[9] The dam project has been controversial in Burma due to its enormous flooded area, environmental impacts, location 60 miles from the Sagaing faultline, and uneven share of electricity output between the two countries.

[8] On 30 September 2011, amid democratic reforms in the country, President Thein Sein announced that the Myitsone Dam project was to be suspended during his tenure.

[17] The Myanmar Electrical Power Enterprise and the Agriculture and Irrigation Ministry scheduled the Irawaddy Myitsone Dam Multipurpose Water Utilization Project in 2001.

First the government contracted the Japanese Kansai Electric Power Company to build a small weather station at Tang Hpre village, near the confluence.

Chinese and Burmese contractors, including Yunnan Machinery Equipment Import & Export Company (YMEC), Kunming Hydropower Institute of Design, surveyed the dam site.

In 2006, Suntac Technologies Co. Ltd., a Burmese geographic information system (GIS) mapping contractor set up an office at the monastery in Tang Hpre village.

They also set up a temporary camp at Washawng village to facilitate transport of survey equipment from the YMEC company in China.

In October, the Asia World Company built a project implementation camp on a hilltop at the dam site 3 miles (4.8 km) downstream from the confluence.

On 16 June 2009, Myanmar Ambassador Thein Lwin and President of China Power Investment Corporation Lu Qizhou signed a memorandum of agreement between the Department of Hydropower Implementation and the China Power Investment Corporation for the development, operation, and transfer of the hydropower projects in Maykha, Malikha and upstream of Irrawaddy-Myitsone River basins.

[18] In late-2009, a team of 80 Burmese and Chinese scientists and environmentalists published a 945 page environmental impact study of the Myitsone Dam for China Power Investment.

[8] This is equivalent to 27% of the 22,500 megawatts (30,200,000 hp) output of the Three Gorges Dam In China, the world's largest electricity-generating plant of any kind.

The dam and reservoir planning and construction is managed by the Burmese government in cooperation with the China Southern Power Grid and several subcontractors.

[30][failed verification] CPI reported a total expense of 4.1 billion kyats in compensation and US$25 million in resettlement funding.

If the Irrawaddy Myitsone Dam broke during an earthquake, it would endanger the lives of hundred of thousands of people downstream in Kachin State's largest city, Myikyina.

[35] Ecological concerns focus on the inundation of an area that is the border of the Indo-Burma and South Central China biodiversity hotspot.

In Burma, the Irrawaddy River, on the bank of which major historic cities such as Bagan were built, is considered as the birthplace of Burmese civilization.

For that reason, The Burmese public protests against the dam project, which would inevitably alter hydrological characteristics of the historic river.

Moreover, the growing Chinese influence in Burma is seen as exploitative by Burmese people, due to its association with previous military junta.

According to the environmental organization International Rivers, in 2007, 12 local leaders from Kachin State sent a letter to Senior General Than Shwe and the junta's Ministry of Electric Power, asking for the project to be cancelled.

In February 2010, the UK-based Kachin National Organization (KNO) protested against construction of the dam in front of the Burmese Embassies in the UK, Japan, Australia, and the United States.

Land rights activist and politician Daw Bauk Ja was arrested for medical negligence in 2013, though the case against her had been withdrawn years earlier.

Domestic campaigns against the project are brought together by political activists including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, conservationists, scholars, poets, and journalists.

[25] On 30 September 2011, in an address to the parliament, Burma's president Thein Sein announced that the Myitsone Dam project would be halted during the term of his government.

I would like to inform the Hluttaws that coordination will be made with the neighbouring friendly nation, the People’s Republic of China, to accept the agreements regarding the project without undermining cordial relations.

[52] The letter is a request for the Kachin State government to provide temporary ID cards for 500 engineers and the tax-free import of 10,000 tons of construction equipment (cement, trucks, bulldozers, excavators).

[56] The TangHpre villagers demonstrated again when the Chinese Diplomat and Myanmar governance Organization met to restart the Myitsone Dam Project in Palm Spring Hotel on 4 July 2016.

[57] Although the President Thein Sein's decision has been widely applauded, experts caution that Sino-Burma relation could be ultimately harmed by the suspension.

Nicholas Farrelly, a Southeast Asia specialist at the Australian National University in Canberra said that while there would inevitably be some short-term damage to bilateral relations, pragmatism would override any potential for long-term animosity.

[16] Internationally, the suspension is considered as one of the democratic reforms along with other engagements such as dialogues with pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and release of some political prisoners.