Silk Road sweeteners: China woos Myanmar’s NLD with junkets
The National League for Democracy was forged in an uprising against one-party rule. Its activists spent years in jail under Myanmar’s military junta. But since taking power three years ago, the party led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has found an unlikely ally – the Chinese Communist Party.
The friendship has blossomed in high-level exchanges between Suu Kyi and Chinese leaders, but also in interactions between party members on visits that mix tours of container terminals or education projects with boozy dinners and shopping trips.
The trips are part of a push to make Myanmar a vital stop on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative, offering to build deep-sea ports, hydropower dams and economic zones in a country desperate for investment.
Shoon Naing and Simon Lewis
