Analysis | As Myanmar embraces China, can it reap the rewards?

Myanmar pulled the plug on its controversial Beijing-backed Myitsone dam project in 2011 but has since opened the floodgates to cooperation on other large-scale infrastructure

Now a major part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the task for officials is to win over a sceptical public, and make sure the benefits trickle down to all

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The site of the Myitsone dam project in Myanmar’s Kachin State. Photo: Oliver Slow

Published: 8:30am, 31 Oct 2019Updated: 2:56pm, 18 Dec 2019

Myanmar’s decision-makers have interacted with Chinese partners on infrastructure and investment projects in a seemingly dichotomous manner in recent years. But in a sense, their decisions reflect a practical logic that takes into account the concerns of both the communities affected and the population at large. The abrupt suspension in 2011 of a billion-dollar hydropower dam project at Myitsone in Kachin State, and more recent agreements entered into by the current government to bring Myanmar closer into the orbit of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, present contrasting examples of Myanmar’s approach to Chinese projects. They also illustrate the practical logic that characterises that approach.

Myanmar hit the pause button in its infrastructure deals with China in September 2011, when the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) government led by former 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 construction should be resumed, and of whether something else could be done with the project, has become a heated and emotional issue.

People in Waimaw, Kachin State, protest against the Myitsone dam project. Photo: AFP

In today’s Myanmar, the democratically elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government now 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 2018. 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 1,700km 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.

The CMEC project raises a series of issues that some view as a greater threat than the Myitsone dam. While the Myanmar government is not noted for taking bold moves or making firm decisions on complex issues, the CMEC may represent an exception, not least because it is linked to the Belt and Road Initiative. How then should the country go forward as a relative newcomer to the belt and road experience, with the lessons available from other parts of the region and the globe?

FLOOD OF CONTROVERSY