China needs oil but its sea main supply route through the Strait of Malacca is vulnerable.
Pipelines through Pakistan and Myanmar provide for alternative routes.
The pipe, road and rail lines through Myanmar are not only in China s best interest but also a great chance for Myanmar to further develop. They are in its national interest.
The U.S. and its allies are hostile to China. Threatening to cut its oil supplies is probably the most powerful tool in their box. Any alternative supply routes for China make this tool less powerful. The idea then is to prevent the possible use of these routes.
More than three months after Myanmar’s military staged a coup on February 1, the protests to restore civilian rule continue across the country.
In the southern city of Dawei, hundreds of engineers, teachers, and university students marched peacefully on Saturday.
In other areas, mass peaceful protests are still being broken up by force, while in some remote areas, groups opposed to the ruling junta have occasionally ambushed security forces, leading to bloody clashes.
After the military government began using lethal force to suppress demonstrations, protesters in some towns and neighbourhoods began organising themselves into home-grown militias or defence groups.
On Wednesday, the anti-military shadow government formed by elected lawmakers who were barred from taking office by the military announced a plan to unify these local groups into a national ``People s Defence Force which would serve as a precursor to a ``Federal Union Army of democratic forces including ethnic minor
Handout from Kachinwaves website via AFP
A rebel army and a local militia have killed 40 Myanmar junta soldiers in two days of fighting this week in regions near the country’s northern and western borders, witnesses reported, in what would be the largest number of casualties inflicted on security forces since the Feb. 1 military coup.
The killing of 30 regime troops by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in the northernmost state of Kachin, and of 10 junta soldiers in the neighboring Sagaing region by a newly formed township militia were reported by villagers Friday and have not been confirmed by the rebels or the military regime.