Myanmar’s stalled China-backed Myitsone dam project strained bilateral ties for years — now it could be scaled back or moved

A top Myanmar investment official on Tuesday suggested scaling back or relocating a stalled Chinese-backed hydropower project that has strained ties between the neighbours for nearly a decade.

The suggestion follows a statement by the Chinese Embassy in Myanmar earlier this month that said civil society organisations in Kachin state supported the planned project. Hundreds of households had already been forced to relocate before work was halted.

In 2011, Myanmar’s quasi-civilian government suspended the US$3.6 billion Myitsone hydropower project in the country’s north amid environmental concerns, upsetting relations with China.

Asked about the project at an investment conference, Thaung Tun, chairman of Myanmar’s investment commission, listed several problems, from an earthquake fault line running under the project site to a large catchment area affecting residents.

“[The] catchment area would be twice the size of Singapore. This would mean that a lot of villages will have been displaced from their accessible land. That is the issue,” Thaung Tun told reporters at the conference in the capital Naypyidaw.