BEIJING — Even though China has long supported the generals who have wielded most of the power in Myanmar, the government in Beijing prepared this year for the possible election victory of the opposition leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, by inviting her to the capital to meet with President Xi Jinping.

In the June visit, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi was polite, paid deference to China as an important country and did not live up to fears that she might refer to democratic principles or her fellow Nobel Peace laureate, Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese writer who is serving 11 years in prison.

But whether China, which deftly read the pre-election tea leaves, can arrange a new relationship with Myanmar under the newly elected government is another matter.

Among ordinary people in Myanmar, China is seen as a heavy-handed northern neighbor largely interested in extracting valuable natural resources like timber and jade — and prone to plundering the land to build pipelines and a vast hydroelectric dam at Myitsone on the Irrawaddy River.