Other Special Economic Zones

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Description: "The Thilawa Special Economic Zone - located on the outskirts of Yangon - is the first Special Economic Zone (SEZ) to be built in Myanmar, and will be fully (commercially) operational within 2015. Inside Thilawa SEZ, (where) both (the) hard and soft infrastructure - from roads and utilities to supporting services such as maintenance - will be developed up to the international standard..."..... "Demand for Thilawa SEZ land tremendously increased... Thilawa Management Committee provides students from Project Affected Households and other Project Affected Persons (other family members) with assistance... Local initial public offering of Thilawa SEZ Public Company completed successfully... Jobs open up for Project Affected Persons (PAPs)... Three Japanese industrial biggies will launch special economic zone in Myanmar..... Latest Download: Environmental Impact Assessment.pdf... Basic facts about Thilawa SEZ development (Myanmar version) PDF... Resettlement Work Plan PDF... Myanmar SEZ Law PDF.
Source/publisher: http://myanmarthilawa.com/
Date of entry/update: 2014-12-02
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Description: "The Meeting: On 25-26 September 2023, China hosted the Global Sustainable Transport Forum in Beijing. Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng attended the opening ceremony and read a congratulatory letter from Chinese President Xi Jinping. The forum, reported by Chinese media, was an opportunity for China to stress that it is committed to ‘promoting global transport cooperation and providing the world with new opportunities through its own development.’ In attendance, among others, was Mya Tun Oo, deputy prime minister and transport minister of the State Administration Council (SAC), formed by the Myanmar military. On the sidelines of the meeting, he reportedly discussed the Muse-Mandalay rail project with the Chinese. The Project The proposed Muse-Mandalay railway project (MMRP), unveiled in 2011, is a major part of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) and the broader Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of China that includes the construction of a Pan-Asian Railway Network running through Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia. Proposed to be built by Myanmar’s state-run Myanma Railways and the China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group (CREEG), the MMRP would link Kunming, the capital of China’s southern Yunnan province, and Mandalay in central Myanmar through the Muse border in Shan State. It is projected as a 431-kilometre-long standard-gauge railway project with an estimated cost of US$9 billion. Under the CMEC framework, the proposal is also to further extend the line from Mandalay to the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone (KP SEZ) and the New Yangon City, the two other key sites of China-Myanmar infrastructure projects. China is developing a deep-sea port at Kyaukphyu, a city on the Bay of Bengal in Rakhine State. An 800-kilometre China-Myanmar Oil and Gas Pipeline, which began operations in 2009, has been running from Kyaukphyu through Mandalay and Magway regions, and northern Shan state. Once completed, the rail line will allow Chinese trade to bypass the congested Strait of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia and boost development in landlocked Yunnan. More crucially, Beijing wants to avert the worst-case scenario of a foreign power disrupting its oil shipments from the Middle East by blockading the straits. Mya Tun Oo’s visit to China included a trip to the headquarters of China Railway Group Co Ltd, where he reportedly discussed a feasibility study for Muse-Mandalay and Mandalay-Kyaukphyu rail sections. The Myanmar military’s official media said that he also met Vice Premier He Lifeng and Chinese Transport Minister Li Xiaopeng to discuss transport cooperation, the acceleration of existing projects, and the possibility of new projects. Delays, Opposition, and the Restart There are widespread apprehensions as to the MMRP’s impact on the environment and Myanmar’s sovereignty. The Myanmar military has remained unconcerned with either of these dangers. The MoU between the two countries was signed in 2011 when the Military headed a quasi-civilian government. However, work on the project halted in 2014 after strong protests and activism in the Rakhine state. In 2018, the project was revised during the National League of Democracy (NLD) government’s term. The preparation of the bilateral MoU for the MMRP project was executed in 2019. The railway projects were among the 33 agreements signed by President Xi Jinping during his visit to Myanmar in January 2020. To date, however, the project has remained largely in the planning stage, delayed further by the onset of COVID-19 and then the coup of February 2021. The Myanmar military’s urgency to move ahead with the project emanates from its bid to please China, which provides it with diplomatic protection in international forums. For the SAC to continue, in a widespread civil war situation, support from China remains a critical factor. The Symphony Chinese bid to access the Bay of Bengal, through the CMEC, has synchrony with the Myanmar military’s avowed aim of establishing the country as an economic corridor and attracting Chinese investment. This has assumed more significance due to the country’s growing isolation, which appears to have hurt the regime. The frequency and intensity of engagement between the two countries, in fact, has picked up, as have expressions of commitment to their economic relations. Lately, indications to this effect have been provided by military chief Min Aung Hlaing. In September of this year, at the Myanmar Economic Committee, he hailed the potential trade benefits of a Kyaukphyu-Mandalay railway. He said the regime also assessed the feasibility of a Muse-Mandalay railway and even suggested building another line between Chinshwehaw and Lashio near the Chinese border. Not surprisingly, nine SAC ministers visited China in September, reflecting the regime’s deepening ties with Beijing. On 26 September, Mya Tun Oo attended the Comprehensive Transport Investment Promotion Conference in Beijing and said that his government was committed to establishing Myanmar as an economic corridor by firmly partnering in the BRI project as well as the Mekong-Lancang Cooperation projects. The latter is a sub-regional cooperation mechanism jointly established by China, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam in 2017. In March 2023, media reports indicated that work might have started on the MMRP project. The military spokesperson observed that “field inspection and reports have been completed. The implementation to resume the projects is still being discussed [sic].” Consultations may have indeed begun between the two sides to kickstart the long-delayed project. The military is expected to take care of the domestic concerns, whereas Beijing appeared to have taken responsibility for dealing with the ethnic armed organisations that operate in northern Myanmar in Shan and Rakhine states. In late February 2023, China’s special envoy for Myanmar affairs, Deng Xijun, held meetings with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the United Wa State Army (UWSA), and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) to discuss trade and economic cooperation with a focus on the MMRP. Deng reportedly pushed the insurgents to reach some form of a cease-fire with the military government. In July, three groups — the MNDAA, the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), and the Rakhine Arakan Army (AA) – released a joint statement (in Burmese and Chinese) vowing to protect international investment in their regions, which are home to several key Chinese-led projects, and also to “crush perpetrators of violence” in Shan and Rakhine states. The Tail Piece Both Myanmar and China continue to grow dependent on each other. Myanmar’s military critically depends on Beijing for its survival. For China, Myanmar remains a key constituent of its BRI project. The project is not intended to benefit the hosts but the Chinese economy and its strategic expansion. The final chapter in the MMRP project, however, is yet to be written. While Myanmar and Chinese state-run media would like to highlight the swift progress achieved, the current civil war situation poses a substantial challenge to actual implementation. The opposition’s Peoples Defence Forces (PDFs) and the EAOs that operate in Kayah and Sagaing regions remain bitterly opposed to all military initiatives, including the MMRP. Defeating this opponent will be necessary for the military to execute the project. That feat has not been achieved in the last two-and-a-half years since it grabbed power. The coming months are likely to witness the continuation of the military’s efforts to bring stability to the areas through which the project passes. This translates into more violent action against the opposition with severe collateral damages. About the author: Dr. Bibhu Prasad Routray is the Director of Mantraya. This analysis has been published as part of Mantraya’s ongoing “Fragility, Conflict, and Peace Building” and “Regional Economic Cooperation and Connectivity in South Asia” projects. All Mantraya publications are peer-reviewed..."
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Source/publisher: "Eurasia Review"
2023-10-13
Date of entry/update: 2023-10-13
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "A new report by the Kachin Women’s Association Thailand (KWAT) links escalating abuses by SAC troops in Kachin and northern Shan State to the regime’s attempts to secure transport routes for expansion of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The report documents a sharp increase since mid-2022 in the number of casualties of aerial bombardment, up to nearly 200, and in the number of villagers forced to be human shields, up to 221, compared to the previous fifteen months. Other widespread SAC abuses documented by KWAT include thirty incidents of shelling into populated areas, inflicting 61 civilian casualties, and arbitrary arrest of 441 people, including Kachin religious leader Dr. Hka Lam Samson. Dozens of those arrested have disappeared. Mapping shows most SAC abuses clustered along the main transport routes in northern Burma, vital gateways for development of BRI infrastructure. KWAT analyzes this as a deliberate strategy of collective punishment to secure control of key transport arteries. “With conventional warfare failing against resistance forces, the regime is increasingly resorting to attacks against civilians,” said KWAT spokesperson Ja Ing KWAT exposes that the devastating airstrike on the concert in Hpakant last October, which inflicted over 170 casualties, was direct retaliation for heavy SAC losses suffered a day earlier during a failed attempt to seize KIA positions on Lung Ja mountain – the highest vantage point in southeast Kachin State, overlooking key transport corridors to China. The attacks and abuses have fueled fresh displacement of nearly 14,000 villagers during the past fifteen months, even as the regime has been pushing ahead with plans to close down existing camps in northern Burma housing over 107,000 IDPs. KWAT is calling urgently for increased diplomatic and economic pressure on the SAC regime to stop their attacks on civilians throughout Burma, and for donor countries to step up aid to existing and newly displaced IDPs, prioritizing cross-border channels. KWAT also calls on China to halt its planned acceleration of BRI projects in Burma. “China is taking a huge risk by pushing ahead with BRI projects in partnership with the military regime,” said Ja Ing “There are no guarantees of security, and China will find itself complicit in the mounting atrocities associated with the planned projects.”.....ကချင်အမျိုးသမီးများအစည်းအရုံး-ထိုင်းနိုင်ငံ (KWAT) ၏ ဤအစီရင်ခံစာသစ်တွင် ကချင်ပြည်နယ်နှင့် ရှမ်းပြည်နယ် မြောက်ပိုင်းရှိ စစ်ကောင်စီတပ်ဖွဲ့ဝင်များ၏ အခွင့်အရေးချိုးဖောက်မှုများ ပြင်းထန်လာမှု အခြေအနေ များသည် တရုတ်နိုင်ငံ BRI-ပိုးလမ်းမ စီမံကိန်း တိုးချဲ့ရေးအတွက် သယ်ယူပို့ဆောင်ရေးလမ်းကြောင်းများကို လုံခြုံရေး ပေးရန် စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ ကြိုးပမ်းမှုနှင့် ဆက်စပ်ပုံကို ချိတ်ဆက်ဖော်ပြထားသည်။ လွန်ခဲ့သည့် ၁၅ လနှင့် နှိုင်းယှဉ်လျှင် ၂၀၂၂ ခုနှစ် နှစ်လည်ပိုင်းမှစ၍ လေကြောင်းတိုက်ခိုက်မှုကြောင့် ထိခိုက်သူ ၂၀၀ နီးပါးနှင့် လူသားဒိုင်းအဖြစ် အတင်းအဓမ္မ ခိုင်းစေခံရသူ ရွာသူရွာသားဦးရေမှာ ၂၂၁ ဦးထိ သိသိသာသာ တိုးမြင့်လာကြောင်းကို အစီရင်ခံစာမှ မှတ်တမ်းတင်ထားသည်။ KWAT မှ မှတ်တမ်းတင်ထားသော စစ်ကောင်စီမှ ကျယ်ကျယ်ပြန့်ပြန့် ကျူးလွန်နေသော အခြားချိုးဖောက်မှုများ ထဲတွင် အရပ်သား ၆၁ ကို ထိခိုက်သေဆုံးစေခဲ့သော လူနေထူထပ်သော ဒေသများသို့ လက်နက်ကြီးပစ်ခတ်မှု အကြိမ် ၃၀ နှင့် ကချင်ဘာသာရေးအကြီးအကဲ ဒေါက်တာ ခလမ်ဆမ်ဆွန် အပါအဝင် လူပေါင်း ၄၄၁ ဦးအား မတရားဖမ်းဆီးခြင်းတို့လည်း ပါဝင်သည်။ ဖမ်းဆီးခံရသူများထဲမှာ ဒါဇင်ပေါင်းများစွာသည် ယနေ့ချိန်ထိ ပျောက်ဆုံး နေဆဲဖြစ်သည်။ မြေပုံများအရ စစ်ကောင်စီကျူးလွန်သော ချိုးဖောက်မှု အများစုသည် BRI-ပိုးလမ်းမ စီမံကိန်းအောက်ရှိ အခြေခံအဆောက်အအုံများ၏ အရေးကြီးသော တံခါးပေါက်များဖြစ်သော မြန်မာနိုင်ငံမြောက်ပိုင်းရှိ အဓိက သယ်ယူပို့ဆောင်ရေးလမ်းကြောင်းများတစ်လျှောက်တွင် ဖြစ်ပွားသည်ကို ပြသနေသည်။ ၎င်းအခြေအနေသည် အဓိက သယ်ယူပို့ဆောင်ရေးသွေးကြောများထိန်းချုပ်မှုကို ကာကွယ်ရန် စုပေါင်းပြစ်ဒဏ်ပေးခြင်းကို ဗျူဟာတစ်ခုအနေဖြင့် စစ်ကောင်စီမှ ရည်ရွယ်ချက်ရှိရှိ လုပ်ဆောင်နေခြင်းဖြစ်သည်ဟု KWAT မှ လေ့လာသုံးသပ်သည်။ “ခုခံတော်လှန်ရေးတပ်တွေကို သမားရိုးကျ စစ်ဆင်ရေးရှုံးနိမ့်လာတော့ စစ်တပ်က အရပ်သားတွေကို ပစ်မှတ်ထားတိုက်ခိုက်တဲ့ နည်းလမ်းကို ပိုပြီးသုံးလာကြတယ်ဟု KWAT ၏ ပြောရေးဆိုခွင့်ရှိသူ” ဂျာအိန်က ပြောသည်။ ပြီးခဲ့သည့် အောက်တိုဘာလအတွင်းက ဖားကန့်မြို့ ဖျော်ဖြေပွဲတွင် ဖြစ်ပွားခဲ့သော လူပေါင်း ၁၇၀ ကျော် ထိခိုက်ခဲ့သည့် ပြင်းထန်သည့် လေကြောင်းတိုက်ခိုက်မှုသည် ထိုတိုက်ခိုက်မှုမတိုင်မီ တစ်ရက်အကြိုတွင် ဖြစ်ပွားခဲ့သော စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ ကချင်ပြည်နယ်အရှေ့တောင်ဘက် တရုတ်နိုင်ငံသို့ အဓိက ကုန်သွယ်ရေး လမ်းစင်္ကြန်များကို အပေါ်စီးမှမြင်ရသည့် အမြင့်ဆုံးနေရာဖြစ်သော လုံဂျာတောင်ပေါ်ရှိ KIA စခန်းများကို သိမ်းယူ ရန်ကြိုးပမ်းမှုတွင် အကြီးအကျယ် အထိနာခဲ့မှုအတွက် တိုက်ရိုက်လက်တုံ့ပြန်မှုဖြစ်သည်ဟု KWAT မှ ဖော်ထုတ် ထားသည်။ စစ်ကောင်စီသည် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ မြောက်ပိုင်းရှိ IDP ၁၀၇,၀၀၀ ကျော်နေထိုင်သော ရှိရင်းစွဲ စစ်ဘေးရှောင် စခန်းများကို ပိတ်သိမ်းရန် အစီအစဉ်များ ဆက်လက် တွန်းအားပေးလုပ်ဆောင်နေသော်လည်း လွန်ခဲ့သော ၁၅ လ အတွင်း တိုက်ခိုက်မှုများနှင့် အခွင့်အရေးချိုးဖောက်မှုများကြောင့် နောက်ထပ် ရွာသူရွာသားပေါင်း ၁၄,၀၀၀ နီးပါးကို နေရပ်စွှန့်ခွာ ထွက်ပြေးစေခဲ့သည်။ KWAT အနေဖြင့် စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတဝှမ်းရှိ အရပ်သားများအပေါ် ပစ်မှတ်ထားသော ပြင်းထန်သည့် တိုက်ခိုက်မှုများကို ရပ်တန့်ရန် ၎င်းတို့အပေါ် သံတမန်ရေးနှင့် စီးပွားရေးဆိုင်ရာ ဖိအားများ တိုးမြှင့်ပေးရန်နှင့် အလှူရှင် နိုင်ငံအနေများဖြင့် နယ်စပ်ဖြတ်ကျော်လမ်းကြောင်းများကို ဦးစားပေးကာ ရှိရင်းစွဲနှင့် နောက်ထပ် တိုးပွားလာသော IDP များအတွက် အကူအညီများ တိုးမြှင့်ပေးရန် အရေးပေါ် တောင်းဆိုလိုက်သည်။ တရုတ်နိုင်ငံ အနေဖြင့် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံရှိ ၎င်းတို့၏ BRI-ပိုးလမ်းမ စီမံကိန်းတိုးမြှင့်လုပ်ဆောင်မည့် အစီအစဉ်များကို လည်း ရပ်တန့်ရန် KWAT မှ တောင်းဆိုထားသည်။ “တရုတ်နိုင်ငံဟာ စစ်တပ်နဲ့ ပူးပေါင်းပြီး BRI-ပိုးလမ်းမ စီမံကိန်းတွေကို ရှေ့တိုးလုပ်ဆောင်ခြင်းအားဖြင့် ကြီးမားတဲ့ အန္တရာယ်တွေကို ယူနေတယ်”ဟု ဂျာအိန် ကပြောသည်။ “စီမံကိန်းတွေအတွက် ဘာလုံခြုံရေးအာမခံချက်မှလည်း မရှိဘူး။ ပြီးတော့ စီစဉ်ထားတဲ့ စီမံကိန်းတွေနဲ့ ဆက်နွယ်နေတဲ့ တိုးမြင့်လာတဲ့ ရက်စက်ကြမ်းကြုတ်မှုတွေထဲမှာပဲ တရုတ်နိုင်ငံကပါ ကြံရာပါ ဖြစ်လာလိမ့်မယ်”..."
Source/publisher: Kachin Women’s Association Thailand
2023-10-09
Date of entry/update: 2023-10-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Over the last fifteen years, an illicit economy – comprising everything from unregistered casinos to online scamming operations – has boomed along a stretch of the Mekong River separating Laos and Myanmar. Regional states will need to work together to rein in the criminal syndicates behind it.
