China is navigating ways as to how the protracted Rohingya crisis could be resolved ensuring peace in conflict-ridden Myanmar through negotiations with the parties concerned.
As the Rohingya issue was raised in a recent meeting with delegations incorporating journalists and politicians from the South Asia and Southeast Asia in Beijing, the Chinese authorities said that China being a big country had some responsibility in resolving the crisis and establishing peace in the region.
Sun Haiyan, vice-minister of the International Department of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, and Lin Tao, deputy director general of the Bureau for South and Southeast Asian Affairs, IDCPC, briefed the delegations about the Chinese foreign policy and its development in separate meetings at the IDCPC building on September 16.
They said that China followed the policy of non-interference in internal affairs of any country and maintaining good mutual relations on fair basis and mutual respects.
Regarding China鈥檚 role in resolving the Rohingya crisis as around 13 lakh displaced people from the Rakhine State of Myanmar were sheltered in Bangladesh, Sun Haiyan said that as a big country China had some responsibility to ensure peace and find ways for all parties concerned to sit for negotiations.
The senior diplomat said that they were now navigating how to do that.
Underlining the need for strengthening mutual cooperation among the neighbours, Sun Haiyan said that all countries should have the right to do what is good for their people.
Meanwhile, the Rohingya crisis has worsened with more displaced people from the Rakhine State entering Bangladesh while not a single person of them has returned to their homeland over the past eight years of the large-scale exodus since August 25, 2017.
Against this backdrop, Bangladesh is set to raise the voices of the displaced Rohingyas for a safe, voluntary, and dignified return to their homeland in the High-Level Conference on Rohingya Situation in New York on the sidelines of the ongoing United Nations General Assembly slated for September 30.
China has already been engaged in efforts to create a congenial atmosphere in Myanmar, facing a civil war with the Rakhine State now being largely controlled by the Arakan Army, for the return of the Rohingya people from Bangladesh.
The funding from international agencies for the Rohingyas sheltered in Bangladesh camps, mostly in Cox鈥檚 Bazar, has now shrunk, multiplying the crisis for Bangladesh.聽聽
Neither Bangladesh-Myanmar bilateral efforts nor a trilateral initiative involving China for the repatriation of the Rohingyas, an ethnic minority community which is denied citizenship and rights to land ownership in its own country, has made any progress so far, except 1,80,000 Rohingyas verified by the Myanmar authorities for their return to their country聽 out of a pre-selected list of 8,00,000 living in Bangladesh camps.
Marking the 8th 鈥楻ohingya Genocide Remembrance Day鈥� observed on August 25, Bangladesh interim government chief adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus at an event in Cox鈥檚 Bazar rolled out a seven-point proposal for a sustainable solution to the Rohingya crisis.
In the proposal, he called upon the international community to undertake collective efforts to stop the Myanmar junta and the Arakan Army, an ethnic armed group, from unleashing violence against the Rohingyas.
Yunus also urged the Myanmar government and the de facto authorities in Rakhine to constructively engage in dialogues with the Rohingyas to promote reconciliation among them, restore rights of the Rohingyas, and facilitate their speedy repatriation back to their homeland.聽聽
The role of the international community, in particular the ASEAN and countries in the neighbourhood, is indispensable to create a conducive environment in Rakhine, he said.聽聽
In August 2017, around eight lakh Rohingyas crossed into Bangladesh to save their lives from a military crackdown in Rakhine State, Professor Yunus mentioned, saying that Bangladesh now hosted around 13 lakh displaced Rohingyas, including 32,000 annual newborns in the camps.