With US absent, China and other countries rush aid to earthquake-hit Myanmar

Record ID: 1987752

  • Title: With US absent, China and other countries rush aid to earthquake-hit Myanmar
  • Date: 2nd April 2025
  • Summary: MANDALAY, MYANMAR (APRIL 1, 2025) (VIDEO OBTAINED BY REUTERS) HEAVY MACHINERY WORKING NEXT TO TILTED BUILDING CAUSED BY EARTHQUAKE RESCUE WORKERS ON SITE TOKYO, JAPAN (APRIL 2, 2025) (REUTERS) FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR AT USAID BUREAU FOR HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE, MARCIA WONG, SITTING IN INTERVIEW (SOUNDBITE) (English) FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT ADMINISTRATOR AT US
  • Embargoed:
  • Keywords: China India Mandalay Myanmar Trump U.S. USAID aid assistance cut earthquake humanitarian natural disaster presence
  • Location: GIVEN AS MANDALAY REGION, MYANMAR / MANDALAY, MYANMAR / TOKYO, JAPAN
  • City: GIVEN AS MANDALAY REGION, MYANMAR / MANDALAY, MYANMAR / TOKYO, JAPAN
  • Country: Myanmar
  • Topics: Asia / Pacific,Disaster/Accidents,Earthquakes/Volcanoes/Tsunami
  • Reuters ID: LVA002349602042025RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: After a 7.7 magnitude shook Myanmar on Friday (March 28), killing more than 2,800 people, international rescuers rushed into the devastated Southeast Asian country.
    The most ubiquitous among them have been Chinese relief workers, whose blue and orange uniforms appear across videos circulating on social media.
    Beijing dispatched first-response teams, including dozens of medical workers, earthquake experts, field hospital workers and rescue dogs.
    Those teams have been some of the main visible signs of official assistance in affected areas like Mandalay and Sagaing, where residents said they received no help from the military.
    America's chief geopolitical rival has so far pledged to deliver 100 million yuan ($13.76 million) worth of supplies. The first batch of aid, including tents, blankets and first aid kits arrived in Yangon on Monday (March 31), Beijing has said.
    India's foreign ministry said on Tuesday (April 1) its aircraft and ships had delivered 625 tons of aid, while rescue workers had recovered 16 bodies from Mandalay and treated 104 patients. Russia and India have also set up mobile hospitals.
    The United States, which was until recently the world's top humanitarian donor, has offered a relatively modest $2 million. Washington also said it would send a three-member assessment team, though their arrival has been delayed by problems obtaining visas from the military regime.
    In past years, when tsunamis, earthquakes and other disasters struck around the world, the U.S. had regularly and rapidly deployed skilled rescue workers to save lives.
    The U.S. absence shows how President Donald Trump's moves to slash the size of the U.S. government has hobbled its ability to act during disasters, three current and former U.S. officials told Reuters.
    "This region in particular is of strategic importance to the United States, that's why there's some irony in this that we chose that at this moment not to be present and not to provide the assistance and the expertise that we normally do," said Marcia Wong, formerly a top humanitarian official at USAID.
    "I wonder now, with the delay in the response, what signal do we actually send then?" she added.
    With Trump's blessing, billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has enacted huge funding cuts and contractor terminations across the federal bureaucracy in the name of targeting wasteful spending.
    Trump has also moved to fire nearly all U.S. Agency for International Development staff, who oversee Washington's disaster response efforts overseas.
    A functional USAID would have activated urban search-and-rescue teams that were capable of being deployed to Myanmar in 48 hours, said Wong.
    But most of the people who would have coordinated the response have been let go, while third-party partners have lost contracts, she said.
    "We have created a vacuum which can allow other actors to step in," Wong said.
    The State Department, which administers the remaining USAID programs, did not immediately return a request for comment. The junta and China's foreign ministry also did not respond to questions.
    Myanmar sits between China and India and is of crucial strategic importance to both countries.
    Washington also enjoyed warm relations with the Southeast Asian nation under a brief quasi-democratic period before the military seized power in 2021, toppling the elected government led by Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
    Washington has retained influence, especially among the opposition to the junta, through humanitarian aid and funds for the democracy movement. The recent Trump-directed cuts, however, have largely erased both.
    (Production: Hiromi Tanoue, Tom Bateman, Juarawee Kittisilpa)
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