There is an uncomfortable question worth asking about Myanmar’s modern history:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Did the country’s attention become so consumed by communal conflict and anti-Muslim hatred that other major economic and strategic developments received far less public scrutiny?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The question deserves investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But we should distinguish carefully between documented history, reasonable inference and speculation<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Myitsone hydropower project was one of the largest Chinese-backed infrastructure projects in Myanmar. The proposed dam, at the confluence of the Mali and May Kha rivers\u2014the beginning of the Ayeyarwady\u2014was designed with a capacity of about 6,000 MW<\/strong> and an estimated construction cost of roughly US$3.6 billion<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The project was strongly opposed by many Kachin communities, environmental groups and, increasingly, people across Myanmar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The opposition became a nationwide campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On 11 August 2011, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi publicly appealed for the Ayeyarwady to be protected and called for the project to be reassessed. International Rivers records that her intervention helped bring the campaign to international attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then, on 30 September 2011<\/strong>, President U Thein Sein announced the suspension of the project during the term of his government, saying that the government had to respect the will of the people. Contemporary reporting described the decision as a response to growing public opposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is an important historical lesson:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Public opinion in Myanmar could, under certain circumstances, force even a government closely associated with the military establishment to reconsider a major Chinese-backed project.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The original post is therefore correct about the significance of the Myitsone campaign, although the stronger claim that the Generals and China became frightened specifically because approximately 720 other projects were at risk needs documentary evidence before it can be presented as fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Myitsone controversy occurred alongside a much wider expansion of China-Myanmar economic and strategic relations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Kyaukphyu area in Rakhine State became particularly important because of the oil and natural-gas pipelines connecting Myanmar’s Bay of Bengal coast with Yunnan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n China and Myanmar agreed to develop the oil and gas pipeline projects in 2008\u201309. Construction began in 2009. The gas pipeline subsequently began transporting gas to China in 2013, while the oil pipeline was completed in 2014 and began operations later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n These pipelines were strategically significant to China because they provided an alternative route for energy imports that reduced reliance on the Malacca Strait. The gas pipeline could carry up to about 12 billion cubic metres of gas annually<\/strong>, while the crude-oil pipeline was designed to transport imported oil from the Indian Ocean coast into southwestern China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Therefore, the original post is right to draw attention to the importance of the Kyaukphyu-Yunnan corridor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But one must be careful about chronology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Myitsone dam was suspended in September 2011. The pipelines were already under construction by then.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n That means it is reasonable to study whether the suspension affected China’s broader Myanmar strategy, but it would be too strong to state as established fact that the Myitsone campaign was deliberately suppressed or redirected into an anti-Rohingya campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The original post proposes that an anti-Rohingya online campaign emerged after the Myitsone controversy and that public attention was subsequently diverted from resource projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is an intriguing hypothesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But we have not found reliable documentary evidence establishing a coordinated plan in which the military or Chinese interests deliberately created anti-Rohingya propaganda in order to conceal pipeline construction.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n That distinction matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The chronology we can document is different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Myitsone controversy reached its peak in 2011<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Communal violence in Rakhine State escalated dramatically in 2012<\/strong>. Human Rights Watch documented serious abuses against Rohingya Muslims following the June 2012 violence, including killings, rape and mass arrests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Human Rights Watch subsequently described the displacement of more than 125,000 Rohingya and other Muslims and characterised the campaign as ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anti-Muslim violence then spread beyond Rakhine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meiktila experienced major violence in March 2013, followed by attacks in several other parts of the country. The U.S. State Department’s religious-freedom reporting documented the spread of anti-Muslim violence and the use of social media, pamphlets and DVDs to propagate anti-Muslim messages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 969 movement and nationalist Buddhist networks also became increasingly prominent in this period. Human Rights Watch documented hate speech, boycotts of Muslim businesses and campaigns against Muslim marriage and conversion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So there certainly was an expanding anti-Muslim information environment<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What we cannot presently prove is that it was deliberately created as a diversion from the China-Myanmar pipelines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The original post says that the anti-Rohingya online campaign began