BANGKOK: Myanmar’s coup key met China’s leader for the first time since seizing energy, state media reported Saturday, the highest-level meeting with a vital ally for the worldwide sanctioned military leader. Senior General Min Aung Hlaing led a military coup in 2021 conquering Myanmar’s simple experiment with politics and plunging the country into civil war. In the four decades since, his military forces have battled dozens of ethnic armed groups and fight militias, some with close links to China, opposed to its rule. The issue has seen Min Aung Hlaing draw criticism from rights organizations and pursued by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, but he has maintained close relationships to supporters China and Russia.
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He met Beijing’s leader Xi Jinping in Moscow on the outside of Russia’s Success Day events on Friday and thanked China for its humanitarian support following a 7. 7-magnitude disaster in March, reported coup internet The Global New Light of MyanmarHe even thanked China” for its aid of Myanmar’s attitude on regional and international sides”, it said. Chinese state media Xinhua news reported that Xi expressed his country’s support for Myanmar pursuing development” suited to its regional conditions, safeguarding its sovereignty, independence, regional integrity and regional stability, and rapidly advancing its local political agenda”. Xi said he hoped Myanmar would take” concrete measures to ensure the safety of Chinese personnel, institutions and projects in Myanmar, and intensify efforts to combat cross-border crimes”. More than 6,600 people have been killed since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, and millions displaced. Concerned about the violence on its doorstep destabilising regional peace and its economic ambitions, China has reportedly mediated talks between Myanmar’s junta and key rebel groups. China is a major ally and arms supplier to the junta, but analysts say it also maintains ties with armed ethnic groups in Myanmar that hold territory near its border. Beijing has long been eyeing Myanmar’s resource-rich northern Shan state, now under rebel control, for infrastructure investment under its trillion-dollar Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. While Min Aung Hlaing’s Friday meeting with Xi was his first time in his role as junta chief, the general had previously met the Chinese leader in Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw in January 2020, a year before seizing power.
