"Myanmar’s former military junta inked the $3.6 billion deal for the hydropower project located on the Irrawaddy River in 2009, according to Reuters, with Myanmar’s military linked Asia World Co. and China’s State Owned utility company China Power Investment Corp. tasked with its construction. Work on the dam was suspended in September 2011 by then Myanmar’s President Thein Sein after public protests. At the time, Aung San Suu Kyi, before she became the leader of the current quasi-civilian Government in Myanmar, was one of the voices of opposition. Suu Kyi once said the dam would threaten the flow of the Irrawaddy River, and force the relocation of more than 10,000 people from 63 nearby villages, according to Reuters. But after Suu Kyi became head of the ruling National League for Democracy party and the effective prime minister of the country, Beijing began to exact pressure to resume the dam’s construction. In June 2016, a delegation headed by China’s Ambassador to Myanmar travelled to Kachin to lobby for restarting the dam project, according to news magazine Frontier Myanmar. Most recently, in November 2018, the magazine reported that the Chinese regime wanted the project to be packaged as part of its One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative, and conveyed the message that other OBOR projects in Myanmar’s wouldn’t proceed unless the dam is restarted..."