Aung San Suu Kyi set for first China visit

Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar's opposition leader, is expected to begin her first visit to China on Wednesday, at a time of tension between the two countries.

Ms Suu Kyi will meet President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang, but no other details have been provided.

Relations between the countries have cooled in recent years, partly because of violence near their mutual border.

Myanmar has been fighting rebels in its eastern Kokang region, which borders China's Yunnan province.

At least five people in Yunnan died in March when an aircraft from Myanmar (also known as Burma) dropped a bomb on a sugar cane field. China sent patrols to the border in response.

The government department handling the visit told the BBC they would not be making any details of Aung San Suu Kyi's trip public nor inviting media, other than state media, to any events.

Analysis: Yuwen Wu, BBC ChineseSuch a visit would have been unimaginable five years ago, given Aung San Suu Kyi's status around the world as a fighter for democracy and human rights, and as a Nobel Peace prize laureate.

China regards the prize as manipulated by "hostile Western countries" after Chinese dissident and writer Liu Xiaobo won it in 2011.

Some overseas press reports in Chinese talk about divisions within the Chinese leadership as to whether the visit should go ahead at all, and who should send out the invitation to Aung San Suu Kyi.

In the end, it came from the Chinese Communist Party, so this is presented as a party-to-party exchange, and President Xi Jinping can meet with Aung San Suu Kyi without any protocol issues.

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While Myanmar's military junta was under Western sanctions and Aung San Suu Kyi was under house arrest, China remained a loyal ally.

But since reforms were introduced in 2011, the government of President Thein Sein has allied itself closely with the United States, although China continues to help develop major infrastructure projects in Myanmar.

A democratic Myanmar is a much harder partner for China, says the BBC's China editor Carrie Gracie.

But given the possibility that Aung San Suu Kyi's party will do well in upcoming elections, Beijing is determined to put pragmatism first and build a relationship with a woman whose politics it deplores, she adds.

As head of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), Aung San Suu Kyi is expected to play a key role in the presidential elections this November.

She is unlikely to run for president, however, as a clause in the constitution blocks her from standing because her husband and children are foreign citizens.

An opinion piece in state-run Global Times on Wednesday said China viewed the visit as a chance to "deal with the result" of the upcoming election", given Aung San Suu Kyi's "pragmatic and friendly attitude toward China". It also noted her "overwhelming influence" over the people of Myanmar and her "significant power in the future landscape of the Myanmese politics".