Description: "What’s new? Myanmar’s Shan State and northern Laos’s Bokeo province have become a contiguous zone of vibrant criminality, much of it beyond the reach of state authorities. The Mekong River, which bisects the zone, is also an axis of geopolitical competition, complicating efforts to combat organised crime. Why does it matter? The sheer size of illicit businesses, which dwarf the legal economies of both Shan State and northern Laos, means that they have an enormous local impact, entrenching corruption, weakening governance institutions and damaging community bonds in both these areas. The effects ripple throughout the region and beyond. What should be done? Though geopolitical competition between the U.S. and China may get in the way, a coordinated regional approach to addressing criminality should be a top political priority. In addition to intelligence sharing and joint law enforcement operations, interested governments should work together to address underlying governance and socio-economic issues. Executive Summary Myanmar’s Shan State and Laos’s Bokeo province, which straddle the Mekong River, have emerged as a contiguous zone of vibrant criminality, much of which is beyond the reach of national authorities. Unregulated casinos, money laundering, drug production and trafficking, online scamming operations, and illegal wildlife trade all thrive, entrenching corruption, weakening governance and damaging the bonds that create community. The criminal networks involved have regional – in some cases, global – reach and can rapidly shift from one jurisdiction to another to minimise risks to their operations. A coordinated regional approach is thus vital for tackling them. But geopolitical competition between China and the U.S. complicates coordination. Regional states continue to rely heavily on unilateral criminal justice responses, but collaborative law enforcement is needed, as are multi-state efforts to ameliorate the governance and socio-economic problems that allow these criminal syndicates to prosper. Ideally, these efforts would involve agencies with migration, development and other relevant expertise. Parts of the Mekong, particularly the 100km section that forms the Myanmar-Lao border, have long been a frontier of unregulated and illicit trade, far from centres of power and commerce. Given its importance as a conduit between China and South East Asia, in recent decades governments have aspired for the Mekong to become a major transport route. But along with physical obstacles – sandbanks, shoals and rapids – insecurity has impeded riverborne trade, most commonly in the form of piracy and extortion of boats plying the route. The situation came to a head in October 2011, when thirteen Chinese merchant mariners were murdered – the deadliest attack on Chinese nationals abroad since World War II. China pinned the blame on Myanmar pirates, whose leader it captured in Laos and executed following a complex extra-territorial police operation. (It later emerged that others may have been primarily responsible.) Beijing then initiated joint gunboat patrols with neighbouring countries, allowing it to project force down the Mekong. While these actions put an end to piracy on this key stretch of river, they did not deter other forms of crime. Since 2011, the territories on the Myanmar and Lao sides of the Mekong have emerged as hotbeds of illegal activity, from drug production and trafficking to online gambling, money laundering and cyber-scam operations that often use captive workers from around the world. Not only do transnational criminal organisations operating in this zone benefit from lax or non-existent regulations, but they also take advantage of its multi-jurisdictional character, quickly shifting operations from one place to another to evade crackdowns. Coordinated law enforcement across the region is crucial if governments want any chance of tackling these expanding criminal activities, but other capabilities must also be brought to bear. Authorities in the region need to acknowledge that any solution to this transnational problem will involve government agencies from several jurisdictions – as opposed to the typical security or police approach that treats immediate symptoms, but not the fundamental causes of the problem, including weak governance and rampant corruption, not to mention a willingness or desire of some jurisdictions to court illicit investments. The Mekong is a locus of big-power rivalry, where longstanding U.S. ties with Thailand and other countries are being tested by China’s rising power. So far, however, a coordinated response is lacking, in large part due to geopolitical considerations. The Mekong is a locus of big-power rivalry, where longstanding U.S. ties with Thailand and other countries are being tested by China’s rising power and regional ambitions. The contestation has greatly limited cooperation between Western governments and China on transnational crime in the Mekong, while making it difficult for other countries to balance their relations with the two. China is by far the most influential actor and could play a critical role if it chose to. China could adopt a more consistent approach to criminality in the Mekong sub-region, using its influence over regional governments and non-state actors to curtail illicit activities. But Beijing is also guided by strategic considerations, including its inclination to view economic investment, even if it is partly illicit, as something that can help build peace along its borders, and its desire to leverage enclaves in its neighbourhood controlled by pliant entities in order to project its power. It has thus far tended to focus on law enforcement only selectively, responding only when it considers its national interests under direct threat, including with crackdowns on online gambling and efforts to shut down online scam operations across South East Asia. At the same time, it has ignored much of the crime in locations controlled by entities and enterprises friendly to China. Ideally, the U.S. and China should set aside their geopolitical rivalry when it comes to cooperating on combating transnational crime in the Mekong. Doing so could encourage greater Chinese cooperation with initiatives such as the U.S.-led Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats, as well as the Thai operations and intelligence centre on transnational organised crime in the Mekong. Although this scenario is more aspirational than likely, the two powers could also bring about enhanced regional collaboration by focusing on ways in which their respective Mekong cooperation platforms (the Mekong-U.S. partnership and the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation) could support initiatives to tackle the governance and socio-economic factors that allow organised crime to flourish, with programs designed to foster good governance, fight corruption, alleviate poverty and create jobs. It is equally important to address the human cost of transnational crime. States should provide more assistance to secure the release of, and support, the thousands of people from countries across the world being held against their will and often severely abused in online scam centres where they are forced to carry out criminal activities in Myanmar, Laos and elsewhere in the region. Too often, these people, even if they are rescued or able to escape, are held on immigration offences or charged for the crimes they were forced to commit. A more proactive approach from their embassies in the relevant countries is needed, as is a victim-centred approach from the countries where they were held or fled to. Reining in the sprawling illegality that has grown along the Mekong will not be easy. But the consequences of permitting the region’s illicit businesses to keep booming are too great for governments not to try their best. Better coordination is the place to start. I. Introduction Over the last decade and a half, a vibrant criminal economy has arisen in the Mekong sub-region, based on illegal drug production, unregistered casinos, online gambling and money laundering, and most recently, sophisticated online scamming operations. The tens of billions of dollars in illicit profits have driven criminal syndicates to make huge casino and infrastructure investments, which have flowed into poorly governed jurisdictions with weak regulatory enforcement or into semi-autonomous enclaves beyond the state’s reach, particularly in Myanmar. The bribery and other corruption that allows these criminal activities to flourish have further corroded state institutions in the region. Two areas have emerged as hotspots: Laos’s Bokeo province, home to the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, and Myanmar’s Shan State, particularly the district to the east of the Salween River bordering China, Laos and Thailand, known in British colonial times as Trans-Salween (see the map in Appendix B). Together, these form a transnational zone of criminality straddling the geopolitically important Mekong River. The 2021 coup in Myanmar has unleashed centrifugal forces that have eroded Naypyitaw’s influence over trans-Salween Shan State. Non-state armed groups have subsequently tightened their grip in the area, resulting in a surge of illicit activity. This report examines the political and economic dynamics at play and the associated security and governance risks. It also explores the geopolitical context, looking in particular at how insecurity and piracy along this stretch of the Mekong has prompted extraterritorial Chinese projection of force downstream, at the same time that the U.S. is increasing its security cooperation with Thailand just to the south. The report is based on Crisis Group field research, including trips to Thailand in April and November 2022 and February 2023, as well as to northern Thailand and Laos’s Bokeo province in March 2023. Interviews were conducted with a wide range of interlocutors, including police, anti-narcotics officials and representatives of foreign law enforcement agencies, as well as analysts and journalists. The majority of interviewees were men, reflecting the make-up of law enforcement agencies in these countries; the cohorts of analysts, journalists and residents were more gender-balanced. Research in Myanmar was conducted remotely, facilitated by Crisis Group’s longstanding relationships with key sources in the country. II. Political Economy and Geopolitics of the Golden Triangle A. Commerce, Connectivity and Crime The Mekong River, which flows almost 5,000km from the Tibetan plateau to the delta in southern Vietnam, is the third-longest river in Asia and a key trade route between China and South East Asia.1 The 100km section of the river linking China to the Golden Triangle – where Myanmar, Laos and Thailand meet – has for decades been a zone of unregulated and illicit commerce (see map in Appendix B). Located at the junction of different kingdoms and principalities, the Golden Triangle was historically a locus of trade and migration.2 But its distance from key commercial and political centres also meant it was little controlled or taxed. From the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries, opium cultivation expanded in the region, and in remote areas opium resin became a key means of exchange.3 After World War II came to an end, conflict persisted in the Golden Triangle. Fleeing Mao Zedong’s communist army, the Chinese nationalist Kuomintang armed forces occupied parts of Myanmar’s Shan State, while communist insurgencies in Laos and Thailand set up bases in the area. Opium was a convenient cash crop for farmers in conflict-affected areas, and the opium trade helped fund the various armed groups operating in the region. The Kuomintang became particularly prominent in the trade. By the 197os, the Golden Triangle was the largest source of illicit opium in the world, before declining significantly in the 1990s as a result of opium cultivation bans and a drug market shift to methamphetamines.4 The Mekong, as both a natural border and a conduit, played an important role in the opium and other illicit trades, as well as in licit sub-regional business. China and other countries had ambitious plans to make the Mekong into a major licit trade route. In recent decades, trade volumes have increased, but the many rapids, sandbanks and rocky shoals along the river’s course from China to the Golden Triangle – as well as the threat of ambush by insurgents and criminal gangs – have kept it from becoming the transport corridor Asian strategists hoped it would be.5 B. The 2011 Naw Kham Incident The most serious security incident on the Mekong in recent decades occurred on 5 October 2011, when thirteen Chinese merchant mariners were killed execution-style and their bodies thrown overboard from the two cargo barges they were crewing. The killings took place on the stretch of river passing through the Golden Triangle, just inside Thai waters.6 It was the deadliest attack on Chinese nationals abroad since World War II, eliciting a furious response from Beijing. For the first time, China sent gunboats down the Mekong, beyond its own territory – patrols that it subsequently made regular.7 Thailand’s elite Pha Muang anti-narcotics unit stated that it had seized a large quantity of drugs in a raid on the barges, during which it claimed to have engaged in a shootout with heavily armed smugglers; it alleged that these men had then fled upriver in speedboats, leaving one barge’s captain dead in the wheelhouse.8 Over the following days, locals found the bodies of twelve more of the Chinese crew, most of whom had been bound, gagged and shot at close range, floating in different locations just downstream. The Thai authorities immediately blamed the murders on a criminal gang from Myanmar led by a notorious but elusive Shan warlord named Naw Kham, who as discussed below had been responsible for previous acts of piracy and kidnapping on the Mekong.9 Naw Kham maintained his innocence, but he was found guilty and executed with three accomplices in March 2013. Chinese authorities put considerable pressure on Thailand, Myanmar and Laos to cooperate closely with the director of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security’s anti-drug bureau, who was heading the task force investigating the killings.10 Beijing reportedly secured agreement from these countries that its task force could pursue and apprehend suspects in their territory, as well as for joint patrols along a 337km section of river.11 After failed attempts to capture Naw Kham in Laos and then in Myanmar’s Shan State, he and several members of his gang were finally caught in April 2012, in a boat anchored along the Mekong in Laos, near the port of Ban Mom.12 Lao authorities extradited them to China, where they were tried for killing the Chinese sailors. Naw Kham maintained his innocence, but he was found guilty and executed with three accomplices in March 2013; his final moments were broadcast live on state television.13 The investigation had revealed some inconvenient facts, however. The initial claims by Thailand’s Pha Muang unit about its raid on the barges were inconsistent with witness testimony. In a shocking twist, Thai and Chinese investigators concluded that it was actually members of the law enforcement unit who had likely shot the sailors, allegedly in coordination with Naw Kham’s gang.14 A month after the killings, Thai authorities announced that they had arrested nine Pha Muang soldiers, including two commissioned officers, for murdering the merchant mariners, dumping the bodies and tampering with evidence.15 The soldiers subsequently “disappeared from the justice system” according to the Bangkok Post, and there is no record of them ever being charged or convicted.16 In Naw Kham’s Chinese trial, prosecutors claimed that the soldiers were a rogue unit on the gang’s payroll, though without providing evidence in court.17 Some experts on the Golden Triangle drug trade have suggested that the killings were a false flag operation by unknown persons intended to frame Naw Kham – and more broadly, to present Mekong security issues as stemming from lawlessness in Myanmar – noting that he would have been unlikely to order the murders given that they were certain to trigger massive retribution from China (discussed further in Section III.A below).18 C. Security Cooperation and Geostrategic Rivalry The killings brought a much more assertive Chinese security posture on the Mekong. Several factors were at play: domestic pressure to safeguard the lives of Chinese citizens overseas; the growing importance of the licit Mekong trade, which had tripled in volume between 2004 and 2011; and concern about the far greater illicit trade flows, particularly drugs. The Mekong’s geopolitical importance, which Beijing views as part of its neighbourhood but where the U.S. has longstanding security cooperation and development programming, was a fourth element.19 Beyond the operation to capture Naw Kham itself, the most visible aspect of this new posture is what Beijing presents as “joint river patrols” by the four riparian states – China, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand – to which it secured agreement in December 2011 (see Section II.B above).20 Chinese gunboats – which bear police markings but carry military-grade firepower – form the backbone of these monthly patrols. A Lao boat accompanies them for the final few kilometres from Ban Mom (160km downstream from the Chinese border) to the Thai-Lao-Myanmar trijunction; a Myanmar boat occasionally also joins.21 The vessels that Laos and Myanmar use are old patrol boats donated by China.22 Thailand, on the other hand, has never agreed to these patrols entering its waters, so in practice the joint China-Lao-Myanmar patrols stop at its border near Sop Ruak.23 The patrols quickly achieved their immediate security objective, ending piracy on this part of the Mekong, but they had little impact on other criminal activities such as drug smuggling (see Section III).24 Western security experts who spoke to Crisis Group have presented this situation as Laos “laundering a Chinese presence” on the river, allowing Beijing to extend its reach far beyond its borders; they also suggested that, for China, the patrols are a “signal of its capability and intent, which could be rapidly stepped up if needed”.25 Such comments reflect the geopolitical sensitivity of the Mekong, where a more powerful and assertive China is increasingly challenging long-term U.S. security interests (discussed further in Section V). III. Laos’s Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone A. An Emerging Hub of Illicit Activity Along with the growth in legal trade on the Mekong over the last two decades, and despite the suppression of piracy, there has been an even more rapid surge in illicit economies, including drug smuggling, gambling and associated criminal activities. The sprawling Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Laos’s Bokeo province, which includes the Kings Romans casino, has emerged as a hub for these (see the map in Appendix B). In January 2018, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned the casino for “drug trafficking, money laundering, bribery, and human and wildlife trafficking” it was alleged to be facilitating.26 A leading business intelligence analyst has since called the development “the world’s worst special economic zone”.27 Located on the banks of the Mekong, just across from Thailand, the SEZ is operated on a 99-year lease held by Kings Romans Group (also known as Dok Ngiew Kham Group), a Hong Kong-registered company founded by Chinese national Zhao Wei, who is the SEZ’s chairman. The Lao government also has an equity stake in the SEZ.28 Construction began in 2007, and while the investment promotion materials promised an ambitious manufacturing, agribusiness and tourism development, the Kings Romans casino was the first venture to be built.29 The SEZ covers an area of 10,000 hectares, of which 7,000 are forested hills and a nature reserve; the urban development area takes up 1,000 of the remaining 3,000 hectares.30 A veteran of Macao’s casino industry, Zhao Wei made his name (and likely his fortune) running casinos in Myanmar’s ethnic armed group-controlled town of Mongla on the Chinese border from 2001, catering to Chinese getting around Beijing’s ban on domestic gambling.31 In 2005, China closed the crossing into Mongla and cut off the town’s electricity supply after such a casino held several Chinese citizens for ransom for non-payment of debts, amid claims that Chinese provincial officials had also been gambling there with state funds.32 Deprived of clients, the casinos closed down, likely prompting Zhao Wei’s move to Laos. In 2018, U.S. sanctions named Zhao Wei as the head of a Transnational Criminal Organization.33 In China, however, he is regularly interviewed in state media, which hails his rags-to-riches story; the SEZ itself is portrayed as a development achievement.34 Authorities have alleged that the Kings Romans casino engages in money laundering, drug smuggling and other illegal activities. Thailand claimed the casino was the intended destination for the drugs found on the barges at the centre of the October 2011 murders of Chinese sailors (see Section II.B above), and the month before that, a joint Lao-Chinese law enforcement operation found a large haul of methamphetamines (known as yaba) on casino grounds.35 The emergence of Kings Romans as a centre of illicit activity likely represented unwelcome competition for Naw Kham, who was the biggest smuggler on the Mekong at the time.36 In April 2011, Naw Kham’s henchmen seized a casino boat and held the nineteen passengers and crew hostage until Zhao Wei paid a reported $750,000 ransom, which Naw Kham reportedly described as a “protection fee”.37 Thus, whatever the truth of the October 2011 killings, Kings Romans was a clear beneficiary in the aftermath: Naw Kham’s capture rid the casino of its main rival in illegal trade, and Chinese-led river patrols improved security a great deal in the SEZ. China also made out well. Naw Kham’s protection racket was an impediment to Chinese trade down the Mekong, and though it is a private entity, the SEZ has close ties to China (as evidenced by the treatment Zhao Wei receives in the Chinese press). Bejing can use it to project Chinese power in a geopolitically important area. B. Expansion of the Special Economic Zone Over the last decade, the SEZ has expanded significantly. On a two-day visit in March, Crisis Group witnessed a city-scale development, featuring more than twenty hotels, dozens of high-rise office buildings, schools and hospitals, water treatment and sanitation facilities, and an international airport nearing completion. The lingua franca in the enclave is Chinese, as is most signage, and nearly all goods and services must be paid for in Chinese yuan rather than Lao kip. Interviews with residents, as well officials in the region, indicated that SEZ authorities have sole de facto jurisdiction, with law enforcement handled by a “public security bureau” – a private police force operated by the SEZ, modelled on China’s units of the same name.38 Lao police and other authorities reportedly need permission from the SEZ to enter.39 The Kings Romans Group, which runs the casino as well as a number of other projects in the zone, also leases land and commercial and residential property to other businesses and individuals. Residents told Crisis Group that 70,000 Chinese nationals live and work in the zone, although many had left during the COVID-19 pandemic and were returning gradually; there are also several thousand professional workers from other countries, and many thousands of semi-skilled and unskilled workers, the majority from Myanmar.40 SEZ authorities claim that infrastructure and services are expanding beyond their current 100,000-resident capacity to accommodate 300,000 (a population 50 per cent larger than that of Chiang Rai, a nearby Thai city), as well as two million tourists annually, which is what the airport can handle.41 The Kings Romans Group claims to have invested $2 billion in the SEZ, the equivalent of more than 10 per cent of Lao GDP.42 The airport is particularly important for the SEZ’s future, as it will allow visitors, particularly those from mainland China, to fly in directly, thereby bypassing other jurisdictions. The nearest major airport at present is in Chiang Rai – a 61km drive across the Thai-Lao border. Other gambling centres are more conveniently located for mainland Chinese visitors, particularly the string of more than a dozen casinos in Myanmar’s south-eastern Myawaddy township, including the massive Shwe Kokko development, which are located a few kilometres from Thailand’s Mae Sot airport, and can be reached via informal border crossings with no Thai or Myanmar immigration procedures.43 The new airport will make the Golden Triangle at least as handy. At first, the builders planned to put the airport inside the SEZ, but the Golden Triangle’s proximity to Thai and Myanmar airspace precluded that option, so Zhao Wei instead reached agreement with Laos on a joint venture at the site of an existing airstrip at Tonpheung, a 5km drive from the SEZ along a recently completed four-lane highway.44 When Crisis Group visited in March, construction of the terminal appeared nearly finished, ahead of its slated mid-2023 opening. The first test flight to the airport was completed in December 2021, with some domestic flights taking place in 2022.45 The SEZ is also planning to establish a significant port facility on the Mekong. In 2020, a Kings Romans Group subsidiary reportedly paid the Lao government $50 million for a majority stake in a port development project at Ban Mom, a few kilometres upriver from the SEZ.46 When completed, the port development – which covers an area of more than 2,000 hectares, twice the size of the SEZ’s main development area – will include hotels, office buildings and large warehouses. It is to handle cargo coming into the SEZ. Law enforcement officials have expressed concern about the development, given that the SEZ is a known storage and trans-shipment point for drugs and other illicit goods.47 This new infrastructure could attract many more people to Bokeo province outside the SEZ. Chinese residents of the SEZ are already beginning to move to nearby towns, where rents are lower.48 It could also enable significant new criminal activity in the province. When Crisis Group visited the SEZ, it was clear that the zone was rebounding quickly post-COVID. New construction included a golf resort, a Venice-inspired “water street” and a major land reclamation project on the Mekong riverfront, which, according to signage and interviews, was for hotel and restaurant development.49 Crisis Group also found evidence of illegal activities in the SEZ, including: The operation of scam centres. As reported elsewhere and corroborated by Crisis Group interviews with participants and others with direct knowledge, these centres are run mostly by ethnic Chinese criminal gangs who pay or trick young men and women from China, Malaysia, Thailand and South Asia, and as far away as Nigeria, Brazil and the Republic of Georgia, to work on sophisticated operations targeting victims around the world online with fake investments, sham romances and other such scams.50 Locals identified several buildings where they said scam centres operate or previously did, some of which were being refurbished. These locations did not have window bars or other obvious security, reportedly because the workers were employed willingly and were paid, which locals and experts said was the most common arrangement.51 That said, Crisis Group identified a suspicious compound in the central part of the SEZ, consisting of four high-rise buildings with bars on the windows and strict perimeter security (high fences, razor wire, spotlights). The sole entrance was under 24-hour guard, and exiting vehicles were searched. Locals told Crisis Group that people from China and some other countries were locked up and forced to work as scammers in the compound.52 Money laundering. As stated in the U.S. Treasury sanctions designation and as experts told Crisis Group, significant money laundering takes place in the Golden Triangle SEZ, in particular at the Kings Romans Casino.53 Crisis Group witnessed multiple separate million-dollar cash transactions at the cashier’s desk on the gaming floor of Kings Romans casino, with the bills (in bundles of 100-yuan notes) transported in plastic shopping bags or holdalls.54 In addition to in-person gambling, online casino operations represent another opportunity for money laundering, although the Lao authorities have attempted to crack down on such operations at China’s behest.55 Organised crime experts have also identified major construction projects in the SEZ (see above) as potential channels for money laundering.56 Wildlife crime. Crisis Group identified what an employee said was a bear and tiger farm, ie, a facility for breeding these protected species for the purpose of wildlife trafficking. While marked as a “zoo” on a map displayed in the SEZ, the employee prevented Crisis Group staff from entering the compound, stating that it was not open to the public, but confirming that the site held “many” bears and tigers, which were bred there. The employee declined to call the owner or manager, saying he was instructed not to give out their contact details. The Environmental Investigation Agency, an NGO, named this same location as an illegal tiger and bear farm and abattoir.57 Other sources said the Kings Romans Group has obtained a zoo licence from the Lao authorities to avoid a 2018 government ban on tiger farms.58 Crisis Group also spotted bottles of tiger bone wine on sale in the SEZ, which the vendor said was locally produced.59 Previously, caged bears and tigers had been on display for visitors in the compound of the Kings Romans casino, but these were moved to the new “zoo” location around five years ago.60 In addition, a Lao women’s rights organisation has claimed that there is widespread human trafficking not only of scam centre workers, but also of young women for sexual exploitation in entertainment establishments in the SEZ, and that some scam centre workers are forced into prostitution if they are unable to perform well as scammers.61 There is, however, evidence that the SEZ authorities are becoming more cautious about overt illegal activities. Examples include the removal of protected species from cages near the Kings Romans casino following the 2018 Lao ban on tiger farms, as well as a crackdown on online casinos (see above). More recently, authorities have shuttered several scam operations, particularly those using enslaved workers. This action followed pressure on SEZ management from the Lao government, and pressure on both from Beijing, as the plight of trafficked workers from numerous countries has become a prominent diplomatic issue in the region.62 As a result, many of the scam centres, as well as online gambling operations, are relocating to Myanmar, in particular Tachileik in Shan State as well as Shwe Kokko and other spots close to Myawaddy in Kayin State.63 This shift is not limited to the Golden Triangle SEZ: other such casino and crime zones are located in Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines and Vietnam, and some of these have also started to relocate to Myanmar in response to increased pressure from local authorities, at China’s behest.64 There is also evidence that scam operations are quickly evolving, with increased professionalism and technical sophistication, while reports of human trafficking and forced criminality in this sector continue.65 Interpol issued a global warning on scam centres in the Mekong sub-region on 7 June, noting that their rapid spread represents a “serious and imminent threat” to public safety.66 IV. Myanmar’s Trans-Salween Shan State A. Armed Groups and the Illicit Political Economy The theatre of decades of conflict between the Myanmar military and ethnic armed groups, Myanmar’s Shan State has long been the epicentre of illicit activities in the Mekong sub-region. It is one of the largest global production centres of crystal methamphetamine, as well as amphetamine tablets and heroin – a drug trade so large and profitable that it dwarfs the state’s formal economy. Drugs lie at the heart of Shan State’s political economy, fuelling both criminality and conflict.67 Shan State is also home to at least 60 casinos, most of which are unregulated and therefore hotspots for money laundering and other crimes, according to the Financial Action Task Force, the international watchdog in charge of tackling money laundering and terrorist financing.68 Both casinos and drug production facilities tend to be located in parts of Shan State held by militias and other paramilitary units allied with the Myanmar military, as well as in enclaves controlled by non-state armed groups.69 Casinos are mostly aimed at Chinese gamblers, so have generally been situated close to the Chinese frontier – particularly in and around Laukkaing and Mongla.70 In recent years, however, China has increasingly cracked down on casinos and online gambling operations sitting along its borders. As a result, these businesses have moved farther afield, including to the Golden Triangle SEZ in Laos (see Section III.B above) and to the nearby town of Tachileik in Shan State, next to Thailand, which hosts more than a dozen casinos.71 (They have also moved to the area around Myawaddy in Kayin State, where Shwe Kokko is located.72) Criminals ... need good transport links to China ... Some parts of Shan