Myanmar State Counsellor s Office
China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi voiced support for Myanmar’s peace talks with ethnic armed groups and called for faster progress on major Chinese-led infrastructure projects in its Southeast Asian neighbor, statements and reports from the two countries said Tuesday.
Wang, the first foreign minister to visit Myanmar since Nov. 8 elections returned Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) to office for a second five-year term, brought donations of COVID-19 medical supplies to Myanmar, his first stop on a tour that also includes Indonesia, Brunei and the Philippines.
China’s top diplomat met with civilian and military leaders, discussing the pace of progress and security of the Myanmar-China corridor, a key part of multi-billion-dollar Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) of trade-facilitating infrastructure projects, Chinese state media said.
Facebook / Zayar Lwin
Rights groups working to free political prisoners in Myanmar have called on the government and others in the country to arrive at an agreed definition of the term, saying that vague laws have led to the jailing of hundreds engaged only in peaceful protest, slowing Myanmar’s democratic transition.
Presidential Office spokesperson Zaw Htay raised eyebrows when he told reporters at a press conference in Naypyidaw on Jan. 8 that many of those now considered political prisoners in Myanmar were jailed not for political offenses, but for breaking the country’s laws.
“Someone should be considered a political prisoner only if they are arrested or sentenced to prison for staging a protest or expressing their political opinions in legal ways,” Zaw Htay said in reply to a question from RFA. “This definition does not apply to anyone who is arrested for breaking an existing law,” he said.