Fighting in the remote region in early 2017 sent more 20,000 Myanmar refugees scrambling across the border into China's Yunnan province, raising tensions. On Sunday the Chinese embassy in Rangoon condemned the clashes and said it had urged "relevant parties" to reach an immediate ceasefire. The violence "made people from the Myanmar side flee across the Chinese border, and stray bullets have entered into Chinese territory", the statement added. Suu Kyi placed the peace bid -- an effort to extinguish around two dozen complicated and long-running ethnic conflicts across the country -- at the top of her agenda after she was elected to office in landmark 2015 elections. But the effort has been severely hampered by a surge in fighting between Myanmar security forces and an alliance of rebel groups in northeastern Shan and Kachin states.

Source: Bangkok Post May 13, 2018 08:03 UTC