because the BBC published a map identifying Rohingya as an ethnic minority of Myanmar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I would not publish this as a factual statement without stronger evidence<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The history of anti-Rohingya discrimination and the denial of Rohingya identity considerably predates the BBC map controversy. The 1982 citizenship framework, restrictions on movement and marriage, exclusion from political participation, and long-standing official use of terms such as “Bengali” all belong to a much longer history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The BBC map may have become a particular flashpoint in online arguments, but that is not the same as demonstrating that it started<\/strong> the anti-Rohingya campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That distinction will make the MMNN article much stronger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is another important correction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The evidence now available establishes a long history of persecution, discrimination, forced displacement and violence against Rohingya communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission concluded that the Myanmar military’s 2017 clearance operations involved genocidal acts and found an inference of genocidal intent. It also warned in 2019 that the threat of genocide continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, the legal question before the International Court of Justice remains formally unresolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ICJ held public hearings on the merits of The Gambia v. Myanmar<\/strong> from 12\u201329 January 2026. On 29 January 2026, the Court announced that it had begun deliberations; a judgment has not yet been delivered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Therefore, MMNN can accurately say:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The Rohingya have suffered persecution and atrocities that UN investigators have found included genocidal acts and evidence of genocidal intent.”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n But we should not write as though the ICJ has already issued a final judgment determining genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The original post contains a series of extraordinary claims concerning:<\/p>\n\n\n\n These are precisely the claims that require the greatest caution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some historical sources confirm the involvement of China Power Investment (CPI)<\/strong> and Asia World<\/strong>, and an academic chronology records a reported ownership structure of approximately 80% CPI, 15% Myanmar Ministry of Electric Power and 5% Asia World. It also records a 6,000-MW project and a 50-year concession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, I have not found sufficiently reliable primary documentation to verify all of the spectacular financial and mineral-extraction figures reproduced in the Facebook post<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Therefore, I would not present those figures as established MMNN facts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, we can say:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “A widely circulated Burmese-language account makes extensive claims about natural resources allegedly extracted during the Myitsone preparatory works. These claims require independent documentary verification and should not be treated as established facts merely because they have been repeatedly reproduced online.”<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n There is nevertheless an important historical point that should not be lost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The suspension of Myitsone did not<\/strong> stop all major China-Myanmar energy projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The oil and gas pipelines continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The gas pipeline began operating in 2013, and the oil pipeline was completed in 2014. The projects survived substantial domestic controversy and local opposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Research on the pipeline corridor has documented disputes over land, environmental effects, local livelihoods and the distribution of benefits. Community activism along the pipeline route also developed partly in the aftermath of the Myitsone campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This suggests a more defensible conclusion:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Myanmar’s public attention was divided among several enormous and simultaneous crises\u2014ethnic conflict, communal violence, political transition, resource extraction and Chinese infrastructure projects.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Whether anyone deliberately engineered that fragmentation is a separate question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For me, the most important lesson is not that we should automatically believe every conspiracy theory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nor should we automatically dismiss one simply because it sounds uncomfortable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We should investigate.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Myitsone campaign demonstrated that ordinary Myanmar people, environmentalists, ethnic communities, intellectuals, journalists and civil-society organisations could collectively influence a major national decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But Myanmar’s subsequent history also demonstrated how quickly public attention could be consumed by communal fear, ethnic conflict and anti-Muslim hatred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Rohingya crisis was not imaginary. The persecution was real. The displacement was real. The atrocities were real. And the international investigations into the 2017 military operations produced extremely serious findings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, we must not turn a serious historical question into an unproven accusation<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If someone deliberately used communal hatred to divert public attention from natural resources, infrastructure or economic interests, that would be an extremely serious historical matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But the correct response is not to declare it proven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The correct response is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n And ask:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Who benefited?