Myanmar pushes back against BRI

New Delhi: Myanmar has decided to involve international partners in the Chinese funded mega Yangon City Project, a key pillar of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the Southeast Asian country, marking another pushback against China. The Myanmar government has decided to open up the project for other foreign firms besides China Communications Construction Company (CCCC), as it is not keen that one single company dominates the mega project, according to people aware of the matter.The project has been a source of controversy due to its flood-prone location as well as the CCCC’s involvement, said the people. The Hong Kong-listed, Chinese state-owned company has been accused of corruption relating to development deals in at least 10 countries in Africa and Asia, they said. The CCCC has been accused of being party to a major corruption scandal in Malaysia involving a former PM.During Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Myanmar early this year, the two sides had inked a letter of intent on the development of Yangon City, including the new city project. The Yangon regional government-backed New Yangon Development Company (NYDC) initially signed a $1.5-billion framework agreement in 2018 with Beijing-based CCCC to draw up a proposal for the infrastructure project.The New Yangon City project is an element of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), which is part of the BRI. The CMEC will connect Yunnan province in China to Mandalay in central Myanmar, Yangon New City in the south and the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone in the west. U Khine Win, executive director of the Sandhi Governance Institute, Myanmar, welcomed the compartmentalisation of the project, saying it reduced the risk for Myanmar, at least lowering the possibility that a sole Chinese company will dominate the whole project, according to a report published by The Irrawaddy, Myanmar’s leading English news website.While Myanmar has joined the BRI and signed up to certain projects that may give China access to the Bay of Bengal, project implementation has been slow. Myanmar remains wary of Chinese debt trap and has reduced Chinese footprints in some projects.In the past few months Myanmar’s generals have publicly expressed their anguish against the government citing China’s duplicity in supporting the peace process with insurgent groups while at the same time supplying arms to the insurgent groups in the country. The generals have sought to expand Myanmar’s partnership with India to balance Chinese inroads into the country.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/3jTTIQB