What China has at stake in the Myanmar coup, explained

This appeared in The Millennial Source

With the future of democracy in Myanmar to be decided in the coming days, Beijing will likely wait for the situation to play out and hope that it doesn’t affect their interests in the region.

Much of the world watched with anger and disappointment as Aung Sung Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient and democratically elected leader of Myanmar, was overthrown in a military coup on February 1.

Despite attracting criticism in recent years for failing to protect Myanmar’s Rohingya minority from what has been labeled an ethnic-cleansing campaign by the very military that removed her from power, Suu Kyi was still hailed as an icon of peaceful resistance to authoritarian rule.

Suu Kyi’s overthrow has been met with global condemnation from a number of countries, including the United States, Australia and Japan. In what may come as a surprise to many, one of the nations to express concern over the coup was China.

Following the coup, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said, “We have noted what has happened in Myanmar and are in the process of further understanding the situation. China is a friendly neighbor of Myanmar’s. We hope that all sides in Myanmar can appropriately handle their differences under the…