Reports: Chinese investments to tap Myanmar’s energy resources increasing
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  • Recent reports, including from the environmental groups, EarthRights International and Arakan Oil Watch, detail the involvement of some 69 Chinese multinational corporations in at least 90 hydropower, mining and oil and gas projects across Myanmar. Analysts note that the growing commitments were a testament to China's pragmatic approach to commercial diplomacy and underscore its interest in maintaining Myanmar's political status quo.

    China's Myanmar investments focus mainly on energy and natural resources, required in ever-larger quantities to fuel its fast-expanding industrialization and urbanization. Chinese projects range from hydropower dams to the highly ambitious and controversial Shwe Gas pipeline that is projected to cross the length of Myanmar to transport fuel to China's landlocked southern Yunnan province. The pipeline project would also help China circumvent the congested Straits of Malacca, through which over 70 per cent of its current oil and gas imports pass.

    Reports also note that India and Thailand aggressively jockey for access to the resources of Myanmar, in contrast to the US and Europe, which subject the country to strict trade and investment sanctions in protest against its human rights record. Those curbs were recently augmented by so-called "smart sanctions" aimed at hitting the private resources of senior junta members and their top business associates1.

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