China opens pipeline to bring gas from Myanmar
LOUISE WATT
July 29, 2013
BEIJING (AP) — China has switched on a pipeline bringing natural gas
from Myanmar, a state company said Monday, in a project that has raised
concerns in Myanmar's nascent civil society about whether its giant
neighbor's resource grabs will benefit local people.
The
793-kilometer (493-mile) pipeline connects the Bay of Bengal with
southwest China's Yunnan province and is expected to transfer 12 billion
cubic meters of natural gas to China annually, according to a news
release on the website of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). A
parallel 771-kilometer (479-mile) pipeline that will carry Middle East
oil — shipped via the Indian Ocean — is still under construction.
China's
investments, largely in energy and mining, have generated controversy
in Myanmar because they have done little to relieve that country's
chronic power shortages. In response, the Myanmar government abruptly
suspended construction in 2011 of the China-backed Myitsone dam, which
would displace thousands and flood the spiritual heartland of Myanmar's
Kachin ethnic minority.
While the pipelines are expected to provide only a small proportion
of China's oil and gas consumption, they are strategically important to
Beijing. The gas pipeline that began operating Sunday offers a nearby
source of gas, and the oil pipeline would eliminate the need for tankers
from the Middle East to pass through the crowded Malacca Strait between
Malaysia and Indonesia.
The two joint ventures are between
state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Myanmar's
national petroleum company Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise. Four other
companies from India and South Korea also have stakes in the project,
according to CNPC.
For years, China was the closest ally of
Myanmar's military regime, which was shunned by the West because of its
poor human rights record and failure to hand power to an elected
government. Since 2011, when an elected, though still military-backed,
government took office, Myanmar has undergone political and economic
reforms and has courted investment from the West.
The reforms have brought heightened activity from nongovernment and
civil society groups in Myanmar, said Tony Nash, Singapore-based
managing director of economics and risk consulting for IHS, an
independent economic consultant. This, together with growing competition
from Western companies in Myanmar, will push Chinese companies to be
more transparent about how their investments will affect the local
population, he said.
In April, hundreds of people protested in
western Rakhine state against the pipeline, saying they had to give up
their land for too little compensation and that salaries offered for
local pipeline workers were too low.
"Some of the responses to
that protest back in April were really specific to looking at community
needs and responding with corporate social responsibility at the local
level," said Nash. Chinese companies are increasingly "saying 'we hear
you and we want to make a commitment for corporate social
responsibility,' you are seeing Chinese companies becoming a bit more
savvy in that respect," he said.
Wong Aung, who heads the Shwe Gas
Movement, which campaigns against the pipelines on human rights and
environmental grounds, said the government and companies have not
clarified how the project's benefits would be shared.
"The contracts made by the previous government need to be reviewed to
see whether they guarantee the national interest and rights of every
citizen and whether they meet international standards or not," he said.
Even
on the Chinese side of the border, opposition to the pipeline has been
strong. In May, more than 2,000 people worried about air and water
pollution protested in Kunming in Yunnan against a planned petroleum
refinery connected to the project.
___
Associated Press writer Yadana Htun in Yangon, Myanmar, contributed to this report.
