Chinese President Xi Jinpin and Suu Kyi meet, watch signing of agreements

China's President Xi Jinping met Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi in Naypyitaw on Saturday, as the two countries agreed on a raft of measures to deepen their relationship at a critical time. According to the information given to the media in the Myanmar capital, the two sides exchanged memoranda of understanding, letters and protocols covering 33 projects.

The projects ranged across the fields of information, industry, agriculture, security and the resettlement of internally displaced persons in Myanmar's war-torn Kachin State, which borders China. Perhaps the most significant was a concession and shareholder's agreement for the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone on the Bay of Bengal.

With a deep-water port, it is the terminus of the 1,700-kilometre- (1,055-mile-) long China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, a major link in the Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative whose other end is in China's Yunnan province. Myanmar is a linchpin of China's geopolitical ambitions, offering access to the Indian Ocean that could allow its sizable oil and gas imports from the Persian Gulf to bypass going through the Strait of Malacca. Xi's visit nominally marked the 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two nations.