Myanmar Ambassador Becomes Fourth to Die in Communist China in Less Than a Year

Myanmar’s Beijing ambassador, U Myo Thant Pe passed away in Communist China’s capital on Sunday, becoming the fourth ambassador in China to die in the past year.

U Myo Thant Pe was appointed as ambassador in 2019 and served until a coup by Myanmar’s military in February 2021.

He was last seen on Saturday to meet a local official in Yunnan, a southwestern Chinese province bordering Myanmar, Reuters reported.

Myanmar’s foreign ministry announced the ambassador’s death in an official newspaper on Monday. According to an obituary, he died on Sunday in the southwestern Chinese city of Kunming. But no specific cause of death was released.

According to Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) diplomatic sources and reports in Myanmar’s Chinese media, the ambassador reportedly may have died of a heart attack.

The death of the Myanmar ambassador is the fourth death to occur in the Communist China in the past 12 months.

In September, German Ambassador Jan Hecker, 54-year-old, died less than two weeks after taking up his post in Beijing.

Serhiy Kamyshev, the 65-year-old Ukrainian ambassador, died in February shortly after visiting the Beijing Winter Olympics venue.

Jose Santiago “Chito” Sta. Romana, the 74-year-old ambassador to the Philippines, died in April while under quarantine in eastern China’s Anhui province.