On January 17, 2020, Chinese President Xi Jinping met with his Burmese counterpart, President Win Myint. The two-day meeting is an effort on behalf of Beijing to establish diplomatic ties with Myanmar as the international community increasingly accuses the Southeast Asian country of a genocide that forced nearly 1 million Rohingya Muslims out of the country. China’s move to offer support to a country that has been denounced by the West, while simultaneously aiming to reach strategic objectives, is a familiar one.
President Xi Jinping is expected to push for progress on the China Myanmar Economic Corridor, which is a project under China’s Belt and Road Initiative, as well as other infrastructure projects. While some of the Burmese people may welcome China’s diplomatic and economic support at a time when they are considered a pariah state by the international community, the two countries have a historically fraught relationship, and many remain wary of China’s growing influence in the country, especially of the infrastructure projects that have uprooted thousands of villagers and wreaked environmental damage.
