

The Telegraph

 CON COUGHLIN
DEFENCE EDITOR

10 February 2021

Burma’s military coup plays into the hands of a Chinese regime intent on expanding its influence

First Hong Kong, now Burma. There is an alarming new tendency that, whenever an Asian country seeks to embrace the values of democratic rule, it invariably ends with pro-democracy activists being imprisoned and abused.

Burma’s experiment with democracy is a relatively new phenomenon, dating back only to the country’s 2008 constitution, under which the military junta agreed to permit a limited form of democratic rule. Now even these modest reforms, under which the veteran campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi held the quasi-presidential position of “state counsellor”, have been extinguished after the military, responding to her National League for Democracy’s (NLD) clear victory in last November’s elections, once again seized control of the country.

Bangladesh, Myanmar, China tripartite talks Tuesday

Prothum Alo------ 

Prothom Alo English DeskDhaka
Published: 18 January 2021,

Rohingya exodus from their homeland, making their way to Bangladesh Reuters

Bangladesh, Myanmar and China will hold a virtual tripartite meeting on Tuesday to discuss ways to expedite the Rohingya repatriation process.

Rohingya repatriation talks between Dhaka and Naypyitaw remained halted for nearly a year due to COVID-19 pandemic and the general elections in Myanmar, reports UNB.

Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen will lead the Bangladesh delegations in the meeting scheduled to begin at 2pm (local time) on Tuesday, reports UNB. Vice Minister of China Luo Zhaohui will join from Beijing with Bangladesh and Myanmar delegations, a senior official confirmed.