State meet these requirements well. These illicit businesses require a kind of predictable insecurity. Areas controlled by militias or non-state armed groups that have ceasefire deals with the Myanmar military are ideal from their perspective, as they allow both casinos and drug production and storage facilities to remain beyond the reach of law enforcement, while keeping the significant investments safe.73 Criminals also need good transport links to China – the source of most of the precursor chemicals used to produce the drugs and the place where most of the gamblers come from.74 Some parts of Shan State meet these requirements well. The first are areas under the control of Border Guard Forces (such as BGF1006 in the Kokang region on the Chinese border and BGF1009 in Tachileik on the Thai frontier) and other militias allied with the Myanmar army.75 Some of these groups are large, well-armed and involved in a range of licit and illicit businesses. In return for carrying out security duties in their areas (essentially, preventing the emergence or incursion of anti-government armed groups), and at times fighting alongside the military, they are given the authority to carry arms and permission to conduct business. The military appears to turn a blind eye to their illicit activities – which, not surprisingly, they engage in liberally, given that they receive no funding or other resources from the military. These groups operate checkpoints to restrict access to their areas or businesses, giving them a great deal of autonomy. Also fitting the bill are enclaves under the control of ethnic armed groups that have durable ceasefires with Naypyitaw, such as the special regions run by the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA, or “Mongla group”) on the Chinese border, as well as the UWSA’s 171 military region abutting Thailand. Both groups agreed to ceasefires in 1989 that were reaffirmed in 2011, and neither has had serious clashes with the Myanmar army over those accords’ three decades in effect. At the same time, these enclaves are defended by large, well-equipped forces, and neither the Myanmar military nor civilian authorities can enter without permission. Illicit enterprises that dwarf legitimate ones have fuelled a political economy inimical to peace and security. On one hand, the militias and other armed actors that control areas where crime flourishes have a major disincentive to demobilise, given that they need weapons and territorial control to keep their revenue flowing. They make the money through informal taxation of legal and illegal trade. On the other hand, the Myanmar military, which – at least in theory – has ultimate authority over militias and Border Guard Forces, views such semi-autonomous entities as necessary for helping it combat the various ethnic armed groups. As discussed below, the military has become even more reliant on such groups as conflict has proliferated following the February 2021 coup. B. Impact of the 2021 Coup The February 2021 coup transformed the security landscape and political economy of Myanmar’s border areas. The numerous armed resistance groups formed in response to the coup, many of which have received support from established ethnic armed organisations, have left the Myanmar military battling an array of foes across a wide geographical area.76 Stretched thin, the military has, as noted, become more reliant on Border Guard Forces and other militias to contain the armed resistance, reducing its willingness and ability to constrain these allies’ activities. It is a contrast to the pre-coup situation, when the military sought to impose limits on its allied militias – including disarming the Kaungkha Militia and pressuring the Kayin Border Guard Force, for example – out of concern that they could become too rich and well-armed to rein in if the need arose.77 This transformed security landscape and political economy is particularly striking in Shan State, which has seen much less fighting than other areas since the coup. As the Myanmar military has shifted its focus – and more recently, some of its troops – to more restive areas, the local balance of power has changed.78 The shift has been to the detriment of some groups, such as the Restoration Council of Shan State. The ethnic armed group, which has a ceasefire agreement with the military, has lost considerable territory and power now that it no longer has the same level of backing in its expansionist moves against rival groups that do not have ceasefires, such as the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) and the Shan State Progress Party (SSPP).79 Other groups have benefited from the post-coup situation, most significantly the UWSA, the country’s largest ethnic armed group. Other groups have benefited from the post-coup situation, most significantly the UWSA, the country’s largest ethnic armed group. The UWSA’s goal is for Myanmar to formally recognise its autonomous areas as a separate Wa State, with the same status as other ethnic states in Myanmar – and preferably to expand its territory so that its two separate enclaves are connected.80 Since the coup, the group has enlarged its area of influence to cover much of Trans-Salween – the part of Shan State between the east bank of the Salween (Thanlyin) River and the Chinese, Lao and Thai borders (see the map in Appendix B).81 In the past, the Myanmar army operated bases and checkpoints to limit UWSA expansionism, but it no longer has the ability to do so.82 Since the coup, UWSA has also been more assertive in projecting force across the Salween River in several locations, which analysts suggest is an attempt to tip the balance of power toward its allies (such as the TNLA and the SSPP) in these areas, and thereby protect its flank, rather than a plan to expand its territory west of the Salween.83 While the Myanmar military controls Kengtung and other towns and main roads in trans-Salween Shan State, its grip is weaker in the hinterland. The same is true of the Restoration Council of Shan State, which has mostly retreated to its base areas. Border Guard Forces allied with the Myanmar military have a powerful presence in the Kokang Self-Administered Zone and the town of Tachileik, but they are focused on running illicit businesses rather than challenging the UWSA.84 Weaker state institutions and a curtailed Myanmar military posture in Trans-Salween have also made criminal activity easier and thereby boosted the illicit economy. The drug trade, particularly in opium, has thrived since the coup, and large-scale methamphetamine production has migrated from northern Shan State to the areas around Tachileik (controlled by the Lahu BGF1009) and Monghsat (controlled by the UWSA).85 In addition, scam operations and online gambling have relocated from the Golden Triangle SEZ in Laos to Tachileik and other parts of Trans-Salween and Kayin State (see Section III.B above). While swathes of Myanmar are in the midst of violent conflict, and economic conditions for most people are extremely difficult, Tachileik is a boomtown, with casinos, nightclubs and video karaoke (“KTV”) establishments doing a roaring business.86 The coup also appears to have resulted in an increase in funds flowing from groups in the Trans-Salween into the broader Myanmar economy.87 Many assets and businesses have declined in value following the coup, even as these groups have gained purchasing power, due to the sharp devaluation of the Myanmar kyat (most illicit profits are in foreign currency).88 In addition to Mandalay and Yangon, the northern Shan State capital Lashio has seen a wave of new property-related investment, with Wa and Kokang companies building hotels, condominiums and even a casino, something that the authorities would likely not have allowed before the coup.89 Myanmar has long had a poor record on seizing the proceeds of organised crime and on combating money laundering. Its prospects of improving this performance evaporated after the coup, which contributed to its blacklisting by the Financial Action Task Force in October 2022.90 V. An Unmet Challenge: Geopolitics and the Mekong Sub-Region A. A Transnational Challenge As described above, Myanmar’s trans-Salween Shan State and northern Laos’s Bokeo province have become a contiguous zone of vibrant criminality, much of which is beyond the reach of either state’s authorities. The sheer size of the area’s illicit economies, which dwarf the legal economies of Shan State and northern Laos, means that they have an enormous impact – entrenching corruption, weakening governance institutions and damaging social capital (that is, the networks of trust and cooperation that contribute to a community’s wellbeing).91 The effects ripple well beyond Myanmar and Laos. For example, the majority of victims of trafficking for scam operations are foreign nationals. Narcotics produced in the Golden Triangle are distributed across the region, reaching as far as Australia and Japan.92 Illicit profits also move to be laundered or invested, including in the legal economies of Yangon, Mandalay and Vientiane, as well as farther afield. Tackling the sub-region’s vast criminality is a daunting task for several reasons. The riparian topography of this zone is part of the challenge. Bisecting the area is the Mekong River, which marks the Myanmar-Lao border. Because of the large volume of legal trade along the river within which contraband can be hidden, and control of several ports by non-state entities, the river serves as an enabler of criminal activity rather than any sort of barrier to it. The multi-country nature of the criminal zone ... provides jurisdictional hedging opportunities for criminal organisations. The multi-country nature of the criminal zone spanning Trans-Salween and Bokeo Province creates further difficulties. It provides jurisdictional hedging opportunities for criminal organisations, allowing them to quickly relocate from one country to another in response to threats, such as the recent migration of scam operations from the Golden Triangle SEZ to Tachileik (see Section IV.B above). It also allows criminal organisations to leverage the comparative advantages of the two jurisdictions. For example, the operators of illicit methamphetamine labs prefer to set them up in parts of Trans-Salween that are beyond state control. Precursor chemicals for these labs used to come mainly from China, directly across the border. While Chinese measures have reduced the flow, many are now arriving via Laos, where unlike Trans-Salween there are licit industries with a legitimate need for such chemicals – and hence fewer restrictions.93 The Mekong provides an easy way to get the chemicals undetected. For these and other reasons, addressing the upper Mekong’s sprawling criminality is a transnational challenge that requires a transnational solution. But any such effort would need to be mounted in a geopolitically sensitive region, where the major state players are either outright competing or seem to feel they gain most by working separately. Progress has therefore been halting at best. B. U.S.-China Competition China and the U.S. have major interests in the upper Mekong but show little appetite for cooperation when it comes to tackling crime. Indeed, they have been increasingly competing for influence over the Mekong sub-region, which both consider vitally important.94 From Washington’s perspective, a powerful and assertive China is increasingly challenging long-term U.S. security interests, including its alliance with Thailand, which has drifted in recent decades with the demise of its anti-communist strategic rationale and Bangkok’s hedging in the face of major- power competition.95 From Beijing’s perspective, Washington continues to meddle too close to its borders, while China believes its efforts to assert itself as the dominant regional country are consistent with its status as a world power. Other Mekong countries report feeling increasing pressure to choose sides between the two superpowers, something that most have resisted doing.96 The Mekong River itself is at the centre of the sub-regional competition, given that it is both a key source of water supply and a strategic transport and trade route. As noted, Beijing has – particularly since the 2011 Naw Kham incident – increased the projection of its economic and security clout down the river, up to Thailand’s border. China has also built eleven dams on its section of the Mekong mainstream. In recent years, other states and think-tanks have accused Beijing of using these to hold back water during droughts and taking other steps that adversely affect downstream countries – including U.S. ally Thailand and U.S. partner Vietnam.97 While there is debate about the extent to which China’s dams contribute to downstream droughts, the lower Mekong countries are quietly concerned that China may use the dams as a source of leverage.98 Competing sub-regional cooperation frameworks are another manifestation of this growing rivalry. As part of the Obama administration’s pivot or “rebalance” to Asia, the U.S. launched the Lower Mekong Initiative in 2009, which became the Mekong-U.S. Partnership in 2020.99 The Partnership emphasises “soft infrastructure” to support lower Mekong countries’ “autonomy, economic independence, good governance and sustainable growth” through programs on development cooperation, transboundary water and natural resources management, non-traditional security, energy and infrastructure.100 The Partnership has broad membership, aiming to keep extra-regional powers engaged in the region.101 While U.S. efforts in the lower Mekong are mainly pitched at capacity building and engaging local institutions, they are also linked to its strategy of securing a “free and open Indo-Pacific”; at the East Asia Summit foreign ministers’ meeting in August 2021, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for “a free and open Mekong”.102 In 2016, China launched its own initiative, the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation framework (the Mekong is known as the Lancang in China), at least partly in response to the Lower Mekong Initiative.103 The framework is exclusive, including only China and the five lower Mekong countries.104 Under Beijing’s leadership, Lancang-Mekong Cooperation is an extension of the Belt and Road Initiative. It has emphasised concrete outcomes, launching projects to step up regional connectivity through Chinese investment in hard infrastructure.105 At the same time, observers have noted that the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation serves as Beijing’s “own regional house where it can enjoy almost exclusive influence over other Mekong capitals”.106 Because these competing frameworks are aimed at advancing U.S. and Chinese strategic interests, Washington and Beijing tend to subordinate their development agendas to those larger goals, making them captive to the global rivalry between the superpowers, leading to zero-sum approaches. Thus, for example, the U.S. has criticised the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation for trying to sideline pre-existing U.S.-led initiatives, and China has pushed Mekong countries receiving its aid to accept Beijing’s vision for the region, termed a “community of common destiny”, to the exclusion of other initiatives.107 Some analysts see China-U.S. rivalry in the Mekong sub-region as “driving a wedge between mainland and maritime South East Asia” – since Beijing’s growing economic and diplomatic influence has led some Mekong countries, notably Cambodia and Laos, to rein in their criticism of China when maritime disputes are discussed in regional forums like the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) – and potentially being as consequential as the South China Sea dispute, with “sentiment growing in the region that because ASEAN focused so much on the ‘sea’, it forgot about the ‘land’”.108 Big-power competition is an obstacle to U.S.-China cooperation on issues of shared concern in the region, such as organised crime. This big-power competition is an obstacle to U.S.-China cooperation on issues of shared concern in the region, such as organised crime. For example, U.S. officials, members of Congress and experts close to the U.S. government are often vocal in criticising China for not doing enough to combat crime, whether it is the export of precursor chemicals used to produce synthetic opioids such as fentanyl that are trafficked to the U.S.; the export of precursor chemicals for the production of heroin and methamphetamine in the Mekong sub-region; or money laundering and other illicit activities by transnational criminal gangs with links to Chinese nationals.109 For its part, China complains – with some justification – that these criticisms fail to acknowledge actions that it is taking to address these issues. It also points out that critics deliberately conflate the Chinese state with criminals who are Chinese nationals or of Chinese ethnicity, as part of an effort to smear China.110 Such competitive dynamics serve to undermine vital cooperation. For example, Thai authorities have established an operations and intelligence centre in northern Thailand, focused on transnational organised crime in the Mekong, inviting a range of international partners to take part in the centre’s work, including Mekong states, the U.S. and other Western countries.111 As a Mekong riparian state, China is eligible to take part, but it has reportedly not done so, due to the prominent involvement of the U.S.112 In another example, on 7 July the Biden administration launched a Global Coalition to Address Synthetic Drug Threats to “prevent illicit drug manufacturing, detect emerging drug threats, disrupt trafficking, address illicit finance, and respond to public safety and public health impacts”.113 Although mainly aimed at addressing illicit fentanyl trafficking to the U.S., the focus of the initiative was broadened to synthetic drugs more generally, in order to secure the more active support of U.S. allies such as Thailand and the Philippines, whose primary concern is methamphetamine.114 U.S. officials say China has been invited to join, although an expert Crisis Group spoke to suggested that Beijing was unlikely to do so if it saw the forum as a vehicle for criticising China over illicit fentanyl. The upshot is that the U.S. would be wise to engage in less finger-pointing and ensure that the initiative includes issues important to China, such as ketamine.115 This approach – toning down accusatory rhetoric and working on issues of shared concern – could be adopted more generally to facilitate U.S.-China cooperation on organised crime. C. China’s Outsized Influence China has more influence than any other country in the Golden Triangle. Yet it has a complicated agenda – including the importance it attaches to maintaining good relations with the Myanmar armed groups along its border – that keeps it from doing all it could to rein in transnational crime. 1. China in the Trans-Salween China’s own development path was based on the idea that economic growth would create stability, and stability on the border with Myanmar is a key objective for Beijing. Since the collapse of the Chinese-backed communist insurgency in northern Myanmar in 1989, Shan State’s economy has become bound up with that of south-western China.116 As the connections multiply, the area is being pulled further into China’s orbit – due partly to the sheer size of China’s economy but also to a Chinese policy of using economic engagement as a means of achieving strategic goals. Over recent years, apart from a hiatus due to COVID-19, Chinese investment has surged: huge plantations growing everything from watermelons to bananas to rubber have been established to serve the Chinese market and cross-border trade volumes have skyrocketed.117 Transport infrastructure has improved to accommodate the increased flows, which also facilitates illicit trade.118 One of the biggest challenges to tackling transnational crime in the region is the enclaves, in Trans-Salween and elsewhere in Myanmar, controlled by non-state armed groups, who monetise their quasi-autonomy by collaborating with transnational criminal organisations (see Section IV above). China has much greater influence over many of these groups than the Myanmar military does, particularly in the enclaves along its border in Trans-Salween, controlled by the Kokang BGF, the UWSA and the NDAA (Mongla). Beyond economic relations, Beijing has cultivated political ties with [non-state] armed groups ... giving it significant leverage for limiting armed conflict on its border. Beyond economic relations, Beijing has cultivated political ties with these armed groups, some of which it also directly or indirectly supplies with weapons, giving it significant leverage for limiting armed conflict on its border. Just in the last few months, Deng Xijun, the Chinese special envoy for Myanmar, has met with these groups twice (in December 2022 and February 2023).119 Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang also made a rare visit to the Myanmar frontier in Yunnan province prior to his May 2023 trip to Naypyitaw, calling for a “clear and stable” border.120 Keeping fighting away from its border through statecraft is a higher priority for Beijing than stamping out crime. When it comes to illicit activities, Beijing’s view – right or wrong – is that economic development tends to promote stability, even when it includes criminal activities that cause it problems.121 Thus, China tends to balance its action toward such criminal activities with its other objectives, including maintaining a peaceful border and influence over armed groups. Nevertheless, it has occasionally demonstrated its coercive capacity when persuasion proved insufficient, for example by closing its border with enclaves controlled by these groups in order to stop the flow of people, goods and services (including electricity and telecommunications) that those territories rely on. Away from its border, China deploys other methods. In Shwe Kokko, on the Thai border in Kayin State’s Myawaddy township, China has no direct leverage, and so has used more coercive methods to crack down on criminal activities of particular concern, such as online casinos targeting mainland Chinese gamblers and scam operations. Thus, it asked Thai authorities to arrest the zone’s chairman, She Zhijiang, which they did in 2022.122 China has also sent half a dozen police officers on a months-long deployment to a task force in Mae Sot, Thailand, close to Shwe Kokko.123 The task force is targeting scam centres that are detaining scores of Chinese workers as well as those of other nationalities.124 Chinese envoys have also pressed the regime in Naypyitaw to do more to tackle the problem, in coordination with Beijing and Bangkok.125 2. Beijing, Vientiane and the Golden Triangle SEZ China also exerts considerable influence over the Golden Triangle SEZ in Laos. Although it is controlled by private commercial entities, the quasi-autonomous regulation of the SEZ, and its Chinese character, mean that it can be exploited by Beijing for intelligence gathering and power projection.126 Beijing also has sway over both the SEZ’s Chinese promoter, Zhao Wei, and the Lao state. While Laos is not a client state of China – the two countries have a history of strained relations in the 1970s and 1980s, and analysts describe Laos as playing off China, Vietnam and Thailand – Beijing does exercise significant clout with its small neighbour, in part because of Laos’s huge public debt to China.127 Still, Laos appears to be a willing partner, having made a deliberate choice in agreeing to the establishment of the Golden Triangle SEZ and its subsequent expansion. One reason may be that Lao elites feel they profit from the arrangement.128 Thus, while the SEZ appears to be an example of “sovereignty for sale”, the Lao authorities may not see it as such.129 Rather, they are likely to view the SEZ as having provided economic benefits to the country and development opportunities to a poor province, lengthening the state’s reach.130 To some extent, this assessment may be correct. At the macro level, investment and foreign visitors flowing into the SEZ have no doubt helped boost Laos’s foreign currency reserves and its ability to service a huge external debt.131 In addition, since the SEZ was launched, Bokeo has gone from an impoverished agrarian frontier province over which Vientiane’s writ hardly extended, to a more prosperous area with modern infrastructure. Indeed, Bokeo has experienced the steepest reductions in poverty of any Lao province since 2013, going from one of the poorest in the country to one of the best-off.132 The reality, however, is that residents of Bokeo province perceive drug use, crime and inequality to have risen. Local people interviewed by Crisis Group acknowledged that the SEZ has brought better infrastructure, jobs and other economic opportunities, but still expressed resentment at the illegal activities they saw taking place in the zone, the growing problem of drug addiction (and more generally the erosion of community cohesion and cultural values) and the very visible economic disparities.133 In the longer term, quasi-autonomous enclaves such as the Golden Triangle SEZ corrode state institutions and the rule of law, with local but also regional consequences.134 For the time being, Laos appears to be discounting these costs because of the gains coming from the arrangement, whereas Beijing is using its leverage over Laos and the SEZ’s operators to deal with its most serious concerns about criminal enterprises, like the scam centres, without losing the benefits that also accrue to it from the zone. Normally, these issues might attract Washington’s attention, but the U.S. has played its hand cautiously. Although the U.S. has applied sanctions to the Golden Triangle SEZ, Washington has also been mindful of China’s delicate relationship with Laos in deciding how much pressure to apply to Vientiane. Indeed, it is partly due to U.S., Thai and Vietnamese concerns about pushing Laos more firmly into China’s embrace that Washington has opted not to lean too hard on the government – for example, by not extending Treasury sanctions on the Golden Triangle SEZ to cover Lao entities (such as state banks), even though the state is an equity holder in the SEZ.135 VI. Recommendations There are no easy solutions to the problem of sophisticated, extremely lucrative criminality in jurisdictions – both state and non-state – with weak enforcement capacity and high susceptibility to corruption or collusion. The sums of money at stake are larger than some of the region’s national economies.136 While it is conceivable that concerted action in a single jurisdiction could achieve progress, the criminal networks involved have shown that they have the capacity to quickly shift operations to another nearby jurisdiction when under threat. A coordinated regional approach with enhanced political leadership is therefore indispensable. It is clear that taking a narrow security and criminal justice approach to these issues is insufficient, since such methods mainly addresses the problem’s short-term symptoms without tackling the underlying causes in governance, social, economic and political factors. Dealing with transnational crime in this manner can lead to an over-reliance on repressive measures – such as increased surveillance, restrictive border controls and police raids – that are often ineffective. The security-centred approach may be particularly inadequate when countries act unilaterally, thereby hindering international cooperation. Because the challenge is so multi-dimensional, a wide range of expertise will be required to address it. Multilateral intelligence sharing, joint law enforcement operations and multi-agency collaboration are likely to be more effective than stove-piped efforts. While police action and criminal justice are undoubtedly necessary, policymakers in Mekong countries need to involve other agencies including those with jurisdiction over customs, immigration, finance and trade. In this way, illicit financial flows can be flagged more effectively and money laundering schemes better identified. Coordinated action across jurisdictions can help prevent crime syndicates from engaging in regulatory arbitrage. The difficulty of the problem, and the coordination challenges it entails, require it to be a political priority for countries in the region. Given the scale of the problem, regional governments need increased support from other countries, particularly the U.S. and China. Unfortunately, the intensity level of big-power rivalry is standing in the way. U.S.-China competition in the Indo-Pacific broadly, and in the Mekong sub-region more narrowly, inhibits cooperation and evidence-based policy approaches, with the two powers focused on outdoing each other rather than collaborating to solve problems. Such zero-sum behaviour may be unavoidable against the current geopolitical backdrop, but it is important to insulate these transnational challenges from the bigger picture as much as possible. So far, there has been a failure on all sides to do so. The U.S. and China should ideally set aside their geopolitical rivalry when it comes to cooperating in combating transnational crime in the Mekong. While this scenario may be somewhat aspirational, the U.S. and China should ideally set aside their geopolitical rivalry when it comes to cooperating in combating transnational crime in the Mekong. China could participate in the recently launched U.S. initiative on synthetic drugs. Both countries could also cooperate with Thailand’s operations and intelligence centre on transnational organised crime in the Mekong (see Section V.B above). The two powers could also foster enhanced regional cooperation by focusing on ways in which their respective Mekong cooperation platforms (the Mekong-U.S. partnership and the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation) could support complementary, mutually beneficial initiatives to tackle the underlying governance and socio-economic factors that allow organised crime to flourish. A good first step would be for both sides to share more information about their objectives and activities in the Mekong sub-region, both bilaterally and via their respective cooperation platforms. For its part, China should adopt a more consistent approach to deterring crime in its neighbourhood, using its influence over regional governments and non-state actors to curtail such activities. So far, it has used this influence only when it has seen its national interests directly and significantly threatened – for example, in recent years pushing the Philippines and Cambodia to crack down on online gambling operations targeting mainland Chinese punters, and in recent months launching a diplomatic and law enforcement attempt to shut down online scam operations in South East Asia that have employed trafficked Chinese workers and targeted mainland Chinese victims.137 At the same time, it has turned a blind eye to much of the criminality in locations controlled by entities and individuals friendly to China, including the Golden Triangle SEZ and UWSA and NDAA enclaves in trans-Salween Shan State (see Sections IV and V.C above). Finally, while efforts to tackle these criminal activities are essential, it is important to address their human impact. For example, there are thousands of people from various countries being held against their will and suffering often brutal treatment at the hands of scam centre operators in Myanmar, Laos and elsewhere in the region. Raids are often ineffective, as the criminal gangs running these centres receive advance warnings from corrupt officials.138 According to groups helping victims get away, the best means of securing the release of individual detainees is intervention by the person’s embassy in the relevant jurisdiction, once officials are aware of the individual’s plight.139 Countries where these scam centres operate, as well as neighbouring countries where victims may escape to and the victims’ own jurisdictions, should also refrain from charging freed forced labour victims for the crimes they were forced to commit, or for immigration violations, bearing in mind international norms on dealing with “forced criminality”.140 VII. Conclusion Myanmar’s Shan State and northern Laos’s Bokeo province have become a single, transnational zone of criminality that is largely beyond the reach of the two countries’ authorities. The Mekong River, which bisects the zone, is also an axis of geopolitical competition, complicating efforts to combat transnational criminal organisations operating in the region. The impact of this rampant illegality is significant. The illicit activities dwarf the legal economies of both Shan State and northern Laos in size. They entrench corruption, weaken governance institutions and deplete social capital. The consequences are felt not just across the region, but around the world. Regional governments have thus far opted for criminal justice responses, but by focusing on often unilateral efforts, they are failing to address the full breadth of the challenge, much less the underlying governance and socio-economic factors that fuel this growing illicit economy. Given the adaptability of criminal networks, a coordinated regional approach involving intelligence sharing, joint operations and transnational multi-agency should be a top political priority for governments in the region. Ideally, China and the U.S. should support such a regional effort, setting aside their rivalry in order to tackle a phenomenon that has not just regional, but global, implications..."
