State media quotes envoy as welcoming the offensive

China endorses Myanmar’s offensive against Rohingya Muslim insurgents, Myanmar state media said on Thursday, as the UN Secretary-General described the operation, which has forced nearly 4,00,000 people to flee to Bangladesh, as “ethnic cleansing”.

The Myanmar military offensive in the western State of Rakhine was triggered by a series of guerilla attacks on Aug. 25 on security posts and an Army camp in which about a dozen people were killed.

“The stance of China regarding the terrorist attacks in Rakhine is clear, it is just an internal affair,” the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper on Thursday quoted China’s Ambassador, Hong Liang, as telling top government officials. “The counter-attacks of Myanmar security forces against extremist terrorists and the government’s undertakings to provide assistance to the people are strongly welcomed.”

But at the UN in New York, China set a different tone, joining a UN Security Council expression of concern about reports of excessive violence and calling for immediate steps to end it.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the UN Security Council on Wednesday urged Myanmar to end the violence, which he said was best described as ethnic cleansing.

“When one third of the Rohingya population had to flee the country, could you find a better word to describe it?” he told a news conference in New York.

Meanwhile, the government said on Wednesday 45 places north of Rakhine had been burned. It did not provide details but a spokesman said out of 471 villages in the north of Rakhine, 176 had been deserted and at least some people had left 34 others.