China downplays parallels to Myanmar’s tactics during Suu Kyi visit

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China rejected the possibility of setting free Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, even as it welcomed another Nobel laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, for a high-profile visit.

Human rights advocates have called on Ms. Suu Kyi to pressure Beijing for the release of Mr. Liu, an activist and critic China has jailed for subversion after he called for political change.

But on Wednesday, as Ms. Suu Kyi launched a five-day visit to China that is expected to include a meeting with President Xi Jinping, the Chinese government flatly ruled out any change to Mr. Liu's 11-year sentence.

"There is no reason to alter the judgment made in accordance with the law by China's judicial organs," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said.

The questions surrounding Ms. Suu Kyi and Mr. Liu underscore the delicacy of a trip to autocratic China by one of the world's foremost democracy activists. The visit was organized formally as a political encounter between her National League for Democracy party in Myanmar and the Communist Party of China.

But there are obvious parallels between Ms. Suu Kyi and Mr. Liu. Both were incarcerated by their own countries when they were awarded their Nobel prizes. Both have called for political reforms – Mr. Liu as far back as 1989, when he helped organized a hunger strike at the Tiananmen protests that led to the massacre of protesters by the Chinese military. Ms. Suu Kyi, meanwhile, struggled for years against a military regime in Myanmar, previously known as Burma, whose repressive tactics and culture of fear echo China today.

China sought to play down the chasm, saying in state media commentary that it supports Myanmar's "democratic transition."

But Ms. Suu Kyi's trip to China is unavoidably a "kind of awkward" encounter, said Nicholas Farrelly, an academic with the Myanmar Research Centre at Australian National University. That's in part because Ms. Suu Kyi is not a head of state, though she is being treated like one in being accorded a meeting with Mr. Xi.

The visit nonetheless offers benefits to both sides. For China, it is a chance to showcase "the quite astonishing changes that have occurred inside the country in the last few decades," Mr. Farrelly said. "The Chinese are going to want to see Ms. Suu Kyi up close, and this will be one further opportunity to gauge how it is she might, in the future, be looking to interact with them."

For the Myanmar icon, meanwhile, "there's clearly the opportunity to strut the global stage. She's likely to be in a pretty significant decision-making position some time in the years ahead, and needs all the experience she can possibly get."

In that sense, the trip "is just a recognition of realities," said Daljit Singh, a senior research fellow at the Institute of South-East Asian Studies in Singapore. Though Naypyidaw's relations with Beijing have soured in recent years, China remains a powerful neighbour important to Myanmar as it seeks to pull itself from poverty. Similarly, Ms. Suu Kyi stands to become far more important to China if she, as expected, assumes greater power in elections later this year.

China's foreign ministry called the visit an opportunity to "further enhance mutual understanding." In an article published in the state-run China Daily, Song Qingrun, a researcher at the Institute of South and Southeast Asian Studies, cast China as a considerate partner for Myanmar.

Better ties "will be helpful to promote increased cross-border economic co-operation, so that development can be used to eliminate poverty and conflict," he wrote. Beijing is eager to clear up negative thoughts in Myanmar inspired by the "western media's anti-China publicity," he wrote.

Relations between the two countries have grown tense amid Myanmar suspicion of Chinese influence, which has helped spark protests at Chinese-run mines and the suspension of work on a Chinese-funded hydroelectric dam. China, meanwhile, has recently held live-fire military exercises not far from the Myanmar border – which loom large in the background to the visit by Ms. Suu Kyi.

China wants "to teach the Burmese a lesson," said Bertil Lintner, a journalist and author who has written extensively on Myanmar. He sees the exercise as a direct response to Myanmar's increasingly warm relations with the West, which have included recent visits by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama – both of whom have had warm ties with Ms. Suu Kyi.

"Burma until a few years ago was seen as a Chinese client state. Suddenly they're drifting away," Mr. Lintner said. "The Chinese are not particularly happy, so they have to remind the Burmese government that America is far away, but we are here."

Myanmar may be a small country on China's southern flank, but it holds something China covets: Coastline with access to the Indian Ocean. China recently built a natural gas pipeline across Myanmar to feed its own needs. It's clear Beijing wants more of the same – badly enough that it's willing to speak up in favour of democratic reform and stomach the discomfort a visit by Ms. Suu Kyi.

"Burma is not just any neighbour," Mr. Lintner said. "It's very important for China."