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After some courteous flirtation between the Chinese Communist Party and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a long-awaited visit by the Myanmar opposition leader to Beijing may be getting closer. The well-traveled Nobel Peace laureate has been to Western Europe, the United States and Australia, but not to China.

The deputy director general of the Communist Party Central Committee’s international department, Yuan Zhibing, met this month with Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi in Yangon, Myanmar, and even attended a campaign rally of her party, the National League for Democracy. A vehicle carrying Chinese Communist Party visitors recently accompanied her convoy to Maubin township, 40 miles west of Yangon, where she addressed tens of thousands of supporters.

Senior members of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s party have been wooed by China. They have made five trips to China since last year, traveling to major cities and meeting with Communist Party officials and a deputy foreign minister. Such warmth toward the political opposition is quite a change for Beijing, a traditional benefactor of the military junta that formerly ruled Myanmar.

“China is opening a new page in its relationship with the Myanmar opposition,” said U Nyein Thint, a senior member of the National League for Democracy who visited Beijing in April.



The Chinese appear to be betting that, although it is currently a long shot that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi will become a presidential candidate and win elections scheduled for the end of 2015, it could still happen. At the very least, a member of her party is likely to be elected to the top job.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has made no secret of her desire to run, but a provision in the Constitution is holding her back. A change is needed to abolish the clause that says candidates may not have close family members who “owe allegiance to a foreign power.” Her two sons with her British husband were born in Britain. Apparently, the two sons are not willing to forsake their British citizenship for their mother’s ambition. She has said they are adults and make their own decisions.

Still, the Chinese are playing close attention to the political jockeying over the Constitution. The rally the Chinese delegation attended was devoted to the question of changing the Constitution to suit her.

The Chinese ambassador to Myanmar, Yang Houlan, has promised that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi will be invited to Beijing. “It’s just a matter of time,” Mr. Yang said recently.

Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi has been circumspect, but definitely not cool, about China, apparently judging that for geopolitical reasons she should have a steady relationship with Beijing.

She often says that China is “an important, powerful, neighboring country.” Last year, she led a mediation team that settled strife at a Chinese-run copper mine in central Myanmar. She helped negotiate a settlement that allowed the Letpadaung mine, a joint venture between a Chinese-owned arms company and the Myanmar military, to continue operations in the face of fierce opposition by local farmers. (Two Chinese workers were captured by local opponents of the mine on May 16 but released a day later).

Despite those conciliatory notes toward Beijing, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi knows that Chinese workers in Myanmar are resented and that China is widely viewed by ordinary people in Myanmar as a predatory power to the north. A Chinese hydropower project approved by the former military government was suspended in 2011 after protests by local villagers and environmental advocates concerned about its impact on Myanmar’s rivers.

Chinese state news outlets have portrayed Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi in favorable terms, a turnaround from when the military controlled the country.

“Before, the Chinese viewed Ms. Suu Kyi as pro-American and pro-West,” said U Yan Myo Thein, a political commentator. “Now it is the Chinese turn to need her.”