China Opens New Shipping Route to Myanmar From South China Sea

By The Irrawaddy 2 November 2022

Within the newest signal of its rising ties with Myanmar’s army regime, China has opened a direct delivery route linking its worldwide port within the South China Sea to Myanmar’s enterprise hub, Yangon.

Named after the Beibu Gulf Port complicated in Guangxi Province, the brand new Beibu Gulf Port-Myanmar delivery route was opened final Friday, the Chinese language Embassy in Myanmar introduced on its Fb web page.

The embassy stated the brand new delivery route would add to these within the RCEP area, referring to the Regional Complete Financial Partnership, a free-trade settlement grouping Asia-Pacific international locations.

Signed in November 2020, the RCEP is the primary free-trade settlement between the largest economies in Asia together with China, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea.

The brand new path to Myanmar was collectively launched by Beibu Gulf Port Group and SITC Container Strains (Shanghai). The embassy stated 4 cargo ships will journey the route weekly.

The ships will name at ports in different coastal cities in China, Malaysia and Indonesia earlier than arriving in Yangon.

Cargo will attain Yangon 12 days after departure from Qinzhou Port (certainly one of Beibu Gulf’s three ports) in Guangxi. SITC stated the brand new route will drastically scale back enterprises’ logistics and storage prices.

Beibu Gulf Port and Yangon Port of Myanmar signed an settlement in September 2019 to determine a sister port relationship, offering favorable situations for Myanmar to strengthen cooperation with ports within the pan-Beibu Gulf area, China Each day reported in 2020.

The inauguration of the delivery route follows final month’s opening of a Chinese language-backed energy plant that varieties an essential a part of the China-Myanmar Financial Hall (CMEC) scheme in Myanmar’s western Rakhine State, and additional alerts that Beijing is shifting ahead with its tasks in post-coup, conflict-torn Myanmar.

China is a serious investor in Myanmar, and has positioned significance on tasks that may give it entry to the Indian Ocean. A vital a part of Beijing’s Belt and Highway Initiative, the estimated 1,700-km-long CMEC will join Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province in southwest China, with Myanmar’s main financial hubs—linking first with Mandalay in central Myanmar, then forking east to Yangon and west to the Kyaukphyu SEZ in Rakhine State.

Not like different international locations that condemned the Myanmar army’s 2021 coup, China referred to it as merely “a cupboard reshuffle.” Together with Russia, it has backed the regime on the UN, leaving the Safety Council unable to take motion towards the junta, which has killed greater than 2,400 folks to date.

Throughout a go to to China in April this yr, the regime’s international minister, Wunna Maung Lwin, obtained a heat welcome from his Chinese language counterpart Wang Yi. Beijing stated it might assist safeguard Myanmar’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity “irrespective of how the state of affairs adjustments”.