"China’s active diplomatic efforts in trying to resolve the “Rohingya” issue can facilitate a rapprochement between Myanmar and Bangladesh that strengthens their trilateral cooperation through the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) and secures a second corridor for Beijing to the Afro-Asian (“Indian”) Ocean complementing the one that it’s already pioneered through the global pivot state of Pakistan via CPEC. Xinhua reported earlier this week that China, Myanmar, and Bangladesh held their third informal Foreign Minister meeting since last year on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly and agreed to three points of consensus on the “Rohingya” issue that’s plagued bilateral relations between Beijing’s two Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) partners for the past two years already. The outlet described the outcome of their talks as resulting in “the strong political will and important political consensus of the three parties to realize the repatriation as soon as possible”; “unanimously agree[ing] to establish a China-Myanmar-Bangladesh Joint Working Group mechanism…to be responsible for the concrete implementation of repatriation-related work”; and that “development is the fundamental way to solve the Rakhine issue”. Interestingly, this is exactly what the author proposed in his September 2017 analysis about “The Rohingya Crisis: Conflict Scenarios And Reconciliation Proposals“. China’s interest in the “Rohingya” issue stems from the lasting impact that it could have on the stability of Myanmar and Bangladesh if it’s not responsibly resolved, which could in turn jeopardize its investments in both of them and especially the viability of its planned China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) that will run parallel to its existing pipelines through the country to connect the Yunnan capital of Kunming with the port of Kyaukphyu. This corridor to the Afro-Asian (“Indian”) Ocean is expected to complement the existing one that China already pioneered through the global pivot state of Pakistan via BRI’s flagship project of CPEC and thus ensure the reliability of the Silk Road across the Eastern Hemisphere’s centrally positioned body of water by avoiding the increasingly militarized South China Sea and the US Navy-controlled choke point of the Strait of Malacca. As regards China’s interests in Bangladesh’s stability, the South Asian state is one of its closest regional partners and has already been the recipient of approximately $38 billion worth of investments..."