BANGKOK — Myanmar’s military government on Monday held the first high-level regional meeting since the military seized power last year with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his counterparts from Mekong Delta countries.
State broadcaster MRTV reported that Wang met with his colleagues from Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam at the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Group meeting held under the theme “Solidarity for Peace and Prosperity” in the central city of Bagan, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. to place.
The TV report showed Wang and the other foreign ministers bumping elbows in a show of solidarity before the meeting began, but did not provide further details.
The grouping is a China-led initiative that includes countries in the Mekong Delta, a potential source of regional tensions due to a growing number of hydropower projects that alter flow and raise concerns about ecological damage. China has built 10 dams along the upper reach of the Mekong, the part it calls the Lancang.
China has been criticized for upstream dams on the Mekong that affect water levels and downstream fisheries that are important to the economies of several Southeast Asian countries.
Military government spokesman Major General Zaw Min Tun said last Friday that the ministers were to sign several agreements. He said the presence of the foreign ministers was an acknowledgment of the sovereignty of Myanmar and its government.
China is Myanmar’s biggest trading partner and an old ally. Beijing has invested billions of dollars in Myanmar’s mines, oil and gas pipelines and other infrastructure and is its main arms supplier, along with Russia.
Many in Myanmar suspect China of supporting the military takeover, and Beijing has refused to condemn the military takeover. China claims to follow a policy of non-interference in the affairs of other countries.
Myanmar’s shadow national unity government, which opposes the ruling military council, protested the Bagan meeting, saying such efforts in partnership with Myanmar’s military violate the will of the people and undermine the construction community.
He said holding the meeting in Myanmar is in direct opposition to an Association of Southeast Asian Nations peace plan. Myanmar leaders have obstructed ASEAN efforts to arrange a meeting with ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was recently held in solitary confinement.
Suu Kyi’s ouster in February 2021 sparked widespread peaceful protests that quickly erupted into armed resistance, and the country slipped into what some UN experts call a civil war.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry statement said Wang met on Sunday with Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn, who is also ASEAN’s special envoy to Myanmar.
According to the statement, Wang told Prak Sokhonn that China is willing to work with ASEAN to push Myanmar to pursue political reconciliation and encourage it to revive the democratic transition process and realize the vision of return. power to the people. He said China supports Myanmar in exploring the development path that suits its own national conditions.
The official Myanma Alinn Daily newspaper reported that Wang also met with Myanmar Foreign Minister Wunna Maung Lwin on Sunday to discuss the implementation of bilateral projects and closer collaboration.
Wang told Wunna Maung Lwin that China will help Myanmar safeguard its legitimate interests and national dignity in the international arena, according to China’s official Xinhua News Agency.
ABC News