U - Podcast

In January 2020, before the Coronavirus outbreak, Xi Jinping paid the first foreign trip to Myanmar. Both sides signed 33 agreements and MOUs, and China promised to invest in multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects. But, the question is who is a major player in Sino-Myanmar relations? The answer is the provincial-level government in Yunnan. Prof. Mierzejewski in TalkingChina#3 discusses the roles of Yunnan province in China’s policy towards Myanmar and continental South-East Asia. The first point is based on bridgehead concept delivered by Hu Jintao, the second touch the economic interactions mainly based on infrastructure projects and productivity cooperation and finally the role of a political platform for ceasefire talks between competing forces in Upper Myanmar. The podcast concludes the majority of policies towards Myanmar are not created by the government in Beijing, but rather are prepared by local authorities in Kunming and ones the lobbying in the central government is successful the policy turns