By Lindsay Murdoch
Bangkok: The United States has toughened its stance against Myanmar's government, declaring that atrocities against Rohingya Muslims are "horrendous" and saying the campaign against them was ethnic cleansing.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has now threatened to specifically target those responsible for Asia's worst atrocities since the Khmer Rouge genocide of the 1970s, saying "those responsible must be held accountable".
A Rohingya Muslim girl carries her baby sister as she walks across a stream of drainage water at the Thaingkhali refugee camp in Bangladesh.Credit: AP
The change of tone comes just days after China offered a different policy: a new economic plan for Myanmar's violence-wracked Rakhine state, home to 1.1 million Rohingya people.
Aides of Myanmar's de facto leader, Aung San Suu Kyi have warned that threatened sanctions by the US would only push Myanmar back into the orbit of China.
Rex Tillerson, U.S. secretary of state, listens to a question during a White House press briefing on Monday.Credit: Bloomberg
China has backed the Myanmar military's actions in Rakhine as necessary "to maintain national stability," and has used its veto to prevent the United Nations Security Council from condemning the violence.
During a visit to Myanmar last weekend, China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi reiterated Beijing's support for Myanmar's government and proposed an economic corridor between China's Yunnan province and Rakhine.
Wang told Suu Kyi on November 19 that China sees Myanmar as an important partner in Beijing's "belt and road" project, which aims to connect China with the region through multibillion-doolar infrastructure projects, including multiple railways and highways.
Tillerson said: "These abuses by some among the Burmese military, security forces and local vigilantes have caused tremendous suffering and forced hundreds of thousands of men, women and children to feel their homes in Burma [Myanmar] to seek refuge in Bangladesh."
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi attends the Asia Europe Foreign Ministers (ASEM) meeting at Myanmar on Monday.Credit: AP
"No provocation can justify the horrendous atrocities that have ensured," he added.
The US's shift comes after Tillerson met Suu Kyi in the Myanmar capital Naypyitaw in mid-November and contrasts with the Turnbull government's refusal to end the Australian Defence Forces' support for Myanmar's military, or to condemn its commanders.
A Rohingya girl with her face covered in 'thanaka', a comestic paste from ground bark, stands in her family's tent in Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh.Credit: AP
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has also refused to condemn Suu Kyi's government, while expressing Australia's "deep concern" over the violence.
A US official in Washington, clarifying Tillerson's remarks, said the term "ethnic cleansing" was not defined under US or international law and did not inherently carry specific consequences.
But the official said Washington was analysing whether genocide or crimes against humanity had occurred, which would violate international law.
Earlier this month US lawmakers proposed targeted sanctions and travel restrictions on Myanmar military officials.
Until now, however, the US had avoided the term "ethnic cleansing," despite the United Nations and multiple rights groups meticulously documenting mass killings, rapes and arson that have forced more than 620,000 Rohingya to flee Rakhine in the past three months. They also include the deliberate targeting of scores of children.
US President Donald Trump failed to confront Suu Kyi, a Nobel laureate, over the atrocities when they were attended a summit of south-east Asian leaders and their key allies in Manila two weeks ago.
Matthew Smith, co-founder of the rights organisation Fortify Rights said the US had now taken a significant step to holding Myanmar officials accountable.
"The civilian and military authorities are aligned in their outright denials and crude whitewashing," Smith said.
"Ethnic cleansing is as reprehensible as genocide and crimes against humanity."
Meanwhile China's Wang proposed that Myanmar and Bangladesh push ahead with talks to resolve the crisis but stressed this should be without participation of the United Nations and other countries or groups.
He said China wanted to work with Myanmar to build an economic corridor from Yunnan through to the Myanmar city of Mandalay, and extending east to Yangon New City and west to the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone, a 1600-hectare area on Myanmar's that is being developed by private entrepreneurs.
"This will help major projects along the road to connect with each other, promote each other and create an integrated effect, and will also help to promote more balanced development across Myanmar," Wang said.
The Vatican has announced that Pope Francis will meet Rohingya refugees during a visit to Dhaka on November 30, signalling the pontiff wants to highlight the crisis during a trip to Myanmar and Bangladesh.
Francis has been urged not to even mention the word "Rohingya" for fear of inflaming religious tensions in Buddhist-majority Myanmar, which are near boiling point after increasing attacks on the Muslim minority.
To donate to Australian aid agencies' joint Rohingya appeal please click here