Amidst Crisis and Conflict in Burma, ‘Opportunist’ China Maintains Its Interests: Southeast Asia Analyst

News Analysis Burma (also known as Myanmar) is in the news for many reasons these days, and China runs like an underlying thread through almost all of them: its intensifying civil war, the mediation process, or more broadly, the politics, foreign policy, trade, defense or the neighbors of the southeast Asian country. China’s footprint in Burma is not a new phenomenon, most obviously because of the long border—1,375 miles—that China shares with Burma, connecting the smaller nation’s giant neighbor with the Indian Ocean. Not only has China invested heavily in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the conflicted country, but it has also allegedly established a spy base on Burma’s Great Coco Island....