Myanmar’s military chief Senior General Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has agreed to to renegotiate the contracts for the deep seaport project in Kyaukphyu, Rakhine State, according to the report of BETV Business on 15 October.
"It is learned that the junta leader Min Aung Hlaing has agreed to discuss and negotiate the contracts signed by the governments of China and Myanmar," the report said.
Plans for Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone Project were first announced in 2013.
Kyaukpyu is also the terminus for an oil pipeline and a parallel natural gas pipeline running to Kunming, capital of southwestern China’s Yunnan Province.
Myanmar scaled down the initial price tag of Kyaukphyu deep seaport project to US$1.3 billion from $7.2 billion in 2018 over concerns about excessive debt from China.
Chinese government’s CITIC group owns 70 percent of the stakes and the rest belong to Myanmar.
Analysts warned that the strategic port along Bay of Bengal in Myanmar could lead to its political control and military use by China.
“There are concerns in India and the West that in Myanmar [Burma], the deep-water port of Kyaukpyu, to be developed and financed largely by China, could eventually also serve military purposes,” Dr. Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic studies at the New Delhi-based Center for Policy Research, wrote in March 2018 on the Nikkei Asian Review website.
Yun Sun, senior associate at the Washington-based Stimson Center and a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote in November 2017 on the Nikkei Asian Review website, “Regional security experts widely believe that the port of Gwadar in Pakistan, developed with Chinese support, has already offered military services to China’s People’s Liberation Army.”
Chellaney also wrote, “The International Monetary Fund has warned that Chinese loans, offered at rates as high as 7 percent, are contributing to unsustainable debt burdens. The price that such loans exact can extend to national sovereignty and self-respect.”
He gave an example in the handover of Hambantota port from Sri Lanka to China, comparing with heavily indebted farmer giving away his daughter to the cruel moneylender.
The implementation of Kyaukphyu port was delayed due to these reasons and local concerns under the National League for Democracy-led government.
After the military coup in 2021, the Myanmar junta and Chinese government have tried to revive this project among others with the world’s second economy.
Speaking to the Myanmar Special Economic Zone Central Committee on 12 October, Vice Senior General Soe Win, the Chairman of Committee, praised the Kyaukphyu deep seaport project which has led to the
China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) endorsed in January 2020 during the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to Myanmar.
He urged officials to finalize preparatory processes in right time during the period of renegotiation on contracts.
Since the military coup in Myanmar, China has once again accelerated its approach to investing in projects under the CMEC, showing its support to the junta.