Source/publisher: International Crisis Group (Belgium)
2023-08-18
Date of entry/update: 2023-08-18
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Description: "The trade relationship between Myanmar and China continues to flourish despite the growing domestic instability in Myanmar. Myanmar-China relations have often been described as ‘Pauk Phaw’—a fraternal relationship—owing to its political, economic, and diplomatic ties. The two countries share a 2129-km-long border and have deep historical and cultural ties. The relationship underwent a transformation post-1988 as the Western nations sanctioned Naypyidaw for human rights abuse and political instability due to the coup. It was during this time that Beijing became the largest trading partner of the Southeast Asian neighbour and to this date continues to be so. While the dynamic relations between the two have witnessed several ups and downs in the past owing to the wariness of Myanmar authorities towards Chinese intent—be it weaponising ethnic groups, debt scares, or, unsustainable projects—the relationship has always maintained its strong course despite all odds. One significant factor in this is the steady economic ties that have grown in importance over the past two decades. In recent years, China has become one of Myanmar’s largest trading partners. According to the Ministry of Commerce, Myanmar, the bilateral trade between April 2022 and half of January 2023 in the financial year 2022-2023, reached up to US$2159.412 million. Myanmar conducts cross-border trade with China through border posts situated in Muse, Lweje, Chinshwehaw, Kampaiti, and The other border points namely the Lweje border . While the other two border points the Kampaiti border earned trade Significant partner . . Additionally, has helped expand the economic scope within Myanmar. The Greater Mekong Subregion Economic Cooperation comprising China, Lao PDR, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Myanmar also, presented a forum to pool in each other’s strengths and fortify cooperation in trade and investment. Since Myanmar opened its door to foreign investment in 1988, the approved Chinese investment amounted to 26 percent of total FDI in Myanmar till 2019. China has been investing consistently in physical infrastructure projects under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) through China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC). Several projects under the CMEC, for instance, the Mee Ling Gyaing LNG terminal, Kyaukphyu SEZ, deep seaport, upgrading of the Mandalay-Muse Road that will facilitate the Muse-Mandalay railway line are examples of Chinese economic interest within the nation. China has been investing consistently in physical infrastructure projects under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) through China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC). Myanmar’s exports to China are primarily agricultural products, such as rice, beans, and sesame seeds. In 2019, agricultural exports accounted for 83 percent of Myanmar’s total exports to China. Myanmar is also exporting more minerals, such as jade and copper, to China. In contrast, China’s exports to Myanmar are primarily manufactured goods, such as machinery, electronics, and textiles. The growing trade relationship between Myanmar and China has been driven by several factors. First, China’s demand for Myanmar’s natural resources has increased as its economy has grown. Myanmar is rich in natural resources such as oil, gas, timber, and minerals, and China has invested heavily in these sectors. Myanmar exports of pearls, precious stones, metals, and coins to China were US$12.31 million in 2021. Second, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has played a significant role in increasing trade and investment between the two countries. Myanmar is a key part of the BRI, with several infrastructure projects underway, including the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC). The CMEC includes a deep-sea port at Kyaukphyu, an industrial park, and a high-speed rail link between Kunming in China and Mandalay in Myanmar. Many of these projects are stated to be on track even post-coup. Apart from connectivity routes, Chinese companies are now implementing many resource-sharing links whereby power projects including hydropower plants are being constructed in several locations. In October 2022, the US$180-million,135-MW power plant in the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ) was inaugurated. Challenges However, the trade relationship between Myanmar and China has not been without its challenges. One of the most significant challenges is the issue of trade imbalance. Myanmar has been running a large trade deficit with China for several years. Between 2022-2023 till mid- This trade imbalance is a concern for Myanmar, as it can make the country dependent on China for its imports and vulnerable to economic pressure. Another challenge is the perception of the activists and the majority of the population in Myanmar that Chinese companies are exploiting the country’s natural resources without providing significant benefits to the local population. , which was suspended in 2011 due to public opposition. There in the past. China has been criticised over the sustainability of its loans to developing countries, as well as its poor record in terms of generating occupations and adhering to ecological standards. The debt scare aspect has been another element that economists have been wary about. China’s development model as observed in other nations often encompasses state-led infrastructure projects for which natural resources are required as a warranty. China has been criticised over the sustainability of its loans to developing countries, as well as its poor record in terms of generating occupations and adhering to ecological standards. There have been successive claims by different scholars that much of the Chinese lending to other countries is “hidden”. Prominent organisations like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the World Bank, are serious concerns over transparency. Post-coup, the conditions have deteriorated as the general public is indignant with the Chinese actions of continuing business as usual with the military regime as well as shielding it from international spectators. This has led to growing aggression over Chinese-led businesses for instance the vandalising of Chinese companies during 2021-2022. It may be important to recall that Myanmar is not ignorant of the Chinese advances and has been careful in its earlier stances to balance Chinese trails within the region either by ruling against the projects like the Myitsone dam, negotiating proper deals, for instance, the cost of Kyaukphyu project was reduced by almost 80 percent and Myanmar’s share in the project was increased from 15 to 30 percent. It has also partnered with other players in the region like Japan and India. However, the present coup creates more uncertainty in terms of the continuous people’s and ethnic armed group movements against the regime. Thus, the present regime in Myanmar will need to keep its balancing act intact as it opens its business with other partners and pursues its ambition to stay afloat amidst the harsh waters of protests..."
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Source/publisher: Observer Research Foundation
2023-03-31
Date of entry/update: 2023-03-31
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Description: "On January 18, 2022, we sent a letter to 125 major institutional investors holding shares in four Japanese companies that continue to finance four problematic projects in Myanmar. The four Japanese companies are ENEOS Corporation, Sumitomo Corporation, Marubeni Corporation, and Mitsubishi Corporation. Because the four projects may be financially linked to the Myanmar military, the letter asked the investors to engage with the four companies to ensure that the companies do not provide any revenue to the Myanmar military, which would finance its international crimes and grave violations of human rights, including murder, persecution, arbitrary detention, sexual violence, forced disappearance, and torture. Following this letter, to date we have received substantive responses from 13 investors, three of which stated that they engaged with one or more of the four companies after receiving our letter. Further, two other investors stated that they were already engaging with companies that were not included in our letter but regarding Myanmar. Some European investors actively asked for further information and our view in order to engage with the companies. On the other hand, Japanese investors, with one exception, sent us feedback that did not correspond to our request, such as an explanation of the investor’s human rights policy. They also did not disclose details about their engagement with the companies, including whether they were engaging at all. The four companies are involved in four projects in Myanmar: Thilawa Special Economic Zone (SEZ) development, Yetagun gas project, Landmark Project (Yoma Central Project), and Thilawa Area Port Terminal Operation Project. Regarding the Yetagun gas project, Mitsubishi Corporation and ENEOS indicated through media reports after we sent our letter to investors that they are planning to withdraw from the project. However, we will continue to demand that the two companies take every measure to disengage from the project in a way that ensures that funds will not flow to the Myanmar military, and that they take responsibility for the decommissioning of the gas field, which is expected to be depleted in the near future. The Thilawa SEZ Management Committee has a 10% stake in the Thilawa SEZ Development Project, and there is a possibility that a part of the dividend payments may flow to the Myanmar military. After the attempted coup, the military arrested and detained the chairperson of the Thilawa SEZ Management Committee and appointed a new chairperson. There are concerns that military involvement in the entire project may increase. The Japanese government has explained that the dividend payments are not being made for now and that the funds are being reinvested in the project, but it is unclear how long this measure can be taken. The land for the Landmark Project (Yoma Central Project) is subleased from the state-run Myanma Railways. Although construction has been suspended, the military is in effective control of the Ministry of Rail Transportation which controls Myanma Railways, and there are concerns whether it is possible to ensure that the land lease payments do not flow to the Myanmar military. Regarding the Thilawa Area Port Terminal Operation Project, because the military effectively controls relevant government ministries, it is not possible to reliably prevent payments under the concession contract with the Myanma Port Authority (MPA), such as usage fees, from flowing to the military. In Myanmar, violence and human rights violations by the Myanmar military show no sign of stopping, and the number of victims of the military’s campaign of terror is increasing by the day. We call on investors to further engage with the four Japanese companies, and if the investee companies do not take steps to prevent the flow of revenue to the Myanmar military, to consider divestment..."
Source/publisher: Justice For Myanmar
2022-04-20
Date of entry/update: 2022-04-20
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Sub-title: Land confiscations, illegal casinos, money laundering, and environmental degradation plagues a Myanmar SEZ.
Description: "Like more than 100 areas in the Mekong River region earmarked as development zones, the Yatai Shwe Kokko Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Myanmar was promoted as a way to spur economic growth and deliver material benefits to the local community. But instead the Chinese-backed U.S. $15 billion real estate mega-project along the Thaungyin River in southeastern Kayin state has gained notoriety in recent months as a bastion of illegal activity, according to a report released Wednesday by the Washington-based Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), an independent research outfit that studies transnational organized crime networks. Shwe Kokko New City, as the area is called, was funded by Hong Kong-registered developer Yatai International Holding Group in partnership with the Chit Lin Myaing Company owned by the Kayin State Border Guard Force (BGF), an ethnic Karen force aligned with the Myanmar military. It includes the Myanmar Yatai Shwe Kokko Special Economic Zone. But the area became a hub for illicit activity because of weak national laws, a diffusion of responsibility, and a lack of development plans, says the 76-page report titled “Zoned Out: A Comprehensive Impact Evaluation of Mekong Economic Development Zones.” The study identified 110 official and unofficial foreign-invested EDZs in the Mekong region, including 40 in Cambodia, 15 in Laos, 20 in Myanmar, 16 in Thailand, and 19 in Vietnam, and used publicly available information to assess them in terms of economic development, illicit activity, and geopolitics. To assess the impact of EDZs, the researchers examined both quantitative indicators derived from personal activity intelligence, including mobile phone location data, change detection in satellite imagery, and nightlight data, along with qualitative research on illicit activity and geopolitical trends. Because of the strong correlation between nightlight data and economic activity, the researchers measured nighttime luminosity in the EDZs to objectively evaluate the relative economic performance of the zones. They also used information from publicly available reports that detailed illegal activities, including corruption, environmental degradation, land conflict, drug trafficking, and wildlife trafficking. Shwe Kokko is not the only example of an EDZ gone wrong. The study found that while the establishment of the zones speeds up development, the EDZs themselves can facilitate adverse outcomes that undermine economic growth benefits. They also found that limited data access concerning the Mekong region’s EDZs can hurt host governments and local communities, and that collaboration among stakeholders from government, grassroots organizations, the private sector, and civil society will increase transparency and better match objectives to end results. “Without proper management, EDZs can serve as staging grounds for multiple types of transnational illicit activity and geopolitical machinations,” the report says. “Further complicating the situation is a paucity of accessible data, leaving policymakers and observers alike struggling to draw informed conclusions on the effects of zones.” Lack of regulatory oversight In the case of the Shwe Kokko SEZ First, the developers allegedly received a 70-year land lease with the possibility of extending to 99 years, violating Myanmar law which limits lease terms to 50 years for official Economic Development Zones (EDZs). Then the BGF confiscated land for the site, but shortchanged residents paying them only U.S. $1,600 an acre — half the amount they sought. A lack of regulatory oversight enabled the illegal land confiscations along with Chinese gang activities once the project had been built, illegal casinos, money laundering, and environmental degradation, the report says. It also notes that She Kailun, Yatai International’s China-born chairman, had a previous conviction for operating an illegal lottery business that earned nearly U.S. $300 million. In response, Myanmar’s civilian-led government announced plans in January to address alleged irregularities, including the land confiscations, illicit activities, and local concerns about the impact of the casinos. The government also cracked down on Chinese criminal groups in the area and requested that the national military enforce the law in Shwe Kokko. When Myanmar’s military overthrew the government in a Feb. 1 coup, it became unclear what would happen next in Shwe Kokko. “A combination of legal ambiguity, limited host government enforcement, and poor zone management have created numerous negative externalities in Shwe Kokko, including increased criminal activity, decreased geopolitical power, and environmental degradation — all without delivering economic gain for the region itself,” the report says. Aung Naing Oo, minister of investment and foreign economic relations under the State Administrative Council, the official name of Myanmar’s military government, told RFA that the Myanmar Investment Commission had examined and approved the Shwe Kokko project during the previous civilian-led government, but determined that its scope was much larger than the original proposal. “Then we checked the project again and ordered that business activities not included in original proposal be stopped, he said. “Because the project was much larger and there were other issues such as land use, we ordered the project to be halted since previous government. They were ordered to do only what had been approved.” “The activities that were not included in the proposals were the building of hotels among other [sites],” he said. “We asked them to stop, [and] the order has remained unchanged…We have supervised them very closely about the suspension.” The report details other case studies of other zones plagued by illicit activities, such as the Boten SEZ in Laos, rife with illegal sales of wildlife, such as endangered pangolins, and the Golden Triangle EDZ, also in Laos, a hub for a hub for illicit drug and wildlife trafficking. An official in the Special Economic Zone Control Department of the Lao Ministry of Planning and Investment told RFA that he could not comment on whether there is illicit activity in the Boten and Golden Triangle SEZs. China ‘used its influence’ Cambodia’s Sihanoukville SEZ, considered part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, suffered from high crimes rates among other factors, the report said. “The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) promises benefits for local communities. In the case of the Sihanoukville SEZ, however, development was greatly undercut by increasing crime rates, rising rents, overwhelmed infrastructure, and the suppression of local culture in the city of Sihanoukville,” the report says. “China allegedly used its influence to pressure Cambodia to ban online gambling as part of a broader campaign against gambling by China. This ban further disrupted the city of Sihanoukville by devastating the local gaming economy and causing thousands to leave the city,” it said. The Cambodian Investment Board did not respond to an email request for comments on the report’s findings concerning the Sihanoukville SEZ. Emails sent to two contact addresses listed on the website of the Cambodian Special Economic Zone Board were undeliverable. Both government agencies deal with investment projects in SEZs. To improve the impacts of EDZs in the Mekong region, the researchers recommend the development of open, centralized repositories of information on EDZs, the use of emerging technologies such as nightlight capture, satellite imagery, and machine learning to create monitoring processes, and the convening of cross-sector interdisciplinary task forces to address negative impacts. “Through collaboration and data-driven analysis, host governments can ensure that EDZs serve the needs of the host country economy and the local population,” the report says..."
Source/publisher: "RFA" (USA)
2021-06-25
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar’s ousted State Councilor, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi faced her second in-person court hearing on 7 June in Naypyitaw that court announced the charges filed against her will finish within 180 days. Media also reported on Thursday the junta charged her under the anti-corruption law, bringing to seven the number of legal cases brought against her since the military coup on 1 February, 2021. UNDP estimates that the poverty level is increasing rapidly which is 48.2% at present, and assumes reasons were COVID19 pandemic and the military takeover. This was not seen since 2005. Almost a quarter of all factories in the Japan-backed Thilawa Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Yangon have suspended operations amid post-coup turmoil. The protests continued in different parts of Myanmar despite the brutal crackdown by the military junta and the unsettled situation continued even in the fifth month after the coup. The clashes between military and the civilian resistance forces and ethnic armed organizations also emerged in several places in Myanmar, such as in Kachin, Kayah, Karen, Chin, Bago, Magway, Shan, Mandalay, Sagaing and Yangon States/Regions. Three Indian states including Mizoram, Manipur and Nagaland are currently sheltering around 16,000 people from Myanmar, civil society groups and government officials estimate, with the number expected to rise in coming months as the situation in Chin state has not improved over the last couple of months. Five DVB journalists who were charged and convicted for illegal entry to Thailand were reported to have arrived in a “third country” to seek asylum. There were intense fighting reported in Demoso, Loikaw and Hpruso townships during this week. The Junta has carried out airstrikes on civilian resistance fighters and used artillery on civilian areas. It has also brought hundreds of reinforcements into Kayah State. The Karenni National Progressive Party (KNPP), which is over 60 years old, is backing the civilian resistance of the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force (KNDF) and People’s Defense Force (PDF). According to Progressive Karenni People Force (PKPF), 50 civilians were killed from March 19 to June 11 in Kayah State following the coup According to the aid groups, more than a quarter of a million civilians in seven regions of Myanmar have been displaced by clashes between the military and militias or fighting between ethnic armies. IDPs in Kayah and Chin States are in shortage of food supplies and medicines as the junta blocked all the routes to Kayah and Mindat of Chin State, destroying supplies of rice and medicine intended for IDPs. The United Nations calls on the security forces in Myanmar to allow safe passage of humanitarian supplies and personnel and to facilitate the direct provision of relief assistance by the UN and its partners to all those in need in Kayah, as well as other states and regions across the country where there are urgent humanitarian needs while the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet stated this week that credible reports indicate that security forces have used civilians as human shields, shelled civilian homes and churches in Loikaw, Phekon and Demoso in Kayah state and blocked humanitarian access. According to the information compiled by ANFREL, at least 37 bomb blasts happened across Myanmar in the past week. It was reported that at least 9 people were injured. The most high-profile interaction between the Myanmar military and China took place this week during talks in Chongqing, China between Southeast Asian foreign ministers and China. Junta’s appointed foreign affairs point person Wunna Maung Lwin attended the meeting involving the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and also the meeting with the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation group, the body that China and the five Southeast Asian countries part of co-chaired by China and Myanmar. Following the G8 Summit last week, the Myanmar community across the world has increased the number of protests in different parts of the world calling from the world leaders for their support to fight against the military junta that staged the coup on 1 February. Around 400 Myanmar people who live in the UK joined a protest against the Myanmar coup in Cornwall where the G7 summit is being held and some more were held in USA, Italy, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Belgium, Australia, Netherland, Canada, Finland, Norway, Ireland and Czech Republic on 12th and 13th of June. The Burma Spring Benefit Film Festival, which features more than 30 films from or about Myanmar, will run until June 20 aiming to draw attention to Myanmar’s political crisis while raising money for groups inside the country striving to restore democracy and alleviate hardship. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), as of 13 June, 863 people were killed by the junta. 4,863 people are currently under detention and 178 are sentenced. 1,936 warrants have been issued. 31 were sentenced to death, 14 people to three years, 39 people to 20 years, 5 people to 7 years imprisonment. There were at least 21 deaths after bodies were returned to families bearing the marks of torture, although the exact number is unknown. Among them were active members of the National League for Democracy (NLD), election officials, pro-democracy activists and young people..."
Source/publisher: Asian Network for Free Elections (Bangkok)
2021-06-14
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi is scheduled to arrive in Myanmar on Monday on a critical two-day visit. It is intended to further strengthen Chinese influence in the country, in light of the changing international dynamics in the region, amid fears that China's sway is beginning to wane. Beijing is increasingly concerned with a plethora of issues, including recent Indian and Japanese initiatives with Myanmar, which Beijing fears may prove to be to their detriment, but also to take stock of the continued economic cooperation, strengthen its support for the peace process and to boost China's support for Myanmar's battle to control the Covid pandemic. Mr Wang's primary purpose on this visit is to show China's unswerving support for the country and its civilian leader, the State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi -- and to congratulate the National League for Democracy (NLD) on its landslide electoral victory. He will be the first international diplomat to visit Nay Pyi Taw in person since the elections last November. The visit seems to have been arranged at short notice -- and tagged onto Mr Wang's current trip to Africa. It is low-key and being handled discreetly, according to Myanmar government sources. Foreign diplomats believe this may reflect some discomfort on the part of Nay Pyi Taw at the visit, and what is seen as "vaccine diplomacy"..."
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Source/publisher: Bangkok Post (Thailand)
2021-01-09
Date of entry/update: 2021-01-11
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Sub-title: A long-running war and COVID-19 muddle development in Kyaukphyu, Myanmar.
Description: "Kyi Kyi Hnin sits beneath a fan on a bright morning in her village along the coast of Kyaukphyu, a township in Myanmar’s Rakhine State on the edge of the Indian Ocean. “The government just signs laws, but they are committing violations,” she says. “The government should consider the communities’ desires and interests.” Kyi Kyi Hnin is a local community organizer and her speech is quick and resolute: She knows the challenges facing Kyaukphyu and spends her days working to support local residents. Kyaukphyu is home to a cluster of busy fishing towns and villages. But in the past few years, the township has been thrown into the center of geopolitics, armed conflict and, more recently, Myanmar’s struggle against COVID-19. For months, the country recorded relatively few cases of the virus, until a new outbreak began in August with Rakhine at the epicenter. After the state capital, Sittwe, Kyaukphyu has recorded the most cases of any township in Rakhine for much of the outbreak..."
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Source/publisher: "The Diplomat" (Japan)
2020-12-03
Date of entry/update: 2021-01-05
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Description: "Myanmar will implement a Special Economic Zone project in Mon State and West Yangon Industrial Park project, said Union Minister for Investment and Foreign Economic Relations Thaung Tun during a Myanmar-Japan Investment Dialogue held via video conference on July 29. The special economic zone in Mon State, the largest in Myanmar, will connect both the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and the Thilawa SEZ to Da Nang in Vietnam via the Greater Mekong Sub-Region East-West Economic Corridor, he said, according to the Facebook page of the Ministry of Investment and Foreign Economic Relations. Regarding the location of the new SEZ, Deputy Minister Set Aung explained how the new SEZ will be located in an area that can be easily connected to the Greater Mekong Sub-Region East-West Economic Corridor, in an area that would permit the construction of a deep-sea port and that could be easily connected to the Thilawa SEZ through the local transport networks. The new SEZ and Thilawa SEZ could be connected as a single SEZ, he added. To assist with location selection, an international advisory firm will also help prepare a feasibility study and master plan in a transparent manner. State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi in her keynote address via a video clip highlighted the role of Japanese investment in enabling the creation of thousands of well-paid quality jobs, and that quality job creation would remain at the heart of the Myanmar Sustainable Development Plan..."
Source/publisher: Eleven Media Group (Myanmar)
2020-07-31
Date of entry/update: 2020-07-31
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "In the meetings, President Xi focussed on three main projects under the Belt and Initiative and part of the CMEC (China-Myanmar Economic Corridor). These were the New Yangon Project, the Kyaukpyu Deep Sea Port with the SEZ (the latter only to sweeten the deal and keep the Myanmar side interested) and the China-Myanmar Border Cooperation Zone. China in the mean time had already completed an oil pipeline project from Kunming to Kyaukpyu and also a gas pipe line between the two ports. The Gas pipe line was started in 2013 and the Oil Pipe line started functioning fro April 2017. The projects were rushed through despite local objections. The Gas and Oil pipe lines together with the Kyaukpyu deep sea port are ostensibly meant to develop the south western hinterland of China, but the real reasons were strategic. The Port would help China avoid the vulnerable straits of Malacca. The ongoing spat with United States and the countries in the region looking for strategic alliances like India with Australia, the need for an alternate route for safety and security of supplies to the Chinese hinterland has become critical to China. While the Chinese side initially pushed for a large project with an investment of over 7 Billion Dollars, the Myanmar side in its negotiations reduced the project to 1.3 billion and also increased Myanmar’s stake in the project to 30 percent. Even this amount is too big a sum for Myanmar and there were always fears that Myanmar by borrowing from Chinese Banks may get into a debt trap as it happened to Sri Lanka vis a vis Hambantota. While the deep Sea Port will only help China and not Myanmar, the deal was sweetened with a parallel project of a special economic Zone for which the stakes for the two sides are yet to be finalised. At that point of time, Myanmar was not aware of the possible spread of the deadly Virus unleashed by China. With the rapid spread of the Virus in other countries and the possibility of its economy being very adversely affected, Myanmar launched an Economy Relief Plan on April 27, 2020. It was an effort to meet the exigencies that surfaced in Myanmar after the Covid-19 (Wuhan Virus) was officially (though delayed) declared by WHO. The Plan consisted of 7 objectives or Goals, 10 Strategies, 30 Action Plans, and 76 Actions. Without going into full details of all actions contemplated we shall restrict ourselves to the seven goals. These included..."
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Source/publisher: "Sri Lanka Guardian" (Sri Lankan)
2020-06-29
Date of entry/update: 2020-07-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Topic: casinos, China Federation of Overseas Chinese Entrepreneurs, Colonel Chit Thu, Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), Development, Karen Peace Support Network (KPSN), Karen State, Karen State Border Guard Force, Land Rights, Myanmar Yatai Company, Myanmar Yatai Shwe Kokko Special Economic Zone, Myawaddy, Shwe Kokko, U Tin Myint, Yatai International Holding Group (IHG)
Topic: casinos, China Federation of Overseas Chinese Entrepreneurs, Colonel Chit Thu, Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA), Development, Karen Peace Support Network (KPSN), Karen State, Karen State Border Guard Force, Land Rights, Myanmar Yatai Company, Myanmar Yatai Shwe Kokko Special Economic Zone, Myawaddy, Shwe Kokko, U Tin Myint, Yatai International Holding Group (IHG)
Description: "The Myanmar government has formed a tribunal to investigate irregularities surrounding a controversial China-backed city development project near the Thai border in Karen State. The planned mega resort and city expansion project is controlled by the Karen State Border Guard Force, a Myanmar military-backed armed group led by Colonel Chit Thu and formerly known as the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA). The project is a collaboration between a Hong Kong-based company called Yatai International Holding Group (IHG) and Col. Chit Thu, officially dubbed the “Myanmar Yatai Shwe Kokko Special Economic Zone.” The project has sparked criticisms due to a lack of transparency, land confiscations, confusion over the scale of construction and the growing influx of Chinese money as well as suspected illicit activity and local concerns about the social impacts of casino businesses. At a press conference in Naypyitaw on Monday, Union government office Deputy Minister U Tin Myint said he has been selected as chair of an investigative tribunal for the Shwe Kokko project. U Tin Myint said that the team has yet to make a site visit due to COVID-19, but he has instructed officials from the Karen State government, the General Administration Department and the Settlement and Land Records Department to inspect conditions of the project on the ground..."
