Dear Mr President,
I would like to draw your attention on Burma. As you know, your friend and colleague State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint are under house arrest since 1st February 2021. She had a good and warm working relationship with yourself and your party. She is a pragmatic politician and has done her best to maintain a good relationship between our countries although she faced enormous challenges inside her country.
Her party won a landslide victory in November 8 election. However, the army chief Min Aung Hlaing has staged a coup. I can understand that you don’t want to involve in Burma’s internal affair. But I would like to point out a few things to reconsider your position. If Min Aung Hlaing is still in power, the mother of all sanctions will come. These sanctions in combination with Covid will be a perfect storm for Burma. US and the west will have no choice because Min Aung Hlaing will be issued with an arrest warrant by ICC and they have to sanction him for that. His coup won’t help him either because there will be no Aung San Suu Kyi to protect him this time.
If sanction is not enough, Covid disease will spread not only in Burma but it will threaten the world including China. In addition, there will be arms uprising if the military crash prodemocracy protesters. There will be a civil war and Burma will become a failed state. This won’t help China’s BRI project and safety of your pipeline.. Moreover, if China veto any resolution in UNSC, there will be more anti China sentiment inside Burma.
In the past, these anti China sentiment is largely promoted by the military intelligent agents using fake accounts under the command of Gen Min Aung Hlaing because he doesn’t want to see a close relationship between Aung San Suu Kyi and President Xi. If you look back his interview in Russia, he is implicating China as a supporter of ethnic armed group. If China is not helping the legitimate government of Burma, we will have no choice but to invite western troops to come and help us. I don’t think that China would like to see any western troops at its door step, The CRPH (The committee representing members of parliament) does have the power to invite foreign troops to protect Burmese people without UNSC.
I would like to urge President Xi to put pressure on Min Aung Hlaing to restore democracy in Burma and urged him to release President Win Myint and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. If President Xi say it publicly, people will love China and anti China sentiment will change inside Burma. As an Icelandic proverb said “When your neighbour’s wall breaks, your own is in danger”, please help us by putting pressure on the coup leader Min Aung Hlaing.
Comments