Crash in Unity 2017: com.unity3d.player.UnityPlayer

In Unity 5.6, the follow code works when when application is built to Android:

Code (CSharp):

1. using (AndroidJavaClass player = new AndroidJavaClass("com.unity3d.player.UnityPlayer")) {

However, in Unity 2017.1 and 2017.2, this line of code causes a crash. Here is the log from logcat:

Code (CSharp):

1.  
2. FATAL EXCEPTION: main
3. Process: com.mycompany.ProductName, PID: 19082
4. java.lang.Error: FATAL EXCEPTION [main]
5. Unity version     : 2017.2.0b9
6. Device model      : samsung SM-G930V
7. Device fingerprint: Verizon/heroqltevzw/heroqltevzw:7.0/NRD90M/G930VVRS4BQH1:user/release-keys
8. Caused by: java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: [COLOR=#ff4d4d]No direct method <init>(Landroid/content/ContextWrapper;)V in class Lcom/unity3d/player/UnityPlayer; or its super classes (declaration of 'com.unity3d.player.UnityPlayer' appears in /data/app/com.mycompany.ProductName-1/base.apk[/COLOR])
9.     at com.google.unity.GoogleUnityActivity.onCreate(GoogleUnityActivity.java:120)
10.     at android.app.Activity.performCreate(Activity.java:6912)
11.     at android.app.Instrumentation.callActivityOnCreate(Instrumentation.java:1126)
12.     at android.app.ActivityThread.performLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:2900)
13.     at android.app.ActivityThread.handleLaunchActivity(ActivityThread.java:3008)
14.     at android.app.ActivityThread.-wrap14(ActivityThread.java)
15.     at android.app.ActivityThread$H.handleMessage(ActivityThread.java:1650)
16.     at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:102)
17.     at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:154)
18.     at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:6688)
19.     at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
20.     at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:1468)
21.     at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:1358)
22.  

It seems to be a constructor call, but I am not sure as it works properly with Unity 5.6.

In Unity 5.6

Code (CSharp):

1. public UnityPlayer(ContextWrapper contextwrapper)

But in Unity 2017.1

Code (CSharp):

1. public UnityPlayer(Context context)

What can we do to successfully build in Unity 2017?

Reference:
http://scriptlife.hacca.jp/contents/programming/2017/07/13/unity2017-1-error-android-unityplayer/
Another report of this bug from Google Tango Github:
https://github.com/googlesamples/tango-examples-unity/issues/102