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Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2020-06-16
Date of entry/update: 2020-06-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "When Myanmar’s military regime began opening up the country politically and economically in 2010, one motive was to alleviate the country’s overreliance on China. Ten years down the road, in the context of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the threat of new Western sanctions triggered by human rights violations against the Muslim Rohingya minority, China’s influence appears hardly diminished. When the quasi-civilian government under former president Thein Sein took over from the military junta in 2011, it launched a plethora of reforms to liberalise Myanmar’s economy and its political system. Driven partly by the desire of rapprochement with the West, the new administration introduced free elections, restored civic and political rights and released political prisoners. In response, Western nations started to re-engage with Myanmar — lifting sanctions, writing off debt and disbursing development aid again. On the economic front, signature reforms included the Foreign Investment Law of 2012, which facilitated the flow of foreign capital into Myanmar. The state’s monopoly in the telecom sector was ended and licenses issued to three foreign providers. In 2014, the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Law was introduced to spearhead business environment improvements. The government also liberalised international trade by lifting state controls, easing licensing requirements and opening previously closed sectors to private sector trading. The economic reform momentum slowed down when a new government led by the former opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), took over in 2016. Under the leadership of State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi, its initial focus was on peace, national reconciliation and cementing the democratic transition. In October 2016, the humanitarian crisis in Rakhine State pushed economic policy-making further to the back seat, disenchanting the business community..."
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Source/publisher: "East Asia Forum" (Australia)
2020-05-27
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed hope that Myanmar will speed up cooperation with China to implement its ambitious infrastructure projects in the country during a recent call with Myanmar President U Win Myint. In the phone conversation on Wednesday, Xi said that he is expecting the two sides will cooperate closely and speed up the implementation of projects under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that were agreed to during his visit to Myanmar earlier this year. During Xi’s visit to Myanmar, both sides agreed to speed up the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) backbone projects including the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in western Rakhine State, New Yangon City in Myanmar’s commercial capital and Cross-Border Economic Cooperation Zones in Shan and Kachin states. He branded all three projects as crucial pillars of the CMEC that are needed to deepen “result-oriented BRI cooperation” and move from “the conceptual stage to concrete planning and implementation” of building the CMEC. In January, the two sides inked a concession agreement and shareholders’ agreement for Kyaukphyu SEZ, a letter of intent on the development of Yangon City and a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to accelerate negotiations around the Ruili-Muse Cross-Border Economic Cooperation Zone. Among the backbone projects, the Kyaukphyu SEZ is crucial for China, as it is expected to boost development in China’s landlocked Yunnan Province and provide China with direct access to the Indian Ocean, allowing its oil imports to bypass the Strait of Malacca. The two sides signed an agreement on CMEC in 2018 and the corridor is part of the BRI, Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy project. Unveiled in 2013, the international plan is also known as the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road. The project aims to build a network of roads, railroads and shipping lanes linking at least 70 countries from China to Europe, passing through Central Asia, the Middle East and Russia and fostering trade and investment..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2020-05-22
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: A global research agency believed increasing pressure from the west on Myanmar’s alleged rights violations would push the country’s political and economic allegiance towards China, even if Myanmar seeks diversification of trade relations.
Description: "Fitch Solutions, a unit of the UK Fitch Group, said China looks likely to be the dominant foreign influence over the coming years with its already entrenched interests over Myanmar coupled with the possibility of news sanctions from the West due to human rights abuses. “The government’s inaction and repeated equivocation of the alleged abuses risks Myanmar becoming even more isolated on the international stage and also sanctions being expanded to include civilians and the economy,” said Fitch Solutions in its latest Outlook for Myanmar report released last week. The atrocities committed against the northern Rakhine Muslims has once again caught the international attention recently as the International Court of Justice in January imposed emergency “provisional measures” on Myanmar, ordering the country to preserve evidence of crimes and report to the court on measures taken to prevent genocide. The case derived from the military crackdown that resulted in more than 740,000 northern Rakhine Muslims fleeing to Bangladesh. The EU Commission’s decision in early February to partially withdraw Cambodia’s trade preference under the Everything But Arms (EBA) trade preferences initiative renewed worries about the EU removing Myanmar’s privileged status..."
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Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
2020-03-06
Date of entry/update: 2020-03-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Most of deals meant to speed ambitious Chinese plan to connect Asia with Africa, Europe via land and maritime networks
Description: "Myanmar and China on Saturday signed scores of deals, most of them set to spur China’s landmark Belt and Road Initiative, an ambitious project to connect Asia with Africa and Europe via land and maritime networks to boost trade and stimulate economic growth. On his first visit to China’s Southeast Asian neighbor, President Xi Jinping met Myanmar President Win Myint, State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, and military chief Senior Gen Min Aung Hlaing. Xi and Suu Kyi witnessed the signing of 33 agreements, protocols, and memoranda of understanding of infrastructure projects. The pacts include a concessional agreement for a deep sea port project in Myanmar’s western Rakhine state, giving Beijing strategic access to the Indian Ocean and cutting its reliance on maritime trade on the narrow and congested Strait of Malacca between Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore. China also handed Myanmar a feasibility study for a high-speed railroad line connecting Kumin, China to the Rakhine port. The agreements also include developing a special economic zone along the two countries’ shared border and a new city next to Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city. Most of the deals are to strengthen the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, a plan to connect China's Yunnan Province with Myanmar's second-largest city Mandalay, leading to Yangon and Kyaukpyu in Myanmar’s Rakhine State. It is widely seen as a strategic economic corridor under the Belt and Road Initiative..."
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Source/publisher: "Anadolu Agency" (Ankara)
2020-01-18
Date of entry/update: 2020-03-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The planned multi-billion dollar Kyaukphyu Deep Seaport project will be developed with the contribution of 70 per cent by the China International Trust and Investment Corporation Consortium (CITIC) and 30 per cent by Myanmar, said Deputy Commerce Minister U Aung Htoo on Feb 16. According to the notification issued by Myanmar Economic Zones Central Committee dated 29 February, 2015, the project has a total area of 4289.32 acres—607.88 acres for the deep seaport project, 2446.07 acres for the industrial zone project and 1235.37 acres for the advanced housing project. A framework agreement was signed by Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone Management Committee and the CITIC Consortium from China in Nay Pyi Taw on 8 November, 2018. The agreements pertaining to Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone Project and Deep Sea Port Project were signed. On 18 January, 2020, both sides exchanged the MoUs. Both projects will be developed by the CITIC Consortium and Myanmar-Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone Holdings Groups of Company composed of 42 local private companies from Myanmar..."
Source/publisher: "The Star Online" (Selangor)
2020-02-17
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "At the second Belt and Road forum in April last year, Xi Jinping stated that the infrastructure projects under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) would be financially and environmentally sustainable and deliver high quality infrastructure. The re-calibration of the initiative sought to dam the surge of criticism that had been miring the Chinese flagship foreign policy initiative the past two years. Myanmar was among the countries that had become wary over the infamous debt trap narrative, unflattering reports of poor standards in infrastructure and opaque and wasteful procurement practices disproportionately favoring Chinese companies. Back on track? Nonetheless, on 18 January 2020, BRI projects in Myanmar appeared to be back on track as Xi Jinping, on his first visit to Myanmar, and Aung San Suu Kyi announced their countries renewed commitment to cooperate. Myanmar’s eagerness for re-engagement with China, however, is driven largely by its international isolation due to the reported atrocities against Rohingyas. But has China also heeded to the criticism about BRI? It would appear that China’s new tune on BRI is not only a response to criticism but also about increased competition to its connectivity project. Competition Japan remains the largest infrastructure developer in Asia and in September 2019 announced a partnership to develop connectivity in Asia with the European Union (EU). This committed the partners to pursuing projects in a transparent and sustainable manner – a clear contrast to the BRI. Likewise, the EU’s connectivity strategy for Asia from September 2018 and it’s follow up a year later placed full emphasis on sustainability, good governance and transparency. The United States, South Korea, and a number of other OECD countries have also started infrastructure initiatives that seek similarly to differentiate from the BRI..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Eurasia Review"
2020-02-16
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "This article argues that the origins and theoretical underpinnings of Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative can actually be traced back to the mid1980s, that is, almost three decades before the ofcial media unveiled the Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI). It examines the changing role of Myanmar in China’s grand strategy in general and in MSRI in particular by undertaking an investigation of trade and investment relations. This analysis of the geo-economic and geo-strategic implications of MSRI is undertaken in order to ofer a prognosis of benefts and costs for Myanmar. Both the extent and the limits of MSRI are illustrated in Myanmar. It ends with a discussion of possible roadblocks, detours, cracks and fault lines along the Maritime Silk Road.....Myanmar/Burma is the second-largest country in Southeast Asia and is located at the juncture of Southeast and South Asia. Given its resources, natural endowments and strategic location bordering China and India, Myanmar fnds itself at the center of political wrangling between major powers. While India’s culture and religion have infuenced the Burmese way of life over the centuries, China has traditionally exerted geopolitical and strategic pressure on Myanmar. As Tin Maung Maung Than notes: ‘Geopolitical ramifcations for modern Burma have been overwhelmingly determined by bilateral relations with China’, which date back to the early Pyu kingdoms of the ninth century AD.1 Myanmar sufers from centrifugal tendencies. Since independence in 1948, successive governments have battled around the country’s periphery with ethnic separatist movements and communist insurgencies, some of which received direct support from Beijing. Post-independence, Myanmar has ‘accommodated China as its “senior” in a paukphaw (kinsmen) relationship’, and avoided taking actions inimical to China’s interests..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Journal of Contemporary China"
2017-12-27
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-10
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Description: "This article explores the function of a transnational road in China-Myanmar relations from a perspective that reflects on Myanmar’s experience. It makes two key points. Firstly, Myanmar’s dependent relationship with China is illuminated if one applies a New Economic Geography perspective to economic processes. Secondly, these processes did not lead to a permanent dependency structure through which China assumed the dominant position; the structure is changeable, subject to action by Myanmar. The latter point indicates that China’s influence is greatly contested by the smaller country, and that the interaction of economic and political factors impact on the Myanmar-China relationship, particularly at local sites. This article focuses on economic activities at the city level, in order to assess advantages and disadvantages of the relationship. The cities that were chosen as the units of analysis are Ruili and Mandalay. As the cities are situated on the main road connecting Myanmar to China, the relationship is quite intense. This article explores the key characteristics of this economic relation via the road, focusing on the connectivity of Mandalay and Ruili. This article will focus on the processes of industrial relocation in Ruili and Mandalay to assess benefits Myanmar gains from the bilateral relationship. Using a New Economic Geography approach associated with the work of Krugman1 , a core-periphery pattern was applied as the theoretical framework to explain industrial relocation and agglomeration. Consequently, the analysis focuses on spatial relations and factors that form the relational structure. In addition, this article also highlights the political and economic transitions in Myanmar since 2010 that led to change in the relational structure. It also draws on fieldwork, which is used to illustrate how connectivity has impacted Mandalay and northern Myanmar..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok)
2018-02-18
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
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Sub-title: Continued mistrust of China – including from the Tatmadaw – ensured that there was little significant progress during President Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Myanmar.
Description: "On January 17, Xi Jinping became the first Chinese president to travel to Myanmar in 19 years when he paid a two-day state visit. Although Xi visited Myanmar in 2009, it was the first time he had travelled here as president. The importance of the visit was heightened by the fact that the two countries are marking the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations this year – newly independent Burma was the first non-communist country to recognise the People’s Republic of China. During his visit Xi met top Myanmar officials including President U Win Myint, State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, and attended signing ceremonies for a number of agreements and memoranda of understanding. But did China gain what it expected from the visit? And what does it mean for China-Myanmar relations?
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar" (Myanmar)
2020-02-05
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-05
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Sub-title: It doesn’t have many friendly nations to help it balance ties with Beijing
Description: "Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Myanmar last week is a vivid indicator of the region’s changing geopolitics, reflecting adversely on the West and its allies. Its real significance transcends the 33 agreements signed, although it is an impressive number in itself for a short sojourn of a day and a half. President Xi took his own time in coming to the southern neighbour which had to be content with largely one-way VVIP traffic, as Myanmar’s top leaders travelled to Beijing with noticeable regularity. As the Vice-President, he had visited Myanmar in 2009. The last visit by a Chinese President took place in 2001. The 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations was judged to be the ideal occasion to launch a major renewal and strengthen the process of the bilateral relationship. U. Nu, the first prime minister of Burma (Myanmar’s previous name), famously depicted his country’s position in the region as “hemmed in like a tender gourd amongst the cacti.” Then, it chose the policy of independence and non-alignment. Does the red-carpet treatment extended to the President of China show that today’s Myanmar, jointly led by Aung San Suu Kyi and the military, has taken sides?..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Hindu" (India)
2020-01-23
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-04
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Sub-title: The trip produced a mixed outlook for New Delhi’s perceptions of Beijing’s inroads in the wider Indo-Pacific.
Description: "Last week, Chinese President Xi Jinping concluded a two-day visit to Myanmar, the first for Xi in his current capacity and his first overseas visit of 2020. Viewed from the perspective of growing Chinese inroads in the Indian Ocean, Xi’s trip spotlighted Beijing’s continued efforts to make geopolitical gains in line with its broader regional interests, which will be of concern to India. While there may have been some surprise about Xi’s choice of Myanmar for his trip, it is in fact in line with China’s continued interest in making inroads with respect to the Indian Ocean. With the Myanmar visit, Xi has effectively completed his key neighborhood trips, having traveled through the Maldives and Sri Lanka in 2014, Pakistan in 2015, Bangladesh in 2016, and Nepal in 2019. From India’s perspective, New Delhi can be none too pleased with China’s constant forays into the wider Indian Ocean region. But at least for now, India appears to be letting Myanmar’s natural caution limit China’s influence. The significance of Xi’s trip ought not to be understated. It has been nearly two decades since a Chinese leader has traveled to Myanmar. While consolidating political and strategic ties are important for China, like in Nepal, there has been skepticism in Myanmar about partnering with China on the Belt and Road projects. But at the same time, given the difficult times that Myanmar is faced with internationally, clearly Myanmar is looking for support from China, which comes at a price. Consolidation and implementation of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor was an important item in Xi’s Myanmar agenda and China has been quite successful on that front as the joint statement clearly outlined. China has other security interests as well, seeing Myanmar as a potential gateway to the Indian Ocean..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Diplomat" (Japan) via "Observer Research Foundation (ORF)" (India)
2020-01-24
Date of entry/update: 2020-02-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Nation’s most volatile and fast shifting armed conflict complicates China’s Belt and Road ambitions
Description: "Historically ethnic conflict in modern Myanmar has been a glacially slow-moving disaster, debilitating the nation’s politics while shifting only incrementally from one decade to the next. In 2019, the eruption, spread and intensification of nationalist revolt in Rakhine state abruptly upended that familiar landscape with sobering implications for an already fragmented and floundering peace process and domestic security more broadly. The new war in Rakhine state, pitting the military against the local Arakan Army (AA), a widely popular force led by a young and ideologically committed leadership, is also increasingly impacting Myanmar’s regional standing at a range of levels. China’s push for economic connectivity to the Bay of Bengal, stage-center during President Xi Jinping’s recent state visit to Myanmar, will now need to navigate the hostilities already lapping close to the projected deep-sea port and special economic zone at Kyaukphyu, a crucial component of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative. Poor prospects for any repatriation of the Muslim Rohingya refugee population camped in neighboring Bangladesh, estimated as high as one million, are now further receding, while additional migrant flows out of the state towards Southeast Asia are slowly gathering pace..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
2020-01-29
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Four priority BRI projects in Myanmar promise to make China a balance-of-power tilting Indian Ocean force
Description: "Chinese President Xi Jinping’s historic visit to Myanmar this month did not attract much regional media buzz, with most reports portraying the trip as more well-worn official promotion of his signature US$1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). But if the four most important of 33 agreements Xi signed with his Myanmar hosts during his tour are actually implemented – a big if considering BRI’s spotty follow through on ballyhooed projects – they would have far-reaching economic, political and strategic implications for South and Southeast Asia. The first of those big four are ambitious plans to build a high-speed railroad from Myanmar’s northern border with southern China down to the central city of Mandalay and eventually to Myanmar’s southern coast. The second aims to push forward the stalled Kyaukphyu port project situated on the Bay of Bengal, an initiative that would give China de facto access to the Indian Ocean and shift that region’s strategic calculus, particularly vis-à-vis India. The third is a proposed mega-project to build a “new city” opposite Myanmar’s former capital Yangon, a scheme that would effectively give China a unique hold on the nation’s commercial hub and underscore Beijing’s tightening grip on the country’s broad economy..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
2020-01-27
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-29
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Description: "China and Myanmar exchanged a number of cooperation documents covering such areas as politics, trade, investment and people-to-people communications amid President Xi Jinping's state visit on Saturday. The exchange ceremony was attended by Xi and Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi. The two countries issued a joint statement the same day. In his talks with Aung San Suu Kyi, Xi said the two countries should speed up connecting development strategies and jointly push the building of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor. Hailing the corridor as a flagship project for Belt and Road cooperation between the two countries, Xi said the two sides have initiated construction and the project should bring benefits to the people as soon as possible. The two countries should focus on the building of major projects and promote connectivity, Xi said, adding the two sides should integrate the building of roads, railways and electricity projects to formulate a network of connectivity. Xi pointed out China welcomes Myanmar to expand exports to China, and Chinese companies are encouraged to increase investment in Myanmar..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "China Daily" (Beijing)
2020-01-18
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-21
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Description: "China and Myanmar agreed to accelerate several joint infrastructure deals and projects during President Xi Jinping’s historic visit to the country, giving new impetus to commercial relations that have revived under Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Xi visited Myanmar on January 17 and 18, marking the first time a Chinese leader traveled to the Southeast Asian country in nearly two decades and coinciding with the 70th anniversary of the two sides establishing formal diplomatic relations. The two governments inked 33 agreements involving key infrastructure projects while agreeing to accelerate the implementation of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor scheme, part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Most significantly, the two sides agreed to concession and shareholder agreements for the China-backed port project at Kyaukphyu in central Rakhine state. There are five agreements still to be signed on the project, according to Myanmar Deputy Commerce Minister Aung Htoo. The deals are controversial, however, and could expose China to future political risks. Tun Kyi, coordinator of the community group Kyaukphyu Rural Development Association, said local villagers were not consulted during the negotiations of the two new agreements..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
2020-01-21
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "During his visit to Myanmar, Chinese President Xi Jinping signed 33 Memorandum of Understanding agreements, protocols and exchanges including the Kyaukphyu and Yangon development projects. The 33 MoUs, Agreements, Protocols and Exchanges are as follows: ..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima" (Myanmar)
2020-01-19
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "China and Myanmar inked dozens of deals on Saturday to speed up infrastructure projects as Beijing seeks to cement its hold over a neighbor increasingly isolated by the West. But no major new projects were agreed on during the two-day visit by President Xi Jinping, the first of any Chinese leader in 19 years. Analysts said Myanmar is generally cautious of investments by Beijing and is also being careful ahead of elections later this year. Still, Xi and Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi signed 33 agreements shoring up key projects that are part of the flagship Belt and Road initiative, China’s vision of new trade routes described as a “21st-century Silk Road.” They agreed to hasten implementation of the China Myanmar Economic Corridor, a giant infrastructure scheme worth billions of dollars, with agreements on railways linking southwestern China to the Indian Ocean, a deep sea-port in conflict-riven Rakhine state, a special economic zone on the border, and a new city project in the commercial capital of Yangon. They did not address a controversial $3.6 billion Beijing-backed mega-dam, where work has been stalled since 2011, reflecting the contentiousness of Chinese investment in Myanmar, where many are uncomfortable with the sway Beijing has over its smaller neighbor..."
Source/publisher: "Reuters" (UK) via "Japan Times" (Japan)
2020-01-18
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Deal strengthens ties with Beijing as Aung San Suu Kyi faces foreign criticism for Rohingya crackdown
Description: "Myanmar and China on Saturday signed 33 bilateral agreements that will bind the south-east Asian country closer to its giant neighbour, including rail and deep-sea port projects along an economic corridor linking China’s south-western interior to the Indian Ocean.  Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, and Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi agreed the projects — long under discussion as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative global infrastructure plan — on the second day of Mr Xi’s two-day visit to the capital Naypyidaw.  The agreements’ signing reflects deepening ties between Myanmar and China at a time when Aung San Suu Kyi’s government is under intense criticism internationally for the 2017-8 military campaign targeting minority Rohingya in Rakhine state, which killed thousands and exiled more than 730,000. As part of China’s signature BRI project for the country, the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, the two sides on Saturday signed agreements on railways linking China to Kyaukpyu on the Bay of Bengal in Rakhine, and a final agreement on the building of a deep-sea port there.  The two sides also inked agreements providing for a special economic zone at the Chinese border and made oblique reference to New Yangon City, a planned new industrial quarter in Myanmar’s biggest city that the Chinese state-owned construction company CCCC has proposed building..."
Source/publisher: "Financial Times" ( London)
2020-01-18
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-19
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Sub-title: Trip helps cement ‘new era’ for Beijing’s ties with its neighbour, which is facing growing international criticism over its treatment of the Rohingya Muslim minority...Agreements see multibillion plan for Kyaukphyu port revived – a step that could allow China to bypass the Strait of Malacca where its South China Sea claims have faced a growing backlash.
Description: "Chinese President Xi Jinping wrapped up his visit to Myanmar on Saturday after signing multibillion-dollar infrastructure deals, including one for a strategically important port in the Indian Ocean. This investment and what both sides hailed as “new era” in relations offered a timely boost for Myanmar, which is facing increasing isolation from the West over its treatment of the Rohingya Muslim minority. Following his arrival in the purpose-built capital of Naypyidaw on Friday afternoon, Xi met a number of key figures, including President Win Myint and Aung San Suu Kyi, the effective head of the government, as well as military chief General Min Aung Hlaing. He also meet politicians from areas, some racked by ethnic conflict, where Chinese infrastructure projects are being planned or are under way.According to local media, the two sides signed 33 memorandums of understanding, agreements, exchange letters and protocols, 13 of which were related to infrastructure. In a move that observers said could further cement Beijing’s economic and political influence, the two sides also agreed to push forward plans to develop the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, most notably the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone along the coast of the Bay of Bengal..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "South China Morning Post" (Hong Kong)
2020-01-18
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Along the Bay of Bengal on the west tip of Myanmar, the town of Kyaukpyu in Rakhine State sits tranquilly on a 25-meter deep harbor. This deep-sea port, surrounded by superb natural conditions, could be developed into another demonstration project under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), mutually benefiting both Myanmar and China. During Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to Myanmar on Jan. 17-18, the two sides agreed to strengthen their BRI cooperation, and work hard to push forward the construction of the Kyaukpyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ), according to a joint statement issued by the two countries on Saturday. Master plan In 2014, the Myanmar government invited bidders from around the world for its plan to set up the Kyaukpyu SEZ, one of the country's three national SEZs, in an effort to kick-start the local economy and raise living standards. The master plan includes a deep-sea port and an accompanying industrial park nearby. In 2015, a consortium of six companies led by the China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC) won the tender for building the Kyaukpyu SEZ. Three years later, after a marathon of negotiations, the CITIC-led consortium struck a framework agreement with Myanmar on the project..."
