Over the last year, more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled the Buddhist-majority country to neighboring Bangladesh following a military response to attacks on security posts by Rohingya insurgents. The United Nations has called Myanmar’s actions “ethnic cleansing”, a charge Myanmar rejects, blaming Rohingya ‘terrorists’ for most accounts of atrocities. China has close relations with Myanmar, and backs what Myanmar officials call a legitimate counter-insurgency operation in Rakhine. “The Rakhine state issue is in essence an issue between Myanmar and Bangladesh. China does not approve of complicating, expanding or internationalising this issue,” Wang said, according to a Chinese foreign ministry statement issued on Friday.

Source: The Express Tribune September 28, 2018 06:22 UTC