Регионы в современном мире: глобализация и Азия. Зарубежное регионоведение - стр. 61

Looking from a global perspective, China is an influential neighboring country for Myanmar. Myanmar could not neglect Beijing’s role in the world and its policies on East Asia and the Southeast Asian region. Therefore, this article stands out from the existing body that advocated the literatures pushing of Myanmar to forge close ties with Western World and the US more than China.

Previous studies have reported the locals’ opinions on Chinese megaprojects after Myanmar democracy transition is opened by Lauren Decicca68. However, he did not pay attention to the daily life of locals after the project’s commencement [Lauren Decicca, 2015]. Atsuko Mizumo focuses on details of Letpadaung Copper Mine Project connecting with Myanmar’s China policy69. Although he has researched Chinese Mine investments in Myanmar and their development, it is still necessary to do in-depth research on the Chinese interests in their project [Atsuko Mizumo, 2016].

These critical situations are concerning the Letpadaung project developed as the dilemmas of Sino-Myanmar relations until NLD’s government came to power. This research examines different primary sources such as interviews, government documents, statistics, field studies in the project area.

Monywa is the largest city of the Sagaing Division and located at the east bank of the Chindwin river in the central part of Myanmar. There are four large copper mine projects, namely Letpadaung, Sabetaung, Sabetaung South and Kyisintaung in the western part of the town. In 1978, Myanmar started Sabetaung and Kyisintaung mines, which are located next to each other. Letpaduang Copper mine project is located to the southeast of these aforementioned two copper mines. According to the report from the Amnesty, Letpaduang can produce 75% of the copper out of these four projects [Amnesty, 2015. P. 12]. At that time, the Myanmar government managed all projects according to the Socialist economic policy [Maung М., 1964. P. 1189].

In 1996, Myanmar military government opened its economy to the outside world and invited foreign direct investments. Ivanhoe Myanmar Holdings Ltd, a Canadian owned company, had passed the government tests and entered into the joint investments with Minister of Energy (1) [Amnesty, 2015. P. 20]. The agreements were not only for the Letpadaung deposit, but also for all deposits in the Monywa project. However, the existing literatures do not mention these facts, mentioning only the Letpaduang mine. Ivanhoe gave up Monywa projects and sold its 50%