Activist groups urge UN probe of its Myanmar envoy after report alleges ties to Chinese companies

BANGKOK — Activist groups are calling for the United Nations to investigate its special envoy to Myanmar over possible conflicts of interest, after a report detailed her consulting company’s alleged ties to Chinese mining and construction companies with interests in the country. Justice for Myanmar wrote to U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres following a report in Australia’s The Saturday Paper outlining what it said were Julie Bishop’s links to Chinese state-owned companies that operate in Myanmar. Bishop’s links to Chinese and other companies with interests in Myanmar create “unacceptable conflicts of interest that must be fully investigated,” Justice for Myanmar wrote to Guterres. The Saturday Paper said her consulting firm was hired as a strategic advisor on a Greenland mining project by Melbourne-based Energy Transition Minerals, a rare earths company with significant backing from China’s Shenghe Resources and “extensive commercial ties to the Chinese Communist Party.” ETM is currently involved in a lawsuit against Greenland and Denmark, seeking billions in compensation over Greenland’s ban on uranium mining that came after the company had already started developing a project there. Justice for Myanmar urged Guterres to investigate Bishop’s “business activities, consider the appropriateness of her continued U.N. engagement, and disclose the findings” of the probe.