Source/publisher: "Xinhua" (China) via "China.org.cn" (China)
2020-01-19
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "This year marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of China-Myanmar diplomatic relations. As friendly neighbors, Myanmar has been generally associated with the silk road, which originated in China, throughout history and the friendship of two countries keeps vibrant thanks to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In ancient times, Myanmar was a transportation hub of both the southwestern Silk Road between China, Myanmar and India and the Maritime Silk Road, bringing great convenience to trade between China, the Indian Ocean and the western world. The long-term friendly bilateral economic ties have laid a foundation for Myanmar to participate in BRI in the new century. In 2015, Myanmar joined the China-initiated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as one of the founding members. The two countries then signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to jointly build the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) in 2018, aiming to further enhance bilateral pragmatic cooperation within the framework of BRI..."
Source/publisher: "China Global Television Network (CGTN)" (China)
2020-01-17
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Topic: Belt and Road initiative, BRI, China, China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, CMEC, Kachin State, Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone, Myitkyina Economic Development Zone, Myitsone Dam, Xi Jinping
Topic: Belt and Road initiative, BRI, China, China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, CMEC, Kachin State, Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone, Myitkyina Economic Development Zone, Myitsone Dam, Xi Jinping
Description: "Nearly 40 civil society organizations (CSOs) have called on Chinese President Xi Jinping to permanently terminate the suspended Myitsone Dam project, saying that the project threatens the prosperity of the Myanmar people and that friendly relations between the two countries will deteriorate if the project goes ahead. On Wednesday, civil society organizations, mostly based in Kachin State, issued an open letter to Xi, two days before his planned visit to Myanmar. The visit aims to pave the way for Xi’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects in Myanmar and includes plans for a dozen agreements, including around the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ), which will grant China access to the Indian Ocean. A final decision on the controversial Myitsone Dam project may also be on the agenda for the visit. “We will have to lose more and more if the project is revived. Local residents have already suffered enough because of the project. We want to stop the project permanently,” Tu Hkawng, project coordinator for civil society organization Airavati, told The Irrawaddy. “We will never agree to restarting the Myitsone project.”..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2020-01-16
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "A decade ago, Myanmar’s generals, setting out to show they were serious about liberalizing after half a century of brutal military rule, made a bold play: They snubbed China, canceling a joint multibillion-dollar dam project, and embraced the West. In the period that followed, President Barack Obama visited Myanmar twice. He was photographed kissing the cheek of Aung San Suu Kyi, the former democracy activist who later became Myanmar’s civilian leader. He met with former generals, signaling a readiness to open a new chapter with a nation long encumbered by U.S. sanctions. Then came the exodus of nearly 1 million Rohingya Muslims, driven from their homes by Myanmar’s military in a scorched-earth campaign that drew a Western outcry and charges of genocide. Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace laureate, led Myanmar’s defense at the International Court of Justice last month; a provisional ruling is expected next week..."
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Source/publisher: "The Washington Post" (USA)
2020-01-17
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-18
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Sub-title: China has vowed to strengthen strategic links and advance economic projects such as the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Myanmar, said Chinese ambassador to Myanmar Chen Hai, prior to Chinese President Xi Jinping's expected visit to the country on January 17.
Description: "“Chinese president Xi Jinping’s visit to Myanmar will greatly advance bilateral relations,” Mr Chen said, according to a report by Chinese newspaper Golden Phoenix, seen by The Myanmar Times. Coinciding with the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and Myanmar, Xi’s visit marks the first trip to the country as president and 19 years after former president Jiang Zeming’s visit. “Taking President Xi's visit as an opportunity, the two will strengthen strategic links, sign a series of deals and advance progress in economic projects,” said Mr Chen. The two countries will ink several deals, including the US$1.3 billion Kyaukphyu port project, while Xi is expected to push ahead the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) scheme as well as other projects under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Initiated in 2017 under the framework of Xi’s multi-billion development strategy BRI, the corridor scheme features a Y-shaped route from China’s Yunnan Province to Myanmar’s Rakhine State and Yangon with multiple projects initiated, including the Kyaukphyu SEZ and port project, a railway project that falls on this route, among others. The fact that the Myanmar government set up the Steering Committee for the Implementation of the Community and the Silk Road Project chaired by State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is a demonstration of Myanmar’s commitment to the BRI, as seen by China..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
2020-01-14
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar is a fulcrum of the Belt and Road Initiative and an important corridor between China and Southeast and South Asia. As a traditional friendly neighbor, Myanmar has established a comprehensive strategic partnership with China. Apart from participating in the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, Myanmar was among the first 21 countries to join the China-initiated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Also, China is Myanmar's biggest source of foreign investment. Since 2013, China and Myanmar together have made remarkable achievements in taking forward the Belt and Road Initiative. First, the two countries have not only maintained frequent high-level mutual visits but also improved their cooperation mechanism, and thus strengthened mutual political trust. In April 2015, President Xi Jinping met with U Thein Sein, then president of Myanmar, on the sidelines of the Asian-African Summit that was held to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Bandung Conference in Indonesia. In October of the same year, Xi met with Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi on the sidelines of the 8th BRICS Summit in India. He also met with Suu Kyi three times at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing between May 2017 and April 2019..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "China Daily" (Beijing)
2020-01-14
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: According to Myanmar government sources, Xi is expected to visit Naypyitaw, January 17-18. During his trip, the two sides are expected to sign several agreements covering the construction of the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and border economic cooperation zones, , road upgrade projects, promotion of trade relations among others.
Description: "Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to visit Myanmar, a key neighbour of India this week, as Beijing seeks to ramp up support for BRI that will open connectivity in Bay of Bengal. The BRI projects in Myanmar has not received enough local support contrary to Chinese expectations. This will first visit by a Chinese President to Myanmar in nearly two decades. India will keep a close watch on the visit. According to Myanmar government sources, Xi is expected to visit Naypyitaw, January 17-18. During his trip, the two sides are expected to sign several agreements covering the construction of the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and border economic cooperation zones, road upgrade projects, promotion of trade relations, and social and economic development assistance, according to Myanmar government sources. Minister for Commerce U Than Myint told the reporters that Xi will visit Myanmar soon, saying that during his trip an agreement would be signed between the two countries in which China would ease restrictions on imports of products from Myanmar..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Economic Times" (India)
2020-01-13
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-14
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Description: "Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit Myanmar next week to boost ties and push investment projects, in a show of support for Aung San Suu Kyi’s government as it faces global condemnation over its treatment of the Rohingya Muslim minority. Xi will begin the two-day trip on January 17, according to Luo Zhaohui, China’s vice-foreign minister. It will be the first state visit to Myanmar by a Chinese president since Jiang Zemin’s trip in 2001. Luo said in a briefing on Friday that the countries would seek close economic and trade cooperation through Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative – Xi’s sprawling infrastructure and investment scheme spanning Asia, Africa, Europe and beyond. Chinese observers said Xi’s trip showed the importance of relations with Myanmar, which is strategically located and stands on the frontline of China’s geopolitical rivalry with the United States and other powers in the Asia-Pacific, such as India and Japan. This year marks the 70th anniversary of China’s official ties with three Asian nations – Myanmar, Vietnam and Indonesia. Xu Liping, an expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, noted that Xi had chosen to go to Myanmar for his first overseas trip of the year, rather than the other two countries, both of which were at odds with Beijing over the South China Sea..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "South China Morning Post" (Hong Kong)
2020-01-10
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-11
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Description: "Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to visit Myanmar late next week to discuss bilateral relations and to push for the speedier buildout of Chinese development projects under his massive Belt and Road Initiative, Myanmar analysts said Wednesday. Neither the Myanmar nor Chinese government has released details of his Jan. 17-18 trip — Xi’s first visit to the Southeast Asian country since 2009 — on the occasion of the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the countries. Myanmar analysts say Xi’s trip could bode well for the country’s faltering peace process and economic growth. Beijing has encouraged rebel ethnic armies fighting Myanmar troops in border areas to meet with peace negotiators and agree to bilateral cease-fires with the government military. China’s primary motive for getting involved in the peace process is driven by its interest in securing border areas so that infrastructure investments in Myanmar under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are not jeopardized, analysts believe..."
Source/publisher: "Radio Free Asia (RFA)" (USA)
2020-01-08
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-09
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Sub-title: The following is an abridged version of Myanmar economist U Myint’s assessment of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and how it may affect Myanmar.
Description: "In recent years, Myanmar’s decision-makers have interacted with Chinese partners on infrastructure and investment projects in a seemingly dichotomous manner. But in a sense their decisions reflect a practical logic that takes into account the concerns of both the communities affected by those projects and the population at large. The abrupt suspension in 2011 of the billion-dollar hydropower dam project at Myitsone in Kachin State and the more recent agreements entered into by the current government to bring Myanmar closer into the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) orbit present contrasting examples of Myanmar’s approach to Chinese projects in the country. Myanmar hit the “pause” button in its infrastructure deals with China on 30 September 2011, when the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) government led by President Thein Sein suspended the Myitsone dam project for the duration of his administration. That administration ended in March 2016, and the question of whether the project should be resumed or not, and of whether something else could be done with it, has become a heated and emotional issue. In today’s Myanmar, the democratically-elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government seems to have moved to the “fast-forward” option in its economic interactions with China. A memorandum of understanding for the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) was signed in September 20181. A related agreement to develop a deep-sea port at Kyaukphyu in southern Rakhine State, together with a special economic zone (SEZ), was signed in November 2018. The 1,700-kilometer corridor would connect Kunming, the capital of China's Yunnan Province, to Myanmar's major economic centres – Mandalay and then Yangon — and to the Kyaukphyu SEZ. It would link the least and most developed areas of the country..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Mizzima" (Myanmar)
2019-12-18
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-06
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Sub-title: This will be Xi Jinping’s first visit to Myanmar after more than a decade and is set for January 17 next
Description: "The Myanmar government is setting the stage for the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to the country. Xi Jinping is scheduled to discuss China-Myanmar relations and the progress of Chinese development projects, according to government and media reports. This will be Xi Jinping’s first visit to Myanmar after more than a decade. He last visited Myanmar in 2009. The visit is said to be set for January 17. Progress has been made with major projects that represent important development programmes for China. Bilateral discussions have focused on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), including the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ), viewed as Beijing’s strategic window to the India Ocean. But there are indications that Beijing will be pushing to speed up the projects. In addition, there are other Chinese investment projects that are likely to come up for discussion, including the controversial Myitsone Dam project that was put on hold by the previous Myanmar government under President Thein Sein..."
Source/publisher: "Northeast Now" (India)
2020-01-06
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group Co (CREEC) recently launched a survey for the Muse-Mandalay-Kyaukphyu railway line, part of the China–Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) and the larger Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the region, EThas learnt from people familiar with the developments.
Description: "A proposed railway line from Kunming in China to two ports in Myanmar — close to the India-funded Sittwe port — is being closely watched by India amid the Centre’s plans to connect corridors in the Bay of Bengal region as part of its Indo-Pacific strategy. China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group Co (CREEC) recently launched a survey for the Muse-Mandalay-Kyaukphyu railway line, part of the China–Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) and the larger Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the region, EThas learnt from people familiar with the developments. In October, Myanmar signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the project, expected to be one of the largest road-and-railway projects in the Southeast Asian country that shares both a land and maritime boundary with India. The project involves building a high-speed railway line from Kunming to Muse on the Myanmar-China border and from there on to Mandalay, terminating in Kyaukphyu port in Rakhine province. A railway line from the same corridor will branch out to Yangon port, one of the people told ET. China is said to view the project to connect the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone and the deep water port in Myanmar as something that would benefit both countries under the larger CMEC umbrella. Local politicians say the project could turn out to be a second ‘Hambantota’ and China could take over the ports in future if Myanmar does not earn sufficient revenue from it..."
Source/publisher: "The Economic Times" (India)
2019-12-26
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: With Xi Jinping’s visit, China is on the verge of realizing a 10-year plan: gaining a back door to the Indian Ocean.
Description: "A decade after Xi Jinping’s first visit to Myanmar in 2009, Naypyidaw is planning a banquet for another Xi visit, expected to be on January 17, 2020. As part of the preparation, shuttle diplomacy is already underway, with China’s State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi meeting with Myanmar State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi on December 9, 2019. The agenda is loud and clear: to speed up the construction of the projects within the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) and realization of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In particular, speeding up the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ), Beijing’s strategic window to the India Ocean, is on the short list. Originating as one of 16 MoUs signed during then-Vice President Xi’s 2009 visit, the Kyaukphyu SEZ is the capstone of all China’s investments in Myanmar and was Beijing’s strategic offset in the Indian Ocean prior to the launch of the BRI. However, Chinese projects in Myanmar stalled after the suspension of controversial Myitsone Dam, which created uneasy relations with Beijing for the first time in 20 years and caused BRI capital injections to fall short of the hype. Kyaukphyu was not an exception. The project was significantly trimmed down with the fear of a debt trap..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Diplomat" (Japan)
2020-01-04
Date of entry/update: 2020-01-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar President U Win Myint on Saturday met with visiting Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Naypyidaw, the country's capital, with both sides pledging to strengthen high-level exchanges to push bilateral ties to a new high. The Myanmar president expressed gratitude to China for its long-term support for Myanmar's sovereignty, dignity and socio-economic development. He hoped that both sides will take the 70th anniversary of their diplomatic relations next year as an opportunity to consolidate and deepen mutual political trust, speed up the joint construction of the Belt and Road, comprehensively press forward the building of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor. The president also hope to expand cooperation in such fields as economy and trade, education, health, and enhance cooperation and coordination in regional and international issues so as to further advance the comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership between the two countries. He also hoped that China would continue to support Myanmar in pressing forward the ongoing national reconciliation and peace process..."
Source/publisher: "China Global Television Network (CGTN)" (China)
2019-12-08
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Myanmar pins hopes on brand new city to entice foreign investment and jobs, but must respond to concerns about transparency and sea-level rise
Description: "It’s summer and Yangon is scorching hot. The hotel air-conditioning shuts down as it does several times a day due to electricity shortages. Shops and apartment buildings fire up growling diesel generators whose fumes mix poisonously with the exhaust of the second-hand Japanese cars streaming past. I’m waiting for a ferry at Pansodan pier in the south of the city. Behind me is Yangon’s “Bund”, a row of colonial-era commercial and administrative buildings. In front is the Yangon river, whose waters flow gently, if a little murkily. On the other bank I can see the township of Dala. The view is flat and rural, a stark contrast to Yangon’s bustling cityscape. Reaching Dala, I take a motorbike westwards, crossing the Twante canal via a steel bridge with an unpaved surface that makes the wheels skid. Farmers are transplanting rice in plots either side of the road. It’s countryside the whole way. ’ve come to see the area where a new city is being planned. Dubbed Myanmar’s Shenzhen, “New Yangon City” will cover 80km2 west of the Yangon river. Although only separated from the old city by the river, the area is relatively cut off. The only direct route is via the ferry to Dala..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Chinadialogue (London/Beijing)
2019-11-29
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-02
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone will set up its first container terminal outside India in Myanmar at an estimated cost of USD 290 million (over Rs 2,000 crore).
Description: "Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone will set up its first container terminal outside India in Myanmar at an estimated cost of USD 290 million (over Rs 2,000 crore). The company signed an agreement Thursday to develop and operate a container terminal at Yangon Port in Myanmar. Construction for phase one of the project will commence next month and will be completed by June 2021. It is a two-phase project. "Total project cost for both phases would be USD 275-290 million. The investment is in line with APSEZ strategy to have a footprint in Southeast Asia and expand the container terminal network," Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone (APSEZ) said in a statement. Also, the terminal will be integrated with APSEZ ports/terminals along the east and south coast of India, unlocking synergies by offering multiple entry/exit points for shipping lines, APSEZ, the logistics arm of Adani Group, said..."
Source/publisher: "Business Today" (India)
2019-05-23
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar tycoon Win Aung is open to foreign investment in the listed industrial-estate provider he oversees, following Ayala Corp's tie-up with a firm traded on the nation's fledgling stock exchange. In an interview in Yangon, Win Aung said a stake sale is an option as he plans to expand Myanmar Thilawa SEZ Holdings, which operates a manufacturing zone where 109 firms have opened factories or plan to do so. "We'll need more capital and technology," Win Aung, the firm's chairman, said on Thursday (Nov 28). "Detailed plans will be revealed later after the authorities officially allow foreigner participation on the Yangon Stock Exchange." Myanmar is trying to expand a stunted bourse that currently has just five stocks by allowing overseas purchases of domestic equities from 2020. The Philippines' oldest conglomerate Ayala is investing in one of those five - First Myanmar Investment - via an US$82.5 million convertible loan that will become a 20 per cent shareholding when rules permit. The four-year-old Thilawa special economic zone is viewed by some as the largest in Myanmar. Japanese, Thai and Malaysian firms account for the bulk of the factories located there, according to Win Aung..."
Source/publisher: "The Straits Times" (Singapore)
2019-11-29
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: UK Prudential, US Chubb, AIA and others granted licenses to tap previously state monopolized sector
Description: "Myanmar has injected new life into its laggard insurance industry with today’s (November 28) issuance of licenses to a handful of foreign companies, including UK Prudential, Japan’s Dai-ichi Life, Hong Kong’s AIA, US Chubb and Canadian Manulife. The Ministry of Finance authorized the widely anticipated but long delayed move to allow foreign insurers to operate in the local market as 100% wholly owned subsidiaries. It also provided for local-foreign joint ventures, with six life and non-life insurance licenses approved for Japan’s Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance, Taiyo Life and Nippon Life. The announcement marks a significant step towards financial sector liberalization, allowing foreigners access to one of the last largely untapped insurance markets in the world. The move follows on other market-opening measures granted to the education, retail and wholesale sectors under the current administration..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
2019-11-28
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Topic: air, backbone projects, Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar, BCIM, Belt and Road initiative, biodiversity, BRI, China, China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group, China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, CITIC, Climate Change, CMEC, CNICO, Development, economic benefit, endangered species, Environment, Environmental and Social Impact Assessment, ESIA, Forests, Global Warming, growth, Infrastructure, Investment, Irrawaddy River, Kyaukphyu, land grabbing, Letpadaung Taung copper mine, mega projects, Muse-Mandalay Railway, Natural Resources, noise pollution, oil and gas pipeline, Pollution, port, Protest, Railway, sea, SEZ, social impact, Special Economic Zone, Strategic Environmental Assessment, Wanbao Mining Company, Water
Topic: air, backbone projects, Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar, BCIM, Belt and Road initiative, biodiversity, BRI, China, China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group, China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, CITIC, Climate Change, CMEC, CNICO, Development, economic benefit, endangered species, Environment, Environmental and Social Impact Assessment, ESIA, Forests, Global Warming, growth, Infrastructure, Investment, Irrawaddy River, Kyaukphyu, land grabbing, Letpadaung Taung copper mine, mega projects, Muse-Mandalay Railway, Natural Resources, noise pollution, oil and gas pipeline, Pollution, port, Protest, Railway, sea, SEZ, social impact, Special Economic Zone, Strategic Environmental Assessment, Wanbao Mining Company, Water
Description: "With more and more Chinese investment flowing into the country, many key government officials are speaking out in support of the projects, which range from a high-speed railway line to special economic zones to seaports. At several local investment forums, they have voiced the view that China’s grand infrastructure projects will bring economic development to Myanmar and economic benefits to local people, while boosting the country’s strategic importance in the region. But what they have so far failed to mention is the possible environmental and social impacts of the projects on host communities. They rarely talk about how the projects threaten biodiversity, protected forests and natural water resources. Faced with this official silence, experts and activists worry aloud about land confiscations, influxes of migrants, loss of livelihoods and air, water and noise pollution in the project areas. Massive project-related activities are now being implemented under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) framework in Myanmar, following the signing last year of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with China to establish the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC)..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2019-11-19
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: New rules threaten to prevent locals from capitalizing on the state’s coming gold rush
Description: "Aung Gyi is forced to fish covertly under the shroud of night in western Myanmar waters as China bids to transform the strategically key region into a shipping and industrial hub, squeezing out locals who fear being left behind in the gold rush. Myanmar has declared Rakhine state, associated by many worldwide with the military’s 2017 bloody crackdown on Rohingya Muslims, open for business but locals fear they are being left out of the gold rush as new rules restrict traditional practices. Paddies and teak forests will be flattened for a colossal Beijing-backed factory zone and deep-sea port, which will serve as its neighboring giant’s gateway to the Indian Ocean. But the state’s promise for development comes with fishing restrictions – the waterways have been freed up for Chinese ships – a situation that has devastated local lives and livelihoods. “I might be beaten or arrested” if caught fishing illegally, Aung Gyi says as he lays shrimp out to dry by his dilapidated shack in a small fishing hamlet near the town of Kyaukphyu..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Asia Times" (Hong Kong)
2019-11-17
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Environmental impact assessment (EIA) and social impact assessment (SIA) have started in Kyaukphyu SEZ and Kyaukphyu deep seaport. The project will be implemented after signing agreements including shareholder and other ones, said Deputy Minister Aung Htoo of the Ministry of Commerce. “Kyaukphyu was already negotiated in the time of the first government. The contract was changed into a ratio of 70-30 from 85-15. Then a framework agreement was signed. Now, the EIA and SIA have already begun. If the shareholder agreement and other ones are signed, the project will start an operation, said Deputy Minister Aung Htoo. Previously, the agreement showed an 85 % would go to China and a 15 % to Myanmar. In the time of the current government, the project was re-negotiated and was newly signed back. The agreement indicated that a 70% would go to China and 30 % to Myanmar. “In a ratio of 70: 30, a 70 % goes to China and 30 % to Myanmar. In a 30 % of Myanmar, it will be divided in half, that is, 15 % each to the government and public companies including ethnics, Union Minister Than Myint told the Daily Eleven. Concerning Kyaukphyu SEZ and Kyaukphyu deep seaport, Myanmar-China bilateral framework agreement was signed by the management committee of Kyaukphy SEZ and CITIC consortium on November 8 in 2018..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Eleven Media Group" (Myanmar)
2019-11-10
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Topic: Oil, Gas, Special Economic Zone, Belt and Road Initiative, Kyaukphyu, Rakhine state, Rohingya, Myanmar, China
Topic: Oil, Gas, Special Economic Zone, Belt and Road Initiative, Kyaukphyu, Rakhine state, Rohingya, Myanmar, China
Description: "Aung Gyi is forced to fish covertly under the shroud of night in western Myanmar waters as China bids to transform the strategically key region into a shipping and industrial hub, squeezing out locals who fear being left behind in the gold rush. Myanmar has declared Rakhine state, associated by many worldwide with the military’s 2017 bloody crackdown on Rohingya Muslims, open for business – but locals fear they are being left out of the gold rush as new rules restrict traditional practises. Paddies and teak forests will be flattened for a colossal Beijing-backed factory zone and deep-sea port, which will serve as its neighbouring giant’s gateway to the Indian Ocean. But the state’s promise for development comes with fishing restrictions – the waterways have been freed up for Chinese ships – a situation that has devastated local lives and livelihoods. “I might be beaten or arrested” if caught fishing illegally, Aung Gyi says as he lays shrimp out to dry by his dilapidated shack in a small fishing hamlet near the town of Kyaukphyu. “But I have no choice. Otherwise, my family would starve, the 28-year-old adds..."
