Myanmar junta presses Myitsone dam revival as Kachin official claims China deal done

Mizzima

Myanmar’s military government used a press conference in Naypyidaw on 30 June to defend its plans to revive the long-suspended Myitsone Dam project in Kachin State, days after the Kachin State Chief Minister said the project had received Chinese government backing during Min Aung Hlaing’s state visit to Beijing earlier in the month.

The Myitsone Dam, a hydropower project at the confluence of the Mali and N’Mai rivers north of Myitkyina, was suspended in 2011 by then-President Thein Sein following nationwide opposition over its environmental impact, the displacement of more than 12,000 people from surrounding communities, and terms under which 90 percent of the electricity generated was to be exported to China. Junta officials have since said those terms were revised, but have not disclosed a new ratio.

Kachin State Chief Minister Khet Aung Nan said in remarks reported by Kachin Times on 24 June that an agreement with China to complete the project within eight and a half years had been reached, and that he had accompanied Min Aung Hlaing to Beijing on 15 June, where discussions on the project took place with Chinese officials. He said the dam would be built using the latest technology and would be capable of withstanding an earthquake of magnitude 8, and that the structure would be monitored around the clock by satellite. He also said he had previously demonstrated against the project in 2010 during his time as a member of parliament and now regarded that opposition as a mistake.

At the 30 June press conference, Myanmar President’s Office spokesperson Deputy Minister Dr Khaing Khaing Soe said community consultations on the project had been held in Kachin State in January 2026 through a 24-member local committee, and that those consulted had expressed a desire for electricity access. She said the consultation findings had not yet been formally published.

The project site and surrounding areas remain the scene of active fighting between the Myanmar military and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which controls large parts of Kachin State and has consistently opposed the dam. Forty-nine Kachin civil society organisations called in a statement earlier this year for the permanent cancellation of the project, urging China’s State Power Investment Corporation Yunnan, the project’s developer, to halt efforts to restart the project and end what they described as intimidation of those who opposed it, according to earlier Mizzima reporting.

The dam was originally developed as a joint venture between China Power Investment Corporation and Myanmar government entities, and was designed to generate 6,000 megawatts of electricity, making it one of the largest Chinese-backed hydropower projects overseas at the time. A 2013 independent expert review of the project’s environmental impact assessment found it would flood an area roughly the size of Singapore and cause severe damage to the Irrawaddy river system and its biodiversity.