Top China diplomat talks refugee crisis with Myanmar leaders
NAYPYITAW, Myanmar — China’s foreign minister said Sunday that the international community must help fight poverty and promote development in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, which has seen hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims flee amid a military crackdown.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi made the comments after meeting in Myanmar’s capital, Naypyitaw, with the country’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, as well as its president, Htin Kyaw, and its powerful military chief, Min Aung Hlaing.
More than 600,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Rakhine for neighbouring Bangladesh since late August, when the military launched what it called “clearance operations” in response to insurgent attacks. The refugees say soldiers and Buddhist mobs attacked them and burned their villages to force them to flee.
The campaign has been described by the United Nations as “ethnic cleansing” and drawn widespread outrage from the international community. China, a long-standing friend of Myanmar during the Southeast Asian country’s isolation from the West, has been helping shield Myanmar from the criticism.