Source/publisher: "The ASEAN Post" (Malaysia)
2019-11-14
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "PPB Group Bhd's 18.5%-owned associate Wilmar International Ltd will build the largest rice mill in Myanmar's Thilawa Special Economic Zone to capitalise on Myanmar's economic growth, Eleven Media Group Co Ltd reported, quoting Wilmar International chairman and chief executive officer Kuok Khoon Hong. Eleven Media reported that Singapore-listed Wilmar International via subsidiary Wilmar Myanmar will build the mill, which will produce up to 1,200 tonnes of rice a day. Kuok was quoted as saying: "I believe that Myanmar owns the prosperity of business and agriculture sectors. So, it can create not only local agricultural imports (but) local and foreign markets." It was reported that upon completion of the rice mill, rice bags will be exported to other countries via Thilawa. "Wilmar Myanmar had opened the Wilmar Jetty on March 25, 2018. Myanmar Investment Commission granted Wilmar (the right) to operate Wilmar Myanmar Port Terminals (Thilawa) under a 50-year build, operate and transfer agreement with the government..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Edge Market" (Malaysia, Singapore)
2019-11-06
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "China is rebranding and repackaging dormant or delayed projects in Myanmar under the banner of its Belt and Road Initiative, many of whose projects lack transparency and consultation with affected communities, according to the latest policy brief by a Netherlands-based research and advocacy institute. Stephanie Olinga-Shannon, a planning and evaluation coordinator for the Transitional Institute (TNI) who also researches Chinese foreign policy for the organization, said, “Rather than a ‘grand strategy’, the BRI is a broad and loosely governed framework of activities seeking to address a crisis in Chinese capitalism.” “Almost any activities, implemented by any actor in any place can be included under the BRI framework and branded as a BRI project in Myanmar,” Olinga-Shannon said. The BRI allows Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and provincial governments to promote their own projects to pursue profit and economic growth, she added..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2019-11-08
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Japan is keen on businesses for the development of the whole Taninthayi Region including Dawei Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and are now carrying out research into the project, says Aung Htoo, Deputy Minister of Commerce. Despite plans that have been in development regarding the implementation of Dawei SEZ over a decade ago, it was delayed. Among the extant SEZs in Myanmar, Thilawa SEZ see the most development and is being implemented together with the Japanese government. “Dawei SEZ was implemented over 10 years ago by joining hands with the Italian-Thailand Company. But, it was long-delayed project and the company’s budget is weak. On the other hand, we need to fulfill basic requirements for success in implementing the project. There have been many facts. For example, we are going to rent the land plot and provide secure transportation access. Moreover, we are going to approve the environmental conservation, EIA and SIA reports,” said Aung Htoo. Delays were reportedly due to the infrastructural weaknesses, particularly with the roads and electricity supply. “Both governments recognized that there have been challenges to the implementation of Dawei SEZ. For Dawei SEZ, such as the Ministry of Electricity by their electricity distribution. Moreover, both sides are going to review their policy concerning the Special Purpose Vehicle-SPV,” said Assistance Secretary Khin Maung Lwin of the Ministry of Commerce..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Eleven Media Group" (Myanmar)
2019-11-06
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Japan is playing a central role in assisting Myanmar’s ongoing financial reforms and attempts to achieve industrialisation. Japan is interested in Myanmar from both an industrial and a financial perspective, while Burmese officials see Japan as a natural partner for financial cooperation. Japan’s public–private assistance for financial development in Myanmar emerged in a Financial Services Agency (FSA) working group specialising in ‘international expansion’ in 2012. The working group proposed a collection of policy suggestions such as offering technical assistance for financial development and support for financial deregulation in Asia to promote the internationalisation of business activities by Japanese firms and financial institutions. Reflecting on these policy suggestions, the Japanese cabinet approved Japan’s Revitalization Strategy in 2013, where it articulated that ‘by taking in the growth of Asia, the government will vitalise stock markets and improve asset management markets to build a No. 1 financial/capital market in Asia’. In 2014, the revised growth strategy further pledged that ‘the government will also support Japanese firms’ and financial institutions’ activities in Asia’. In recent years, Southeast Asia has become a key foreign direct investment (FDI) destination for Japanese firms, partly because of rising labour costs in China. Since 2013, the ASEAN–4 nations — Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand — have attracted more FDI from Japan than China. Japanese financial institutions, particularly banks, are also shifting their weight towards Southeast Asia. Japanese bank claims on Asia have grown 105 per cent since the end of 2008, as Japanese banks expand their client base from Japanese firms to local entities and even individual customers overseas. The IMF predicts that this expansionary trend is likely to continue over the medium term. There is new empirical evidence that banking FDI precedes and promotes manufacturing FDI. Indeed, coupled with the overseas re-expansion of Japanese banks, Japanese companies are eager to hold stakes in local companies or even proceed with mergers and acquisitions. This will enable them to enhance their market shares in Southeast Asian economies..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "East Asia Forum" (Australia)
2019-06-21
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: Carmaker chases Suzuki, Ford and Hyundai in Southeast Asia's final frontier
Description: " Toyota Motor began work Friday on an auto assembly plant in Myanmar, becoming the sixth automaker to venture into production in a country seen as the last untapped growth market in Southeast Asia. The $52.6 million plant in the Thilawa Special Economic Zone outside Yangon will produce Hilux pickup trucks. It is slated to go online in February 2021. "Through local production, we'll supply high-quality vehicles in a timely manner," said Susumu Matsuda, deputy head of Toyota's China and Asia operations, at the groundbreaking ceremony. The move fills the last gap in Toyota's Southeast Asian production map and solidifies its position in a country of 50 million where auto manufacturing is just starting to take root. Suzuki, which found success as an early mover in India, and Hyundai Motor affiliate Kia Motors began making cars in Myanmar in 2013. Nissan Motor and Ford Motor followed later, and Hyundai started up an assembly plant here this past February..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Nikkei Asian Review" (Japan)
2019-11-02
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Thailand and Myanmar expect to have cars travelling on three routes between both countries this September, in a move set to bolster the regional economy. Each country will be granted 100 licences for their transport operators, who can drive hundreds of kilometres into the inner areas of the countries, including to Yangon and a port near the Thilawa Special Economic Zone in Myanmar, and Bangkok and Laem Chabang port in Chon Buri, Land Transport Department chief Phiraphon Thawonsuphacharoen said on Friday. "We're selecting and examining operators' qualifications," he said, referring to a process required by the Greater Mekong Subregion Cross-Border Transport Agreement. The routes, which start from Myawaddy-Mae Sot border checkpoint are aimed at supporting international tourism and logistics, Mr Phiraphon said..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Bangkok Post" (Thailand)
2019-06-01
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-31
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "MYANMAR would need to take a strong governmental role is to accelerate the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) as it becomes an active part of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), following the suspension of a controversial hydropower dam venture in 2011, an senior Burmese economist has suggested. Dr U Myint, formerly chief economic adviser to former Burmese leader Thein Sein, said the previous and present Myanmar governments have taken different approaches to engaging China over large-scale infrastructure projects. "This apparently inconsistent policy has the potential to cause confusion and anxiety among the Myanmar public and implementing officials, who are usually not included in or consulted on decisions related to investment or infrastructure projects. Past experiences in dealing with China may also cause skepticism on the part of both the public and bureaucrats," Dr U Myint wrote in a guest publication for Singapore's ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute published Tuesday..."
Source/publisher: "The Business Times" (Singapore)
2019-10-29
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Foreign investments of US$362.28 million flowed into the Special Economic Zones (SEZs), under the Special Economic Zone Law, in the 2018-2019 fiscal year, according to figures released by the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration, Myanmar state media reported. A total of 106 enterprises from 18 countries and four local businesses have ploughed in $1.84 billion so far in the zones, data on FDI of existing enterprises shows, according to Mizzima. Japan topped the list of foreign investors in the previous fiscal, accounting for more than 36% of the overall investment, followed by Singapore and Thailand. FDI also flowed into the SEZs from South Korea, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom, Australia, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Austria, Taiwan, Panama, China, Brunei, Vietnam, France, Switzerland, and the Netherlands..."
Source/publisher: "Bangkok Post" (Thailand)
2019-10-10
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Toyota Motor Corp is planning to build an automobile factory in Myanmar, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learnt. An official announcement could come before the end of the month, with construction on the plant to start this year. The plant would be located in the Thilawa Special Economic Zone on the outskirts of Yangon and would assemble pickup trucks through so-called knockdown production, in which parts imported from Japan and other nearby nations are put together at the new plant. Myanmar has a population of about 50 million people, on a par with South Korea and Spain. It is also a young nation, with an average age of 27.9. While it is one of the poorest countries in Asia, it has seen strong economic growth recently and is expected to grow at annual rates of 6 to 7 per cent. Though only about 17,500 new automobiles were sold in the country in 2018, the figure more than doubled compared to the previous year. Toyota currently exports about 2,000 passenger and commercial vehicles to Myanmar per year and sees the market as one with strong growth potential..."
Source/publisher: "The Straits Times" (Singapore)
2019-05-27
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: The naming of the bilateral projects with Nepal coincided with Beijing dropping the BCIM or the Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar Corridor from the BRI projects’ list.
Description: "China is shoring-up its connectivity projects with Nepal and Myanmar, including a trans-Himalayan network, a cross-border railway venture and an economic corridor under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The Nepal-China Trans-Himalayan Multi-dimensional Connectivity Network, including the Nepal-China cross-border railway, have been named under the list of projects under the BRI. The naming of the bilateral projects with Nepal coincided with Beijing dropping the BCIM or the Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar Corridor from the BRI projects’ list. Instead, China has now named the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor under the BRI, an indication that Beijing will go ahead with infrastructure projects in south Asia bilaterally. Simultaneously, visiting Nepalese President Bidhya Devi Bhandari said in Beijing that the BRI is offering new opportunities for Nepal and she hopes Chinese investors and enterprises can invest more in Nepal..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Hindustan Times " (India)
2019-04-29
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: China’s new infrastructure corridor through Myanmar crosses war-torn regions, risking further conflict and environmental degradation
Description: "A year ago, Myanmar and China signed an agreement to establish the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), as part of China’s Belt and Road global infrastructure initiative. Today, that corridor is mired in conflict between the Myanmar military and ethnic armed groups. Stretching 1,700km, the CMEC’s network of new railways, trade zones and other major infrastructure projects is meant to mesh the comparatively impoverished economy of Myanmar with its wealthier neighbour’s landlocked southern province of Yunnan. However, ongoing armed conflict and lingering resentment against Chinese investments mean the future of the CMEC is uncertain. Since its transition to semi-civilian rule in 2011, Myanmar has proven to be more cautious with Chinese investments than other developing countries. In August 2018, Myanmar officials negotiated an 80% cost reduction to the proposed Kyaukphyu deep-sea port, trimming the project from over US$7 billion to US$1.3 billion, Reuters reported. The Myanmar side, led by deputy finance minister Set Aung, baulked at the risk of an excessive debt burden..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Chinadialogue" (China)
2019-10-21
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Japanese companies are becoming interested in the local industry which will manufacture products in Myanmar and export them to India, China and Thailand, said Japanese Ambassador to Myanmar Mr. Ichiro Maruyama, at Japan-Myanmar Resource, Trade and Investment Expo 2019 at Inya Lake Hotel in Yangon on October 19. “There are many Japanese companies which are very interested in the local market as Myanmar has many populations. Myanmar borders Thailand, India and China. That’s why, many Japanese companies are interested in exporting Myanmar-made products to neighbouring countries,” Mr. Ichiro Maruyama said. “Japanese companies are also interested to import raw materials from neighbouring countries and produce the products using these raw materials. Then, they want to sell these products in the local market,” he added. From 1988-89 FY till September 30, 2019, Japan’s total investments in 117 businesses exceeded 1.2 billion US dollars, according to the figures from the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA)..."
Source/publisher: "Eleven Media Group" (Myanmar)
2019-10-20
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Residents of central Myanmar's Mandalay region said Thursday that they are increasingly fearful of forced property confiscation lost farmland in areas slated for the construction of a high-speed railway running from Kunming in southwestern China to their city under the massive Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), RFA reported. Two state-owned companies — Myanmar Railways and China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group Co. Ltd. — signed a memorandum of understanding a year ago to conduct a feasibility study for the Muse-Mandalay line, a key part of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) under the BRI that is expected to boost trade between the two countries. The CMEC entails a central road and rail transport infrastructure from southwestern China’s Yunnan province through Muse and Mandalay to the town of Khaukphyu in western Myanmar's Rakhine state, where a major seaport and special economic zone are scheduled for construction..."
Source/publisher: "Mizzima" (Myanmar)
2019-10-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-13
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Topic: Belt and Road initiative, BRI, China, China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, CMEC, debt trap, economic zone, Human Rights, Kachin State, land grabs, Myitkyina, Myitkyina Economic Development Zone, neo-colonialism, property rights, Yunnan Tengchong Heng Yong Investment Company
Topic: Belt and Road initiative, BRI, China, China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, CMEC, debt trap, economic zone, Human Rights, Kachin State, land grabs, Myitkyina, Myitkyina Economic Development Zone, neo-colonialism, property rights, Yunnan Tengchong Heng Yong Investment Company
Description: "The Kachin State government is planning to sign an agreement next month on the establishment of a China-backed economic zone, paving the way for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) project. Under the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) agreement, which is also a part of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s grand BRI vision, Kachin State signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Yunnan Tengchong Heng Yong Investment Company (YTHIC) in May 2018 for implementation of the Myitkyina Economic Development Zone. The project, also known as the Namjim Industrial Zone, is 25 km from Myitkyina, the Kachin capital. “We are expected to sign an agreement next month,” the Kachin State chief minister, Dr. Khet Aung, told The Irrawaddy. “Currently, we are finalizing detailed negotiations and a full master plan from the Chinese company.” YTHIC and the Myitkyina zone committee, formed by the Kachin State government, are expected to build the massive site on approximately 19 sq. km along the historic Ledo Road. The road was built during World War II so the Allies could supply Chinese troops fighting the Japanese. It linked Ledo, in Indian Assam, and Kunming in China’s Yunnan Province..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy" (Thailand)
2019-10-07
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Topic: Belt and Road
Sub-title: Ethnic strife and national pride halt Beijing-championed infrastructure projects
Topic: Belt and Road
Description: "A recent decision by the Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw, not to extend a cease-fire aimed at ethnic armed organizations excluded from a nationwide peace agreement puts the country's Belt and Road projects in further limbo. Multiple projects have already been halted, including the key Myitsone dam hydropower project in in Myanmar's northernmost state of Kachin. But ethnic strife is not to blame. Rather, the dam has run up against nationwide opposition and an International Finance Corp. report strongly advising against damming the upper reaches of Myanmar's major rivers. Meanwhile, work on a feasibility study for another project has been suspended as a result of the renewed hostilities. Tatmadaw forces in late September assaulted a Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army base in Kutkai, squarely in the middle of the proposed route for the China-led Muse-Lashio-Mandalay rail project in northern Shan state. One day after fighting recommenced, a Myanma Railways spokesman announced the suspension, blaming the instability. The attacks signal the failure of Chinese attempts to broker peace between Myanmar's vigorously independent military and a group of armed organizations known as The Northern Alliance..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Asia Nikkei Review" (Japan)
2019-10-06
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Sub-title: B462bn Chinese megaproject across the border in Myanmar threatens to eclipse economic development and progress in Mae Sot
Description: "Border towns are often labelled as remote villages without modern infrastructure or amenities. However, recent economic policies such as the development of special economic zones and foreign investment have led to the urbanisation of these rural areas. A clear example of this can be seen in Mae Sot district in Tak province, located opposite to the Shwe Kokko forest area in the Myawaddy region of Myanmar. This border enclave region is controlled by a local ethnic Karen warlord, Chit Tu, who has made peace with Myanmar's military and converted his armed units into an officially recognised Border Guard Force (BGF). Three years ago, Jilin Yatai International Holding Group, a major investor from China, invested $US15 billion (462.6 billion baht) in a project which would see the construction of a residential, commercial and industrial hub on more than 5,085 rai of land in Shwe Kokko, located by a river in Myanmar, just over 20km away from Mae Sot district..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Bangkok Post" (Thailand)
2019-06-23
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Villagers living near the site of a proposed deep-sea port in the town of Kyaukphyu in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state fear losses as the joint project with China gets under way, with fishermen already restricted from access to the sea, sources say. With ship traffic increasing in the area of the proposed port, residents of 20 villages nearby may now fish only in a restricted area, and many have lost their livelihoods, one villager told RFA’s Myanmar Service. “Now, we are allowed to work only in one small area,” the villager named Lay Myint said. “But even with this, our families are experiencing many difficulties.” “In my village, many have lost their jobs, and we’ve become dejected,” he said. Part of a planned Special Economic Zone (SEZ) covering over 4,200 acres, the deep-sea port in Kyaukphyu is an important part of China’s “One Belt, One Road” development strategy, giving Beijing access to the Bay of Bengal as an alternative route for oil imports..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Radio Free Asia (RFA)" (USA)
2019-08-23
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Sub-title: The Thilawa Special Economic Zone near Yangon is set to become a vital link in the East West Economic Corridor linking Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam says an official from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
Description: "The East West Economic Corridor development project aims to link transportation and logistics networks to promote investment and trade between the five countries via countrywide transportation networks. “Bridges and roads are being constructed for the east-to-west projects, and the trade flows are expected to become smoother once this is done. Besides this, industrial zones will appear along the road,” said JICA Chief Representative to Myanmar Masayuki Karasawa. JICA expects the Myawady-Malamyine road network, being built with funding from JICA and Asian Development Bank, to be completed by 2023, while a feasibility study for new Sittaung Bridge project is being conducted, and it is expected to finish in 2026-2027..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
2019-10-03
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Sub-title: Two steel manufacturing companies in the Thilawa Special Economic Zone near Yangon are ramping up production and set to expand their markets and products.
Description: "JFE Meranti Myanmar Co Ltd (JMM) announced last week that it is set to introduce its first locally produced coated-steel products under the brand ALZU this December. JMM says the products are intended for both local and export markets. The company is a joint venture between Japanese companies JFE Steel Corp, JFE Shoji Trade Corp, Marubeni-Itochu Steel Inc, and Hanwa Co Ltd, and Singapore-based Meranti Steel Pte Ltd. JMM. is a US$85 million subsidiary owned by a Singapore-based holding company whose largest stakeholder is Japan-based JFE Steel Corp. According to JMM, its ALZU brand will provide premium aluminum-zinc alloy-coated and colour-coated steel products. The products are designed and manufactured by JMM in Myanmar for use in roofing, walling, and other related applications for a variety of industrial, commercial, residential, and institutional projects. “Myanmar’s economy is evolving rapidly and has huge growth potential, but the country needs good infrastructure and building materials to support it,” said JMM CEO Sebastian Langendorf. “Many new buildings will need to be built, and old ones will need to be renovated or replaced. In order to play a key role in building the Myanmar of the future, JFE MERANTI is introducing ALZU, a durable coated-steel product that is suitable for the Myanmar climate, so developers can create buildings with long-lasting integrity.” “We believe that leading the way with coated steel in Myanmar will allow the industry to develop into a powerful force for the nation’s development. And we plan to help secure Myanmar’s bright economic and industrial future. For us, for the industry, and for Myanmar, the launch of ALZU is just the beginning,” Langendorf, said..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times" (Myanmar)
2019-10-01
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-01
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Myanmar is prioritising nine sectors covering infrastructure projects under the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor although more specific details as to which of the projects have been chosen remain under wraps. These sectors, part of the Myanmar Sustainable Development Plan, include electricity, road, bridge, telecommunication, basic construction, agriculture, transportation, research and technology. Union of Myanmar Federation of Chamber of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI) deputy chair U Thein Han said that the nine prioritized sectors involve partnerships between Myanmar and Chinese firms. He was among a group of Myanmar private sector representatives who had followed government officials led by Minister for Planning and Finance U Soe Win to the second joint committee forum of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor held in Kunming, China in late February. It has been learnt that a number of agreements “is likely” to be inked in April when the State Counselor attends a state-level conference in Beijing related to the Belt and Road Initiative. “Many companies want to enter the market and we will connect them with the capable companies here depending on the company size. We have plans to connect companies of various sizes,” U Thein Han said..."
Source/publisher: "Belt & Road News" (China)
2019-03-09
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-28
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Myanmar and China have discussed raising the quota of rice that can exported to China from Myanmar says an official from the Myanmar Rice Federation. 400,000 tonnes of rice export to China market as legal quota, according to official. The talks took place during the Second China Myanmar Economic Corridor Forum held in Yunnan Province, China. The Myanmar delegation to the forum was led by Planning and Finance Minister U. The countries mainly discussed cooperation on the Kyauk Phyu Special Economic Zone, Muse-Mandalay railway project, and agricultural exports to China. Separately, Myanmar and China discussed rice raising rice exports to China to 400,000 tonnes. In 2016, China permitted Myanmar to export 100,000 tonnes of rice and now Myanmar rice merchants are seeking to raise the quota by 300,000 tonnes. U Nay Lin Zin, joint secretary of the Myanmar Rice Federation, said China is supportive of exports of rice and broken rice in the border areas and will take action to legalise such border trade..."
Source/publisher: "Belt & Road News" (China)
2019-02-28
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "China will Provide a grant of 1 billion yuan (225.39 billion kyats, or approximately US$148 million) for socioeconomic development projects under an economic and technical cooperation agreement signed in Beijing last week. Myanmar’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press release on Monday that the 1 billion yuan would be used to support socio-economic development, particularly projects to improve people’s livelihoods, feasibility studies for major projects and humanitarian assistance for IDPs in northern Myanmar. State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi recently completed a six-day visit to China to attend the 2nd Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation at the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is Xi’s signature foreign policy project. Unveiled in 2013, it is also known as the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road. The project aims to build a network of roads, railroads and shipping lanes linking at least 70 countries from China to Europe passing through Central Asia, the Middle East and Russia, fostering trade and investment..."
Source/publisher: "Belt & Road News" (China)
2019-05-02
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Myanmar held its first ever international investment summit late last month in Naypyitaw. The two-day event showcased 120 projects worth US$3 billion (about 4.5 trillion kyats) in 10 states and regions. On the second day of the event, Investment and Foreign Economic Relations Minister U Thaung Tun hosted a dialogue for international guests, offering them reasons why they should invest in Southeast Asia’s “Final Best Frontier.” The government is looking for ways to revive the economy, which has been sluggish for more than two years. “Myanmar is now open for businesses. We are making the necessary changes,” U Thaung Tun said. A weakening currency, high inflation, armed conflict, unstable policies and the slow pace of reform have chipped away at growth under the current administration, which had hoped the economy would take wing after more than five decades of isolation under military rule. Under the government’s “Look East” policy, officials have toured Asia beating the drum for the country’s economy. The summit was part of this attempt to raise investment from East Asian countries. More than 1,600 local and foreign delegates from 17 countries attended the summit and 40 companies exhibited. The top countries were China, Japan, Singapore and Thailand..."
Source/publisher: "Belt & Road News" (China)
2019-02-02
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Ethnic Kachin leaders from three political parties in Myanmar’s northernmost state have met with China’s ambassador to the country to discuss the faltering peace process in which the Myanmar government is trying to get its military and nearly a dozen ethnic armies to agree to a permanent cease-fire, a party representative said Monday. They also discussed China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a controversial Chinese-backed mega-dam project, and Chinese laborers working illegally in Kachin state, said G. Aung Khan, chairman of the Kachin Democratic Party (KDP), who participated in the meeting. Ambassador Hong Liang met with the party heads on Dec. 29 in Kachin capital Myitkyina after the same Kachin leaders met with Dan Chugg, the UK’s ambassador to Myanmar, and Scot Marciel, the U.S. ambassador to Myanmar, he said. “Hong Liang had said it is a good time to work on the peace process,” he said. “It seems China can handle Myanmar’s peace process, but we want other countries to be involved.” G. Aung Khan also said that China’s involvement in Myanmar’s peace process, a key project of State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian-led government, is based on its own self-interest in mega-projects tied to its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Chinese President Xi Jinping’s U.S. $1 trillion global infrastructure-spending program..."
