China will also invest $1.04 billion to build a 2380-km long gas pipeline linking Burma with Kunming: this pipeline will transport 170bn cm of gas from the Middle East to SW China over the next 30 years, and will provide an alternative route to the Strait of Malacca for imports from the Middle East and Africa. The Chinese government is already developing Burmese reserves. In January, the China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) signed a deal with the Burmese government to explore and extract oil and gas off the country's west coast. The other Chinese energy companies (Sinopec and China National Offshore Oil Corp) have long been active in the area: in 2006 Fu Chengyu, CNOOC president, said that the company would concentrate his company's medium-term investments in two countries: Burma and Nigeria. Meanwhile, energy-depleted India has been seeking to co-operate with its ancient rival Burma since the 1990's. The government has long been planning a 950-km long import gas pipeline through Bangladesh, but so far difficulties in relations with Dhaka have convinced Burma to sell its gas to China. But on 1 May, Bangladesh's Foreign Affairs Adviser Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, on returning from Burma, re-launched the project stating that India has "agreed to negotiate for allowing the pipeline if Burma sells gas and India agrees to buy". The pipeline would cost around $1 billion, and it is estimated that India would pay Bangladesh $100-120 million. Burma has SE Asia's largest gas reserves and, as a result, other countries such as Japan and South Korea have long been active in the country. Thailand, for example, already is spending an average of $1.2 bn/yr for Burmese gas. Observers note that, as a result, the military junta which controls the country is embraced by foreign governments to the detriment of human rights' abuses that it carries out against ethnic minorities in its own country. Human Rights' Watch has for some time denounced that the main gas deposits were found in western Burma where the Arakan ethnic minority live. Earlier, inhabitants of Kyaukpyu town near Ye Nan Taung, attacked and stoned the CNOOC offices, accusing them of underpayment. Wong Aung, spokesman for the Shwe Gas movement which aims to protect the rights of the Arakan, has repeatedly reported that CNOOC takes possession of Arakan land and treats the inhabitants as if they were their employees, but adds that it is almost impossible to obtain justice for them in "a land without laws".