Myanmar junta chief meets China’s Xi for first time since coup

Myanmar’s junta chief met China’s president for the first time since seizing power, state media reported Saturday, the highest-level meeting with a key ally for the internationally sanctioned military leader. Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing led a military coup in 2021 overthrowing Myanmar’s brief experiment with democracy and plunging the nation into civil war. In the four years since, his armed forces have battled dozens of ethnic armed groups and rebel militias—some with close links to China—opposed to its rule. The conflict has seen Min Aung Hlaing draw condemnation from rights groups and pursued by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, but he has maintained close ties to allies China and Russia. He met Beijing’s leader Xi Jinping in Moscow on the sidelines of Russia’s Victory Day celebrations on Friday and thanked China for its humanitarian assistance following a 7.7-magnitude earthquake in March, reported junta media outlet The Global New Light of Myanmar. He also thanked China “for its support of Myanmar’s stance on regional and international fronts,” it said. Chinese state media Xinhua news reported that Xi expressed his country’s support for Myanmar pursuing development “suited to its national conditions, safeguarding its sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and national stability, and steadily advancing its domestic political agenda.” Xi said he hoped Myanmar would take “concrete measures to ensure the safety of Chinese personnel, institutions and projects in Myanmar, and intensify efforts to combat cross-border crimes.” More than 6,600 people have been killed since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, and millions displaced. Concerned about the violence on its doorstep destabilising regional peace and its economic ambitions, China has reportedly mediated talks between Myanmar’s junta and key rebel groups. China is a major ally and arms supplier to the junta, but analysts say it also maintains ties with ethnic armed groups in Myanmar that hold territory near its border. Beijing has long been eyeing Myanmar’s resource-rich northern Shan State—now under rebel control—for infrastructure investment under its trillion-dollar Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. While Min Aung Hlaing’s Friday meeting with Xi was his first time in his role as junta chief, the general had previously met the Chinese leader in Myanmar’s capital Naypyitaw in January 2020, a year before seizing power.

Myanmar junta chief meets China’s Xi for first time since coup

The two leaders met in Moscow on the sidelines of Russia’s Victory Day celebrations on Friday

Subscribe for full access

On the road to Namtu

‘Can We Go Home?’: Civilians trapped in Bhamo fighting

Beyond Beijing’s reach, a new resistance alliance takes shape in Myanmar

Between resistance and the ballot box: Assessing the second phase of Myanmar’s junta-controlled elections

Junta airstrikes cause casualties across four states, regions over two days

Wa troops join Myanmar military in raid on northern Shan State scam centre

Novice monk among five killed in junta airstrike on Sagaing Region monastery

Junta airstrike hits monastery shelter in Sagaing, killing father and son

‘New levels of depravity’: Myanmar’s crisis worsens five years after coup, Human Rights Watch warns

KIA set to fully resume rare earth mining in captured ‘special region’

Myanmar junta airstrikes kill three civilians sheltering in Rakhine State monastery

Myanmar’s factories cling to life as power shortages persist

Bought Out or Seized: Mandalay farmers face impossible choices amid land grab

Myanmar junta partners with Chinese firm to build natural gas terminal despite Rakhine State conflict

Thai officials call on Myanmar regime to crack down on fraud, trafficking gangs on Thai-Karen State border

Myanmar military continues to lose ground to anti-junta forces in northern Shan State

Despite escalating violence, Myanmar junta leader says elections will proceed

NUG-founded bank set to sell shares to meet ‘emergency needs’

Myanmar’s junta bears ‘sole responsibility’ for Suu Kyi’s health—NLD

Karenni youth fight for freedom at the cost of their lives and limbs

The mothers of the Magway resistance

A Myanmar artist finds freedom behind bars—by portraying prisoners’ oppression

As Myanmar’s revolution beckons, a new breed of activist photographers heeds the call

The man behind the Myanmar junta’s campaign of terror in Sagaing

Authorities tighten restrictions on passport process for Myanmar nationals in Thailand

Subscribe for full access

Related Articles