ZCZC
BSS-53
ROHINGYA-CHINA
China plays unique role in resolving Rohingya crisis: Envoy
DHAKA, Nov 24, 2019 (BSS) – Chinese Ambassador in Dhaka Li Jiming today said Beijing was playing a role in finding a sustainable solution to the Rohingya crisis as his country shares Bangladesh’s concerns over the issue.
“China is trying to persuade Myanmar all the time that the eventual solution of the Rohingya issue will be beneficial to both the countries (Bangladesh and Myanmar), and I believe that the Rohingya issue will be settled in the end,” he said.
The envoy said “China cares, China contributes, and China acts” in resolving the crisis and with its traditional friendship with Bangladesh and Myanmar Beijing “will do whatever they can to help alleviate the situation and push forward early repatriation”.
But he simultaneously added that despite its good relations with Myanmar, Beijing could not lecture “Myanmar what to do” since it is a sovereign country that requires China to pursue the matter diplomatically following the principle of equality and mutual respect”.
“Here I want to make it very clear that, Myanmar is a sovereign country as Bangladesh is. China has no right to lecture Myanmar what to do,” he said.
The envoy’s comments as he joined a seminar titled “Finding way to Peaceful Repatriation of Rohingyas” at the Jatiya Press Club under the auspices of the Bangladesh Post newspaper.
Jiming said it is a well-accepted idea in many countries that China has a huge influence over Myanmar as “whatever we (China) say Myanmar will listen and do accordingly”.
But he feared that this idea might lead one to believe that China was always on the side of Myanmar for economic interests and would not really help Bangladesh, which actually was a wrong conception.
“What I and my colleague in Yangon (Nay Pyi Taw) Ambassador Chen Hai have been doing is to convey messages and to make suggestions. We have never forced the two sides to do anything that they do not want to,” he said.
He said representatives of the Bangladesh, China and Myanmar in an informal meeting in New York this September reached a consensus on starting Rohingya repatriation as early as possible, forming a joint working mechanism within the three countries and promoting development in the area as fundamental solution.
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