"“If this is an internal affair, why are you helping the junta?” read another. The nearly-daily rallies at the gates of the Chinese mission forced a response from China’s ambassador to the country, Chen Hai, who said on Tuesday that “the current development in Myanmar is absolutely not what China wants to see”. Beijing was “not informed in advance of the political change in Myanmar,” Hai said, dismissing as “ridiculous” rumours that China was helping the military consolidate its rule by flying in technical personnel and troops. Part of the speculation about Beijing’s alleged backing for the military’s power grab stems from China’s refusal to unequivocally condemn the coup, which took place just weeks after a meeting between China’s top diplomat Wang Yi and Min Aung Hlaing, Myanmar’s commander-in-chief and current head of the military government. During the January 12 meeting in Myanmar’s capital, Naypyidaw, the senior general – who is said to harbour presidential ambitions – repeated his claims that widespread fraud had occurred in a November election that returned civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) to power. The coup has brought Myanmar’s experiment with democracy to a halt, only a decade after the end of nearly 50 years of strict military rule. It prompted mass protests and international condemnation, with the United States has already imposed targeted sanctions on the generals who led the coup. Other countries are expected to impose similar curbs although campaigners want to avoid a return to the punishing sanctions that were enforced following the military’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in 1988, as well as its refusal to honour the results of an election that the NLD won in 1990..."