Why it’s Suu Kyi’s turn to mend fences with China
As Myanmar’s military distances itself from patronage of its giant neighbour, Beijing hopes democracy icon will repay its subtle courting by mending fences on her current China visit
While diplomats from the West, Japan and India paid regular visits to Aung San Suu Kyi’s compound in Yangon during the August-September 1988 uprising for democracy, their Chinese counterparts stayed away. But one day, a car from the Chinese embassy came, and an official handed over a box full of books about Tibetan Buddhism – “to Doctor Aris”, her British husband and a renowned Tibetologist. It was a subtle way of telling her and her supporters that China was not an enemy. Long before he died in 1999, Aris told me that Suu Kyi was pleased with the gesture.
Although China maintained cordial relations with the junta that ruled the country with an iron fist until a general election in 2010, more such gestures from Beijing followed over the years.
When Suu Kyi visited Beijing in June last year, she was only the leader of Myanmar’s main opposition party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), but Chinese President Xi Jinping ( 習近平 ) received her at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing as if she were a head of state. China’s leaders were aware of her popularity at home, and probably also predicted that the NLD would win the second general election in November 2015.
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In March this year, the NLD was able to form a new government. But Suu Kyi did not become head of state.
