YANGON (Reuters) – In a muddy field in western Myanmar, hundreds of Chinese shipping containers fitted with single narrow windows stand in neat lines, empty of the refugees they were designed to host. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
China sent the gray boxes two years ago as quick and cheap housing for some of the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who fled Myanmar for Bangladesh during a military-led crackdown in 2017 that the United Nations said was conducted with genocidal intent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The empty containers near the town of Maungdaw in Rakhine state, reflect months of failed efforts to entice the Rohingya to return to Myanmar despite a diplomatic drive by neighbor and close ally China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a sharp departure from its official policy of non-interference in other countries\u2019 affairs, China has positioned itself as the key mediator in resolving the protracted crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But like the Indonesian and United Nations envoys who previously sought to mediate, China is finding the business of diplomacy tough going, with few signs that the crisis will soon be resolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The main sticking-point is a disagreement over whether the refugees will be safe in Myanmar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Myanmar says it has created safe conditions for the Rohingyas\u2019 return, but Bangladesh and the United Nations say that fighting in Rakhine and a lack of human rights guarantees make a return for the refugees dangerous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Rohingya say they will not go back without guarantees of rights now denied to them, including citizenship and freedom of movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the past two years, Chinese officials have brokered three meetings between leaders of the two countries, made multiple visits to the sprawling refugee camps housing the Rohingya in Bangladesh, hired cattle trucks to bring returnees home and even offered cash inducements, all to little avail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, China says it has made progress, even if only a few hundred Rohingya have returned home so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The issue received fresh attention when President Xi Jinping visited Myanmar on Friday for a two-day state visit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a subsequent joint statement by the neighbors, China reaffirmed its willingness to continue to mediate, while Myanmar thanked China for \u201cits understanding of the Rakhine problem, its difficulty and complications\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The visit\u2019s main focus was China\u2019s massive infrastructure projects, including a controversial hydropower dam and a deep-sea port in Rakhine, that make Myanmar a vital link in Xi\u2019s flagship Belt and Road Initiative to expand trade ties globally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two countries signed dozens of deals covering trade and infrastructure, with Myanmar agreeing to speed up implementation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Western Myanmar, with its location between booming India and Southeast Asia, is strategically important to Beijing, offering China\u2019s landlocked western provinces potential port access to the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have facilitated and hosted three foreign minister meetings between China, Myanmar, and Bangladesh to work for an early repatriation,\u201d Luo Zhaohui, China\u2019s vice foreign minister told a Jan. 10 news conference ahead of Xi\u2019s trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur efforts have paid off.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Bangladesh officials, Western diplomats in Yangon, and security analysts say China is mainly concerned with shoring up its key interests in Rakhine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In talks with the Bangladesh government, Chinese officials emphasize the importance of developing the state rather than resolving human rights issues, said a Bangladesh official familiar with the discussions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cChina wants to resolve the crisis,\u201d said another Bangladesh official. \u201cAt least, they want to start repatriation as early as possible. But they are not doing enough to oblige Myanmar to create a conducive environment for them to return.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
U.N. officials and diplomats in Yangon also say China\u2019s efforts to broker a quick solution ignore the human rights concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTheir approach is wildly simplistic,\u201d said one Yangon-based diplomat. \u201cWhat we hear is China has been pushing Myanmar and Bangladesh to just get it done. What does that mean when the conditions aren\u2019t there?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China\u2019s foreign ministry said Tuesday that \u201cpositive progress\u201d was made in the meetings it had brokered between Bangladeshi and Myanmar leaders, two of them attended by high-ranking UN officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a statement, it called the meetings \u201chard-won positive developments\u201d that should be supported by the international community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Responding to questions from Reuters, Myanmar defended the Chinese efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ko Ko Naing, an official of Myanmar\u2019s social welfare ministry, said China had been \u201chelping continuously\u201d, citing its development efforts in Rakhine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe lack of development is more important than social cohesion,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are doing many investments there. The roads are better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While more than 730,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh in 2017, hundreds of thousands are still in Myanmar, confined to camps and villages where they are denied access to healthcare and education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fresh fighting between government troops and an ethnic armed group comprised mostly of majority Rakhine Buddhists has also displaced tens of thousands of people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite the concerns over the security situation in Rakhine, China\u2019s position is that Myanmar is ready to take back the refugees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is also advocating resolving the issue through talks between Myanmar and Bangladesh, and minimizing the role of parties such as the United Nations, which runs the refugee camps, officials of both countries told Reuters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China has presented its diplomatic work in Myanmar and Bangladesh as humanitarian, but analysts and diplomats in Yangon say those efforts have broader geopolitical aims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019d say that China is not involved in the Rohingya crisis for humanitarian reasons, but for political and economic considerations,\u201d said Yun Sun, co-director of the East Asia program at the Stimson Center in Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cChina would like to be the new peacemaker in the region,\u201d she said, adding that it wanted to show how its approach to resolving the crisis could succeed where Western powers had failed. \u201cIt\u2019s a competition for leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nowkhim, a refugee leader in Kutapalong, one of the camps in Bangladesh, said the general perception among the Rohingya was that China was merely pressing Myanmar\u2019s official line and was unwilling to push it to accept their demands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A video from a meeting between refugee leaders and Chinese diplomats, seen by Reuters, shows a Chinese official saying the Rohingya should drop demands such as the right to be recognized as an ethnic group in Myanmar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Myanmar\u2019s position is that the Rohingya are Muslim migrants from the Indian sub-continent and not one of the country\u2019s ethnic groups \u2013 which would technically grant them citizenship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey are not willing to solve our problem easily,\u201d said Nowkhim. \u201cThey are just showing the world that \u2018we meet with Rohingya\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beijing\u2019s last major effort to kickstart repatriation was in August after Myanmar compiled a list of 3,000 Rohingya approved for return. But that effort failed after hundreds of the refugees on the list went into hiding to avoid being sent back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Standing in one of the refugee camps in Bangladesh at the time, a Chinese diplomat said that someone needed to make the first move to send the Rohingya back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Myanmar officials waited on the other side of the border, but not a single refugee volunteered to return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Only about 400 refugees have since returned separately, Myanmar says. Rohingya leaders say most of the returnees have close ties to the Myanmar government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Myanmar has also rebuffed some of China\u2019s efforts, last year rejecting a proposal for refugees to visit Rakhine to assess conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A local businessman tasked with assembling the donated containers said he saw little point in continuing with his work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPeople haven\u2019t stayed in the houses for two years,\u201d said the businessman, who sought anonymity. \u201cI will stop building this year,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe situation has not changed, right?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
YANGON (Reuters) – In a muddy field in western Myanmar, hundreds of Chinese shipping containers fitted with single narrow windows stand in neat lines, empty of the refugees they were designed to host. China sent the gray boxes two years ago as quick and cheap housing for some of the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims who fled Myanmar for… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":150,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/150"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3836,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3835\/revisions\/3836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/eastasiaandoceaniablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}