It Was Revealed That A Number Of Cabinet Ministers Of The Myanmar Military Regime Have Intimate Relationships With China

Meeting of leaders of the Myanmar military regime (Source: seniorgeneralminaunghlaing.com.mm)

JAKARTA - Since the Myanmar military carried out a coup on 1 February. The name China has always been associated with the ruling military regime. Accusations of supporting a military regime have always been denied by China.

Chinese Ambassador to Myanmar Chen Hai last month said the current situation in Myanmar was not at all what China had hoped for.

"China hopes that all parties in Myanmar can handle the current problem through dialogue and consultation properly, bringing back the track as soon as possible," said Ambassador Chen, reported The Irrawaddy.

Last month, experienced international lobbyist and former Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe, hired by the Myanmar military regime, to try to get closer to Western countries, garnered sympathy by repatriating Rohingya Muslim refugees and away from China.

He said Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's de facto leader since 2016, had grown too close to China for the generals to like him.

“There is a real push to move to the West and the United States rather than trying to get closer to China. They (the military) don't want to be puppets of China, "Ben-Menashe said, according to Reuters.

However, at a meeting at the United Nations (UN) Security Council, China blocked attempts to condemn a military coup in Myanmar. Anti-Chinese sentiment was on the rise. On March 14, protesters set fire to a number of factories owned by Chinese companies in the Hlaing Tharyar Industrial Zone, Yangon.

Some time ago, The Irrawaddy revealed the names of ministers in the cabinet of the Myanmar military regime, who have long had close ties with China.

Myanmar military anti-coup protests. (Twitter / @ HsuChiKo1)

Tight relationship

One of them is the new minister for international cooperation, U Ko Ko Hlaing, who began forging strong ties in China's Yunnan Province, shortly after his appointment as advisor to the administration of President U Thein Sein, a retired Myanmar general, in the early 2010s.

After his term ended in 2015, U Ko Ko Hlaing assumed a formal position as an advisor to the Center for Myanmar Studies at Yunnan University, working closely with Li Chenyang, who had long promoted closer ties between China and the Myanmar military (Tatmadaw).

Li, who graduated from school under the People's Liberation Army (PLA) in the early 1990s, was one of three Yunnan-based strategists involved in the development of a planned Sino-Myanmar oil and gas pipeline project in 2004.

Li later became a supporter of Yunnan's 'land bridge' and 'two oceans strategy' as a way of exploiting Myanmar to increase Yunnan's status among China's western provinces.

Li is known to have repeatedly called for closer ties between the PLA and Myanmar's armed forces, and is known for playing out the combat capabilities of the Tatmadaw in Chinese policy circles, which famously claims that Myanmar soldiers can easily defeat armed ethnic groups if desired.

Map of China's oil and gas pipelines crossing Myanmar. (wikispooks.com)

U Ko Ko Hlaing was named an advisor to the University's Myanmar Studies Center in 2016, In this capacity, he has published a series of books in Chinese on Myanmar-China relations in collaboration with Yunnan University.

One of them discussed why China should be the leading power in the world. The next book contains a series of case studies aimed at showing how China has become a 'responsible player' in Myanmar.

In 2018, his status in China greatly improved when he took on the lead duties of the government and the Chinese Communist Party, rewriting Chinese President Xi Jinping's book 'The Governance of China' in a Burmese version of the language released during a government ceremony in Yangon in 2020.

U Ko Ko Hlaing is known to be very outspoken in the Chinese media, criticizing Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (LND) government for the lengthy process of reviewing China's investment project, the Muse-Kyaukphyu Railway and the Kyaukphyu Port Project.

Apart from the economy, U Ko Ko Hlaing has played a key role in legitimizing China's actions vis-à-vis Hong Kong and Taiwan. In July 2020, he wrote a lengthy article in Burmese, published in translation by several Chinese media, supporting Beijing's position in the former British colony. He also praised China in dealing with COVID-19

In a personal capacity, U Ko Ko Hlaing has played an important role in promoting the interests of certain Chinese companies in Myanmar, including GAC Motors, a Chinese automaker.

Another junta cabinet member with important ties to China is Foreign Minister U Wunna Maung Lwin. He served as foreign minister under President U Thein Sein. The former military officer also served as director general of the Ministry of Border Affairs as well as ambassador to Israel, France, Belgium and the EU from 2004 to 2007, and permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva.

He is a key member of the Union Solidarity and Development Party (UDSP), a political party affiliated with the Myanmar military and founded by former regime leader Senior General Than Shwe.

A factory owned by a Chinese company catches fire in Myanmar. (Twitter / @ YeeMonOo_04)

Under the U Thein Sein administration of the USDP, U Wunna Maung Lwin was assigned to travel to China as a special envoy to smooth out relations between the two countries, following Myanmar's suspension of the controversial Chinese-funded Myitsone Dam project in Kachin State in October 2011.

He then became a major problem solver for the regime installed to address the problems of the two countries. This includes smoothing out relations with China following the accidental destruction of Chinese property when fighting in Kokang spread to Yunnan province in 2015.

In 2016, at Li's invitation, the former foreign minister visited China, where he gave a major lecture on Sino-Myanmar Relations at Yunnan University. Throughout 2016 and 2017, he was invited to give similar presentations at a number of other Chinese institutions, where he promoted the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation platform. As well as a proposed connectivity scheme connecting China with the Indian Ocean via Myanmar.

U Wunna Maung Lwin remains active in the USDP and has made several visits to the Kokang Border Guard Force on the Myanmar-China border. He also gave an interview to the China Guangming Daily News to promote China-Myanmar relations, stressing the USDP's importance to the relationship.

And, there is the newly appointed Minister of Electricity and Energy U Aung Than Oo involved in a joint venture with the Great Wall Tomorrow High-Tech Agricultural Company based in Jiangsu, China. Engaged in agriculture and forestry, the company has a timber sales office in China.

Myanmar Coup. The VOI editorial team continues to monitor the political situation in one of the ASEAN member countries. Casualties from civilians continue to fall. Readers can follow the news surrounding the Myanmar military coup by tapping on this link.