China's Xi Jinping doubled down on his support for fallen rights icon Aung San Suu Kyi on Saturday, signing dozens of infrastructure and trade deals and meeting with the Myanmar army chief accused of overseeing a genocide against Rohingya Muslims.
The Chinese president's state visit to Myanmar's purpose-built capital came as Western investors give a wide berth to the country due to the Rohingya crisis.
A 2017 military crackdown on the minority, which UN investigators called genocide, forced around 740,000 people from western Rakhine state over the border into Bangladesh.
Beijing has stood by the increasingly isolated nation and reaffirmed its position in a joint statement in Chinese state media as Xi's plane left the capital after two days, escorted by fighter jets.
China "firmly supports Myanmar's efforts to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests and national dignity in the international arena" and for it to advance "peace, stability and development in Rakhine State".
The Asian giant is now Myanmar's largest investor even as distrust of its ambitions lingers among the public.
More than 30 agreements were signed Saturday on Xi's final day of his visit - with Suu Kyi and Xi seated across from each other on long tables alongside related ministers.
Details were scant but among the 33 deals was a concession and shareholders agreement on the $1.3 billion Kyaukhphyu deep-sea port and economic zone, located in a part of Rakhine state left largely unscathed by the 2017 violence.
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