Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi plans China visit in December, say party elders Myanmar’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi is planning to visit China next month, senior members of her political party, the National League for Democracy said. “We asked for some of her time in December, but she said she might be going to China and needed some free time in December,” Han Thar Myint, a member of the NLD’s Central Executive Committee told the South China Morning Post. The leading activist in the 1988 democracy protests said Suu Kyi’s invitation had not been handled by her political party, but her personal office. Dr Tin Mar Aung, her personal assistant said she could not comment on the matter. The Chinese embassy in Yangon did not immediately reply to a request for comment. On Monday, The Irrawaddy Magazine, a Myanmar exile publication based in Chiang Mai, Thailand, quoted Win Htein, another NLD Central Executive Committee member as saying that Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, would visit Myanmar’s largest trading partner in December. In January, China’s ambassador to Myanmar told the Post that it was only a matter of time until China invited the democracy icon, who has visited all other neighbouring countries, the US and several European countries since her house arrest was lifted by the military-dominated regime in 2010. Nyo Ohn Myint, a former close adviser to Suu Kyi who handled her party’s foreign affairs between 2002 and 2012, said the visit would show a domestic audience that the daughter of Myanmar’s founding president General Aung San was able to handle the country’s foreign affairs pragmatically. “She has been accused of siding with the West and being its political tool,” he said. “She wants to clear up that one.” Nyo Ohn Myint said he did not expect much to come out of a China visit other than the message that Beijing and the opposition figure could work together. Suu Kyi’s NLD is preparing to contest general elections scheduled for the end of next year, the first such free vote in more than two decades in the Southeast Asian nation. The nation’s lawmakers are currently debating changing the constitution so that Suu Kyi could become the next head of state, a move widely resisted by many within the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party. The former military regime’s close economic and military ties to China have tainted Beijing’s reputation among many Myanmar opposition leaders. Protests against a copper mine run by a subsidiary of a Chinese arms producer, Chinese oil and gas pipelines through Myanmar and a giant dam project near the Chinese border have dominated political debate in the country since the military eased tight control four years ago. As a member of the lower house of parliament, Suu Kyi chaired a committee that renegotiated compensation for land seized by the Chinese copper mine operation in Monywa in central Myanmar after a violent crackdown on local residents in 2012. Long-time women’s rights activist Lway Aye Nang said she would welcome Suu Kyi’s visit to China. “This will show China that the NLD is not a threat to them,” she said. Beijing “will see that they can deal with any possible government to come,” she said, referring to the NLD’s possible victory in the coming general elections. Lway Aye Nang, who is now a Yangon-based board member of the Taang Womens Organisation, said she hoped Suu Kyi would call on Beijing to keep Chinese investors in Myanmar in check. “I would like Daw Suu Kyi to tell them that they need to be responsible and transparent in any investment they make in this country,” she said. Now is a good time for Suu Kyi to visit China, as there are no major bilateral problems, said Trevor Wilson, a former Australian ambassador to Myanmar. “China has more at stake in Myanmar than ever before, with its energy security partly dependent on access through Myanmar,” he said. “Both sides need a reasonable relationship.” China has not announced the visit, cautioned Yun Sun, a long-time observer of Sino-Myanmese relations at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “If she visits Beijing, it is foreseeable that she will meet the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party,” she said. “Both sides will focus on Sino-Myanmar relations, economic development [and] cooperation, [and] China’s maritime silk road rather than sensitive topics such as constitutional reform or the 2015 elections.”
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 07:29:47 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015