Awami League’s courtesy visit to China turning into diplomatic tour

by Fazlur Rahman Raju in Dhaka Tribune, Sept 18, 2017 at 07:16 PM
An Awami League delegation, set to leave for Beijing next month, is preparing to urge the Chinese government to mount pressure on Myanmar to take back the Rohingya.
The 19-member delegation will be in China from October 10 to October 27 and attend the 19th National Congress of Communist Party of China (CPC) upon invitation.
The congress, during which a majority of the CPC’s Politburo Standing Committee is expected to retire, is scheduled to begin on October 18. The last one was held in November 2012.
Though the initial plan was to attend the congress only, the Awami League delegation, led by Presidium Member and MP Muhammad Faruk Khan, will now also discuss the Rohingya issue at their meetings with the Chinese president and other top-ranked leaders during their visit.
“This visit is very important amid the ongoing Rohingya crisis as we all know that China and Myanmar share a good relation,” said ruling party General Secretary Obaidul Quader.
“Only China can stop the military crackdown against the Rohingya people,” he told a press briefing on Saturday.
More than 400,000 Rohingya refugees have arrived in Bangladesh since August 25 in the face of a brutal military campaign by the Myanmar security forces after insurgents attacked a number of police posts and an army base, reportedly killing dozens.
After that, the military and their local collaborators burned down many Rohingya villages, raped and killed the residents in what the UN called a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing”.
Muhammad Faruk Khan, a former civil aviation minister, said the Awami League delegation will try to convince Chinese politicians to resolve the Rohingya issue.
The ruling party’s Joint General Secretary Dipu Moni, International Affairs Secretary Shammi Ahmed, Legal Affairs Secretary SM Rezaul Karim, Information and Research Secretary Afzal Hossain, Deputy Office Secretary Biplab Barua and Tarun Kanti Das, president of Awami League unit in China, are among the leaders who are in the 19-member team.
Most of them also said that it will be a good opportunity for Bangladesh to fetch international support.http://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/foreign-affairs/2017/09/18/awami-leagues-courtesy-visit-china-turning-diplomatic-tour/