Source/publisher: "Belt & Road News" (China)
2019-01-01
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Every Morning, a pack of Burmese vendors gather their wares and approach the fence separating Muse, a border town in Myanmar’s Northern Shan State, from China’s Yunnan Province. Sheltered by Palm Trees, they slip snacks, herbal medicine and boxes of cigarettes through small holes in the fence not much larger than milk cartons as Chinese border guards lazily observe the fracas. If an item is too large, they wait patiently until nobody’s watching and toss it over the border. Footsteps away, packed jade markets bustle as travelling buyers scrupulously examine the wares with magnifying glasses and consult with partners on WeChat video calls before breaking out into rapid-fire rounds of negotiation. Trade is the beating heart of Ruili, the notorious final frontier of Yunnan as it meets Myanmar. Once famous for sex, drugs, and gambling, the city is hard at work burying its seedier side under a meteoric spree of development. While illicit KTVs and “massage parlours” still line the border fence, and shadier cross-border entrepreneurs deal in illegal timber and human trafficking, the two countries are preparing to make the area into a hub for China’s Belt & Road Initiative..."
Source/publisher: "Belt & Road News" (China)
2019-09-12
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Topic: Belt and Road Initiative, China, Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, Special Economic Zone
Topic: Belt and Road Initiative, China, Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi, Special Economic Zone
Description: "Ever since the National League for Democracy (NLD) was elected to government at the end of 2015, Myanmar’s economy has been opening up and quietly growing steadily. In an effort to open up its economy, the government in Myanmar has taken various steps in making the country more attractive to investors. Last year, Myanmar enacted an investment law that simplifies the investment process and allows the government to use incentives to bring in investors to various sectors of the economy. For Myanmar, foreign direct investments (FDI) play a major role in developing the economy. In 2016 to early 2017, Myanmar received about US$6 billion in FDIs. However, foreign investment for the past couple of years has dipped. To help boost FDI in the country, Myanmar enacted the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) law to pave the way for SEZs to be established in the country. The three SEZs which are currently under development are Thilawa, Dawei and Kyaukphyu. The Thilawa SEZ, located 25 kilometres south of Yangon, is Myanmar’s first modern industrial park. To date, only the Thilawa SEZ is open, with the rest still under development. The opening of Thilawa has been a success with total FDI in Zone A of the SEZ reaching up to US$1 billion with 95 percent occupancy. 79 firms have also decided to open up their factories or logistics hubs in this SEZ..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The ASEAN Post"
2018-08-20
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "With recent intense fighting in Myanmar’s northern Shan state and ongoing armed conflict in northern Rakhine state, China’s influence in the Southeast Asian country’s peace process has grown with the country’s government pushing for ethnic armed groups to meet with peace negotiators. But not everyone in Myanmar trusts Beijing or sees its role as beneficial. China jumped in last month after three members of the Northern Alliance group — the Arakan Army (AA), Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) — launched coordinated attacks on various locations in war-torn northern Shan state and neighboring Mandalay region, killing 15 Myanmar troops, policemen, and civilians. The combined forces carried out further armed assaults on various bridges and border passages to disrupt overland trade with China in retaliation for what they said were offensives by Myanmar soldiers in areas the ethnic armies control. As fighting intensified last month, Sun Guoxiang, special envoy for Asian affairs from China’s foreign ministry, met with the armies to express Beijing’s displeasure with the armed conflict, which has increased instability in the border region, and pressured them to stop fighting..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Radio Free Asia (RFA)"
2019-09-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Chinese investment in projects for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is changing the homes, economies, and environments of people across Myanmar, often in conflict zones. In some cases, those affected by the projects are calling for the government to stop or alter Chinese-backed projects due to concerns about social and environmental costs. At a minimum, local residents have questions about whether they’ll see the benefits of the developments. The Chinese and Myanmar governments, for the most part, haven’t directly addressed these concerns. In the case of the proposed Myitsone dam in Kachin State, the Chinese government has pushed local communities to accept the project, despite the fact that most of the benefits will go to China. Late last month, a team of Chinese experts spoke in the state’s parliament in an attempt to convince Kachin lawmakers to come out in favour of the dam. The government in Myanmar has encouraged those opposed to the project to reconsider their position. Local communities in Rakhine State have also struggled to voice their concerns over the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ). China is pushing the Myanmar government to advance this crucial piece of the BRI but unlike in Kachin, Beijing isn’t facilitating any sort of peace process around the conflicts in the area. Instead, China is shielding Myanmar from international accountability and working to prevent Kyaukphyu from becoming “another Myitsone” by minimising public opposition..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "ASEAN Today"
2019-07-15
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-08
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Myanmar’s Government signed two Memorandums of Understanding (MOU’s) and an agreement letter with China at Beijing’s Belt and Road Forum on Thursday, detailing strengthened cooperation between the countries on the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), trade and technology. According to the Ministry of Information, Myanmar State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of China Li Keqiang were present to witness the signing of the documents. The ministry’s statement said that a China-Myanmar Economic Corridor cooperation (2019-2030) MOU was signed by Myanmar’s Ministry of Planning and Finance and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planning agency. In September, a 15-point MOU for the CMEC was signed. The economic corridor is set to be part of Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which aims to construct basic infrastructure connecting key economic centres in Myanmar..."
Source/publisher: "Belt & Road News"
2019-04-27
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Sub-title: A Border Guard Force and a Chinese company have teamed up to build a hi-tech city on the border north of Myawaddy, with seemingly little regard for Myanmar law and the livelihoods of the local Karen.
Description: "THE ROAD north from the busy trading town of Myawaddy, on the border with Thailand, passes through bucolic Karen villages. The road is flanked by fields of maize and rubber plantations, with trees stretching as far as the eye can see. The area is severely under-developed; villages lack electricity and the road is in such poor condition the 16-kilometre drive north to Shwe Kokko can take about two hours. Shwe Kokko was once a village like the others in this area: sleepy, peaceful, inviting. It is now a massive construction site home to thousands of workers. Chinese investors are partnering with a local warlord to pump billions of dollars into the project, which is already reshaping this once quiet corner of the Thai-Myanmar frontier. When it comes to the Shwe Kokko project – a self-described “special economic zone” that has already been dubbed the “Chinatown of Kayin State” on social media in Myanmar – sorting fact from fiction can be difficult. But one thing is certain: the developers have big plans. But who is behind this project, and why would they choose this corner of Myanmar to develop a megacity from scratch? Shwe Kokko is being developed on a sweeping bend of the Moei River controlled by the Kayin State Border Guard Force. Formerly known as the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, the group was rebranded as a BGF in 2010, when it came under Tatmadaw control. In exchange for its loyalty, the BGF has been allowed to develop significant economic interests, including a mix of licit and illicit businesses. Shwe Kokko would be the largest of the lot..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Frontier Myanmar"
2019-09-05
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Plans for an Economic Zone in Southern Myanmar will be reworked by Japan into an export base to such markets as India, in an attempt to kick start the stalled project as China expands its economic influence in the Southeast Asian Country. The new proposal for the Dawei Special Economic Zone being developed jointly by Japan, Myanmar and Thailand will prioritise building logistics and port facilities to turn it into a base for shipping and light industry by 2030. Japan, Thailand and Myanmar signed an agreement on developing Dawei in 2015, with Tokyo investing in the project through the Japan Bank for International Cooperation. The original plan was to focus on heavy industry and chemical manufacturing. But much of the land in the area remains vacant, and the planned port has yet to be built..."
Source/publisher: "Belt & Road News"
2019-07-09
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Description: "Myanmar is proving to be a major test of strategic economic cooperation between the United States and Japan one which reveals wider foreign policy differences between the allied nations. Those differences make substantial collaboration towards realising a “free and open Indo-Pacific” (FOIP) in specific countries difficult, despite joint strategic interests and aligned high-level political visions. In Japan’s pursuit of a policy response to China’s infrastructure Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), economic cooperation with partners in third countries to beef up the financing on offer has emerged as a key component. Strategic commercial cooperation is arguably most opportune and necessary in Myanmar because the country is at a fraught stage in its democratisation, set into motion in 2010 when it pivoted to form closer ties with countries like the United States and Japan in order to reduce economic over-dependence on China..."
Source/publisher: "Belt & Road News"
2019-06-21
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-04
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The Myanmar Government is ready to sign a framework agreement with China on the establishment of cross-border economic cooperation zones, paving the way for the implementation of Beijing’s grand infrastructure plans in the country as part of its Belt & Road Initiative (BRI). The assistant permanent secretary and spokesperson for the Ministry of Commerce, U Khin Maung Lwin, told The Irrawaddy, “The related Government Ministries have already reviewed a framework agreement proposal submitted by China.” “We received comments from the related Ministries. We also reviewed the proposal with experts. We will send the proposal back to China. Our side is preparing to sign [a framework agreement] very soon,” he said. According to U Khin Maung Lwin, the framework will cover a number of major agreements, particularly on the formation of a bilateral joint committee for the implementation of the cross-border economic cooperation zones; the assignment of management roles for the zones; and types of incentives for investors..."
Source/publisher: "Belt & Road News"
2019-08-16
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "India, being a peninsular country, considers oceans as a global common. So how can it neutralise China’s over lordship and policing of waters given the latter’s growing military presence? President Ram Nath Kovind may have sought to deepen our civilisational links and hoped to build on a shared anti-colonial narrative with Myanmar during his visit to that country but semantics cannot paper over the fact that our neighbour has signed the Kyaukpyu deep sea project with China in November and that could pose a security threat to India. This is particularly worrying considering the Chinese are attempting to ring the Indian Ocean with its “string of pearls diplomacy” and hem India in, already acquiring strategic depth with the Pakistani port of Gwadar and the Sri Lankan one at Hambantota. Yes, the President did emphasise on strengthening bilateral cooperation through increased connectivity, capacity-building and growing commercial and cultural exchanges. And it is true that Myanmar is also unhappy about China’s economic imperialism by creating debt traps for smaller states in the region as part of its Belt and Road Initiative..."
Source/publisher: "Belt & Road News"
2019-01-09
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-30
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Blessed with a strategic location between India and China in the centre of Southeast Asia, as well as direct access to the Indian Ocean, Myanmar is a source of envy for neighbouring countries. It should come as no surprise that the region’s most powerful players like China and Japan are competing with each other to establish three major South and Southeast Asian economic corridors in the country from the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean, while India is pushing for a cross-border transport system and sea route project with Myanmar. Make no mistake: None of those corridors would be complete without Myanmar due to its geographical importance. In the meantime, from the country’s west in Rakhine, to the south in Yangon and Tanintharyi, north in Kachin, central region in Mandalay and areas on the Chinese border in Shan State, 10 mega-infrastructure projects worth billions of dollars that are related to these corridors and India’s cross-border project are on their way for Myanmar..."
Source/publisher: "Belt & Road News"
2019-08-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-29
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "The Myanmar Government recently agreed to begin work on key projects under the China Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) agreement which is part of Chinese’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative. Experts, including voices from the World Bank, have pointed out that Myanmar’s growth will largely depend on major BRI infrastructure projects that get underway this year. The 1,700-kilometre-long CMEC will start in China’s Yunnan Province, go through Myanmar’s major economic cities – Mandalay in central Myanmar, the commercial capital of Yangon—and reach the coast at Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Rakhine State. The proposal includes upgrades to three major roads through Mandalay and Muse on the Myanmar side of the border with China, and some other roads in Shan State. An estimated $2 billion will be spent in the initial stages of the project which is expected to be made up of 24 projects in total..."
Source/publisher: "Belt & Road News"
2019-01-26
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "An economic zone will soon be built in Kanpaiktee at the Myanmar - China border, according to Ministry of Commerce. At the zone there will be truck parking, warehouses, and modern equipment to check installed. The President Office has ordered the central and working committee concerning building of Myanmar-China border economic cooperation zone to perform coordinated tasks and they have been carried out, claimed Deputy Minister for Commerce Aung Htoo. He continued saying that there will be basic infrastructure such as staff housing, weighing machines, and X-ray machines will all be a part of the economic zone. As China is Myanmar’s largest border trade partner, the economic zone, when complete, will help substantially in promoting local goods and services as well as create job opportunities for Myanmar citizens. It will offer a wider scope for bilateral trade cooperation including schemes to invest in factories and mills as well as develop a more robust tourism sector. Over a longer term, the economic zone is also expected to help raise exports across the border, helping to reduce the country’s trade deficit..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Eleven Media Group"
2019-07-17
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "China’s new ambassador to Myanmar said he would push for deeper “practical cooperation” on Beijing’s grand infrastructure projects in the country while working to advance bilateral relations. One day after President U Win Myint accepted the credentials of Ambassador Chen Hai in Naypyitaw, the Chinese Embassy issued a statement on Wednesday regarding their discussion in the Credentials Hall at the Presidential Palace. Chen said China and Myanmar currently maintain good relations but said he expected many new opportunities to improve it would arise. The 20th Chinese ambassador to Myanmar vowed to advance mutual trust between the two countries and deepen “practical cooperation” on the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), part of Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), under which it plans to implement more than three dozen projects, including mega-infrastructure projects, in Myanmar..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy"
2019-06-19
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "If China wants to fish in Myanmar’s troubled waters, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)-linked Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Rakhine State is a good place to cast a line; those projects will face as much controversy and objection as did the Myitsone dam near Myitkyina, the Kachin State capital, said Kyaukphyu Rural Development Association (KRDA) coordinator U Tun Kyi. “Whoever accepts Chinese projects, if those (projects) do not bring positive impacts to the Arakanese people, then we will definitely oppose them, as was done in the Myitsone campaign,” he said. His message comes after a three-day visit to Kyakphyu in July by Chinese ambassador Chen Hai, who was appointed ambassador to Myanmar just a few months ago. The Kyaukphyu visit was his first to a BRI-related project in the country. Conflict between the Arakan Army (AA) and Myanmar’s military (or Tatmadaw) has racked Rakhine State for months, displacing more than 50,000 so far and killing more than 70 local Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims since the beginning of the year. Eight townships in the north of the state—home to more than a million people—have been living without internet access since June 21 under the National League for Democracy (NLD)-led government’s internet shutdown. With the human rights situation in Rakhine State sharply deteriorating, the Chinese diplomat’s decision to visit Kyaukphyu raised eyebrows among Arakanese business circles and with observers and lawmakers, who wondered if the visit had a hidden agenda behind it..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy"
2019-08-10
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
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Sub-title: Japan-backed Thilawa Special Economic Zone is one of nation’s few economic and infrastructure success stories
Description: "Every morning hundreds of cars, trucks and other vehicles carrying factory workers squeeze into a two-lane bridge across Yangon’s Bago river. The buzz of industrial activity results in often nightmarish traffic jams, a rare phenomenon for Myanmar’s still nascent and in many ways hamstrung manufacturing sector. Initiated by then-president Thein Sein in 2013, the Japan-backed Thilawa Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is widely viewed by business leaders as Myanmar’s foremost economic success story. It also has advocates in high political places, with de facto national leader Aung San Suu Kyi repeatedly hailing Thilawa as a “crowning success” that “highlights the type of positive partnership that can be achieved between our respective public and private sectors.” The 2,500-hectare Thilawa has so far secured over US$1.6 billion in approved investment, including from multinationals such as German retail group Metro AG, US aluminum can manufacturer Ball and Japanese automaker Toyota..."
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Source/publisher: "Asia Times"
2019-08-19
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-20
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "If Myanmar is to break an addiction to methamphetamine production that has seen it become one of the world’s largest suppliers there is one country above all others that must act: China. That’s according to a report released on Tuesday that highlighted how complexities in the relationship between the two countries are being exploited by armed separatists who are producing thousands of tonnes of the drug in the “Golden Triangle” of Myanmar’s Shan state, an area that is already the world’s second-largest heroin-producing region. Chemicals used in the production of the drug have been flowing over the state’s border with China, according to the NGO International Crisis Group (ICG), which says China should take a tougher line against the drug-producing armed separatist groups seen as being under its influence. China has a complex relationship with the groups, many of which arose out of the splintering of the Communist Party of Burma and claim an ideological and cultural kinship with the People’s Republic of China. As Patrick Winn, an expert on organised crime in Southeast Asia, says: “You can see the fallout from the Chinese civil war written into the landscape of the drug trade today.”..."
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Source/publisher: "South China Morning Post"
2019-01-08
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-15
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar is sandwiched between two very large neighbours – China and India. Relations with China are not currently cordial, especially among the Myanmar people, who retain memories of numerous undue political and economic interactions and incidents. Historically, China is seen as an intruder rather than an equal partner, and even investments from China have unfair terms. In addition, regular border conflicts add to the already growing suspicion and negative image of China. India, on the other hand, plays a much smaller role. Its biggest investment in Myanmar is through the Kalaton project which is worth just US$ 8.5 million. The previous government tried a two-prong strategy – one prong to develop ties with pro-west India and another to facilitate China’s goal of having access to the Indian Ocean. China is implementing the One Belt, One Road initiative. Three interesting observations can be made about the current geopolitical situation here: First, China’s One Belt, One Road appears to exclude Myanmar. Secondly, United Wa State Army (UWSA) is taking a lead over other seven Ethnic Armed Organisations (EAOs), and is trying to replace the Myanmar government-sponsored Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement with another ceasefire agreement. Thirdly, the UWSA’s Pangsang Summit declared that the One Belt, One Road strategy of China might have positive direct impacts on Myanmar’s ethnic regions. The Pangsang Summit was held on February 22, organised by UWSA and Mongla Army/ National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA). NCA non-signatory groups – Arakan Army, Kachin Independence Army, Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, Ta’ang National Liberation Army, Shan State Army and two special guests – also attended the summit. Some attendees to Pangsang Summit are also members of United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC). The UNFC is currently negotiating with the government in order to sign the NCA. Meanwhile, the Wa group and its partners have demanded a new ceasefire agreement instead of the NCA..."
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Source/publisher: Mekong Eye
2017-03-16
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-14
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Topic: Foreign investors are still showing interest in Rakhine State despite sanctions and international pressure applied due to the political unrest. And now that the state has better access to electricity, conditions are looking better for businesses to enter the state or expand.
Topic: Foreign investors are still showing interest in Rakhine State despite sanctions and international pressure applied due to the political unrest. And now that the state has better access to electricity, conditions are looking better for businesses to enter the state or expand.
Description: "Projects related to China’s One Belt, One Road initiative remain a focus, with the Kyaukphyu special economic zone (SEZ), which comprises a deep-sea port, industrial park and housing, being a major pull of foreign direct investment (FDI) into the state. The industrial park will support businesses involved in aquaculture, livestock and garment industries while the deep-sea port and its facilities will connect Myanmar with a regional network of economies including China, India and Asean. Plans to develop the SEZ was first announced in September 2013 and a consortium led by Beijing-based CITIC Group Corporation Ltd that included Thailand’s Charoen Pokphand Group Co Ltd was awarded the project at the end of 2015. However, it was not until November last year that a framework agreement was signed between the Myanmar government and CITIC, which also saw the original price-tag of US$7.5 billion reduced to US$1.3 billion. Rakhine State chief minister U Nyi Pu said among the projects within the SEZ, Forging The Future Co Ltd and Myanmar Bright Prospect International Logistics Co Ltd have proposals to set up prawn farming, support a jetty project on Made island and build a five-star hotel on Ramree island..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times"
2019-08-12
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "Myanmar’s government signed two memorandums of understanding (MOUs) and an agreement letter with China at Beijing’s Belt and Road Forum on Thursday, detailing strengthened cooperation between the countries on the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), trade and technology. According to the Ministry of Information, Myanmar State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and Prime Minister of the People’s Republic of China Li Keqiang were present to witness the signing of the documents. The ministry’s statement said that a China-Myanmar Economic Corridor cooperation (2019-2030) MOU was signed by Myanmar’s Ministry of Planning and Finance and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s top economic planning agency. In September, a 15-point MOU for the CMEC was signed. The economic corridor is set to be part of Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which aims to construct basic infrastructure connecting key economic centers in Myanmar. Under the MOU, the governments agree to collaborate on projects in a number of sectors including basic infrastructure, construction, manufacturing, agriculture, transport, finance, human resources development, telecommunications, and research and technology..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "The Irrawaddy"
2019-04-26
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Description: "An office of China-Myanmar Economic Corridor of the China Enterprises Chamber of Commerce in Myanmar (CECCM) was inaugurated in the Myanmar capital on Friday. Speaking at the opening ceremony of the office in Zabuthiri town, Myanmar Deputy Minister of Commerce U Aung Htoo expressed his belief that the office could help offer better job opportunities for the trade link between the two countries. The 1,060-km pipeline that carries crude oil and natural gas from the Middle East to China and links Myanmar's coastal town Kyaukphyu with southwest China's Kunming city, is part of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor. Chinese Ambassador Hong Liang said the branch office in Nay Pyi Taw promotes communication and cooperation between the CECCM and relevant Myanmar government departments. It also helps the Chinese embassy better implement its work and benefits companies participating in the Belt and Road Initiative. Secretary-General of the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI) U Aung Kyi Soe said the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor Office will help entrepreneurs of the two countries run their business transparently and smoothly and also help create job opportunities for the people..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Xinhua Net"
2019-05-17
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: The Chinese-backed Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone is shaping Myanmar’s conflict with the Arakan Army. Rakhine communities will benefit little from the project while bearing many of the costs, and it ignores their calls for control over the area’s natural
Description: "Resource-rich Ramree Island, on the coast of Myanmar’s Rakhine State, has remained on the sidelines of recent violence as fighting between the Myanmar military and the Arakan Army (AA) continues to intensify. But the Myanmar government’s relations with the AA are now increasingly shaped by pressure from Beijing to advance the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ), a US$1.3 billion Chinese-backed development project based on Ramree. The Myanmar government and Chinese state-owned CITIC Group are pushing the Kyaukphyu SEZ ahead despite public opposition. There has been limited transparency and inadequate public consultation with communities affected by the project. The movement for Rakhine autonomy and federalism calls for local control of natural resources as a key tenet. If the National League for Democracy (NLD) government moves ahead with the Kyaukphyu projects without addressing these issues, it risks prolonging the conflict with the AA, making repatriation for the Rohingya increasingly risky and unlikely. “The communities hope to have their own laws, their own management, their own regulation of natural resources and government – that’s why the Rakhine people support the AA, because they want their rights,” Tun Kyi, a spokesperson for the community-based organisation the Kyaukphyu Rural Development Association, told ASEAN Today..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "ASEAN Today"
2019-05-17
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Sub-title: A Shanghai blockchain company claimed it intended to set up a special economic zone in a rebel-held border area of eastern Shan State where it would issue digital currencies and IDs to the local population.
Description: "Executives from Shellpay Internet Technology Co, in a Channel News Asia (CNA) broadcasting programme aired last December, said that the firm was granted a piece of land by the general office of “Peaceful Liberation Alliance of 7 States” in April 2018 as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) to issue digital coins and e-citizenship. Jane Zhang Hong, CEO of Shellpay and who identified herself as the director of the SEZ’s digital economy bureau, said the objective is to “improve" the "dirt-poor" locals and develop the region. She told CNA that she wanted to create “the world's first digital economy experiment with 40 million people [in Myanmar] who are dirt-poor” through a “Yongbang SEZ”. The disputed area, covering 220 square kilometres, is located within the Mong La Special Administrative Region 4 in eastern Shan. Run by the rebel group known as the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), the enclave bordering China’s Yunnan province is known for being a infamous hub for prostitution, gambling and crime. The rebels signed a Union-level ceasefire agreement in December 2011. Despite legally under Nay Pyi Taw’s sovereignty, Mong La functions more as an integral part of China than of Myanmar, with Chinese business people, linked to business activities in Yunnan, running hotels, restaurants, shops, brothels and casinos, catering for the thousand of Chinese customers visiting Mong La every day. Chinese language and Chinese yuan are used..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Myanmar Times"
2019-02-24
Date of entry/update: 2019-08-10
Grouping: Individual Documents
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