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Who lost land, livelihood and security?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Which contracts were signed, when and by whom?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Which projects continued while the country was consumed by communal conflict?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Who controlled the information reaching the public?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n And perhaps most importantly:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The answer should have been\u2014and still should be\u2014yes<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Myanmar does not have to choose between protecting the Ayeyarwady, welcoming responsible investment, respecting ethnic nationalities, protecting Muslims and Rohingya, and developing its economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A country belongs to all its people. Its rivers, forests, minerals and future should serve all its people\u2014not merely those powerful enough to control them.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n UNITY IN DIVERSITY. JUSTICE FOR ALL.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A Personal Warning About the Diversion Theory<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The theory that anti-Rohingya mobilisation was deliberately encouraged to divert public attention from China’s strategic projects did not arise from nowhere. Some Myanmar observers, including people who claimed access to sensitive information, circulated maps and other material suggesting a connection between communal tensions and the rapidly developing China\u2013Myanmar pipeline corridor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I personally received some such material and, on other occasions, information from sources whose identities and access I considered significant enough to publish material supplied by them. Some of those sources provided information that subsequently proved useful or noteworthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But experience with a source is not the same thing as independent proof of every claim made by that source.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Therefore, the existence of the theory\u2014and the fact that credible-looking information was circulated\u2014can be documented as part of the history of the debate. The stronger proposition that the anti-Rohingya campaign was deliberately engineered to divert attention from Chinese pipelines, however, should remain a hypothesis unless documentary evidence establishes the connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Long before the China\u2013Myanmar oil and gas pipelines existed, I personally heard a Chinese military attach\u00e9 explain why Burma’s geographical position could become strategically vital to China. In late 1988, at a Myanmar Embassy Military Day reception, in the presence of an Indian military attach\u00e9, he told me that if China ever fought the United States, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia could potentially block China’s access through the Strait of Malacca. Burma, therefore, would become extremely important as China’s land route to the Indian Ocean and as an alternative route for goods and petroleum.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n At that time, there was no discussion between us about pipelines. I am recording this as my personal recollection of a conversation\u2014not as proof of what Chinese policy makers had already decided. What is remarkable is that subsequent developments gave practical form to the strategic logic he described: China later developed roads, ports and, eventually, oil and gas pipelines through Myanmar to bypass the Malacca Strait.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cListen to the insider. Record the allegation. Check the documents. Follow the timeline. Never confuse access with proof.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Interestingly, later scholarship provides independent evidence that the underlying strategic concept was real<\/strong>, even though it cannot prove what that particular officer said to you. A 1985 Beijing Review<\/em> article by former Chinese minister Pan Qi has been cited as an early articulation of Myanmar’s importance as China’s outlet to the Indian Ocean. Later research describes Myanmar as a convenient land route to the Indian Ocean and discusses China’s concern about vulnerability at the Strait of Malacca.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And the chronology is particularly striking:<\/p>\n\n\n\n 1985<\/strong> \u2014 Chinese strategic thinking about Myanmar’s Indian Ocean access was already being publicly discussed.Myitsone: a rare victory for public pressure<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Myitsone was not an isolated China project<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The much more difficult question: did anti-Rohingya mobilisation serve as a distraction?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
One important correction: the BBC map claim<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Nor should we say that the Rohingya genocide “started” simply because of the online campaign<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What about the huge figures in the circulating Myitsone document?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The real lesson about the pipelines<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
My Comment: The question we should continue asking<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
FOLLOW THE MONEY. FOLLOW THE CONTRACTS. FOLLOW THE TIMELINE. FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE.<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Could Myanmar’s people have protected both their natural resources AND the dignity and rights of every community at the same time?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Late 1988<\/strong> \u2014 you personally recall hearing essentially this strategic logic from a Chinese military attach\u00e9.
1990s<\/strong> \u2014 China\u2013Myanmar economic and military relations deepened considerably.
2004 onward<\/strong> \u2014 feasibility discussions concerning China\u2013Myanmar pipelines began.
2007\u201308<\/strong> \u2014 the oil\/gas pipeline plans were formally advanced.
2009\u201310<\/strong> \u2014 pipeline construction began.
2013\u201314<\/strong> \u2014 the pipelines became operational, providing China with an energy route from the Indian Ocean that bypasses the Malacca Strait.<\/p>\n\n\n\nMy fact-check verdict on the key points<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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