China’s key role in helping Aung San Suu Kyi reconcile Myanmar’s decades-long ethnic conflicts
Beijing’s influence over most powerful minorities along Yunnan border could help reverse its declining image in impoverished southeast Asian nation
Beijing is heavily involved in Myanmar’s peace process, which has culminated in historic talks this week between the de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and various armed ethnic groups.
Underlining China’s major role, Beijing’s special envoy for Asian affairs, Sun Guoxiang was invited to attend the talks aimed at settling nearly seven decades of armed conflicts in the impoverished, strife-ridden Southeastern Asian nation.
Myanmar’s ethnic rebels backed by former Chinese soldiers
Suu Kyi has pulled out all the stops to secure the participation of all the major armed ethnic groups in the talks, the first time since the 1947 Panglong Conference, named after a small town in Myanmar’s southern Shan State.
Suu Kyi’s father General Aung San was a main architect of the original Panglong Agreement, which paved the way for a united modern-day Myanmar. But the deal fell apart and peace proved to be short-lived as the nation plunged into decades-long brutal armed conflicts and ethnic strife soon after its independence from British rule in 1948.
Representatives from 17 out of the 20 major ethnic groups, including the Karen, Kachin, Shan and Wa – who together make up 40 per cent of the country’s population – are attending the conference which started on Wednesday.