"At the second Chinese Belt and Road Forum (BRF) attended by Myanmar’s State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi in April 2019, three MoUs were signed to strengthen cooperation on the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) integral to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This was the latest in a series of MoUs reached between China and Myanmar on the CMEC in recent years. Myanmar’s increasing dependence on China in dealing with internal and external challenges and Beijing’s ability to leverage Naypyidaw’s strategic compulsions to its advantage has been a defining featuring of the current bilateral relationship. China has been extending political and financial support to the Myanmar government in managing the country’s ethnic conflicts along their shared borderlands and protecting it at the United Nations for atrocities against the Rohingyas. China-Myanmar relations entered a difficult phase soon after Myanmar initiated political reforms in 2011. Suspension of the Chinese-backed Myitsone dam and outflow of refugees into China as ethnic conflicts intensified along China-Myanmar borders sparking tensions between the two countries. Concerns over increased involvement of Western countries in Myanmar’s ethnic peace process in the following years and the desire to push forward the BRI motivated Beijing to improve ties with the Myanmar government. Subsequently, relations improved when Aung Sun Suu Kyi’s party the National League for Democracy (NLD) came to power in early 2016. This coincided with increasing international condemnation of Myanmar over the handling of the Rohingya crisis, particularly after August 2017. China aligned itself with the Myanmar government’s interests on the Rohingya crisis and the ethnic peace process. This allowed Beijing to minimise the role of other external players, on the one hand and obtain strategic projects in Myanmar, on the other. China and Myanmar signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation within “the Framework of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative” in May 2017 when Aung San Suu Kyi attended the first Chinese BRF. Five months later, the CMEC was proposed and an official agreement on the “Y-shaped” corridor was signed September 2018 to connect China’s Kunming to Mandalay and then extending east and west respectively to Yangon and Kyaukpyu..."