Burma, Carrots And Sticks

A US Senator has been in Burma for talks with the country's military leaders. Jim Webb has managed to secure the release of an American citizen who was caught swimming across a lake to the home where opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest.

Suu Kyi has been sentenced to another 18 months under arrest because of the whole bizarre affair, which conveniently means she won't be able to participate in elections planned for next year. She easily won the last elections held in the country almost two decades ago, and has been locked up more or less ever since. But despite international pressure and various sanctions, the military leaders in Burma (they insist on calling it Myanmar) haven't had much trouble hanging on to power, even when challenged by protests as they were in 2007. This is largely because the military regime has the support of China, so isn't that bothered about cosying up to the west for anything.

The continued failure of the west's tactics up to this point give leaders in the US, Britain and elsewhere a dilemma. Try engaging more with the hated military rulers, hoping the carrot of trade and tourism will open the country up, or try using a bigger stick consisting of tougher sanctions and weapons embargoes to force the Burmese to make changes? Although the regime has shown some willingness to be a bit more open, notably last year when allowing international aid agencies into the regions affected by a devastating cyclone, there is no sign that the elections next year will be anything other than a farce.

Western leaders are probably best advised to try to get the Chinese to put pressure on the regime bosses, on the basis that at least they might listen to what Beijing has to say. The Burmese certainly don't listen to the UN, even refusing UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon permission to meet Suu Kyi on a recent visit. However, for as long as Burma doesn't become a diplomatic problem for China, by for example trying to build a nuclear bomb like North Korea, it's difficult to see why the Chinese would be particularly interested in trying to bring about a democratic revolution there. That is, after all, what the leaders in Beijing most fear might one day happen in their own country.

The Two Sides Of Modern China

Two interesting pieces of news today concerning China. First the apparently good news. China's Foreign Ministry has urged Iran to accept international talks to try to find a diplomatic solution to the row over its alleged nuclear ambitions.

But if that's an example of China's growing desire to get involved in international politics, there's also a reminder of the other side of China - the human rights-ignoring, brutal regime we're more familiar with. Two members of the Muslim minority Uighur community have been executed for their part in a terrorist attack which took place last summer, just before the Beijing Olympics. It seems the men were killed in front of a crowd of thousands in, would you believe it, a sport stadium. Chinese government officials aren't known for their sense of irony.

The contrast between these two stories encapsulates neatly China's current position in the world. The regime is keen to engage more with the west - economically, poltically, diplomatically and culturally - but not at any price. The party officials in Beijing don't want a repeat of the popular revolutions which swept across the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the late 80s, revolutions which followed some relaxing of the previous closed approaches of those regimes. So to make sure there's no chance of something similar happening in China, the Beijing government is continuing to get tough on any hint of unrest, even if, as in this case, it takes place thousands of miles away from the capital. The warm, smiling China that we all saw during the Olympics remains only half the story.

China's Olympic Embarrassment

The Olympic torch is continuing its troubled progress around the world. After pro-Tibet and other protestors disrupted it in London, Paris and San Francisco, it's now reached Buenos Aires.

So far the torch has had to be protected by a horde of Chinese security men in tracksuits, with lots of local police next to them - hardly the sort of image the Olympic movement wants to be associated with. And despite public insistence that the show will go on as planned, there's no doubt that privately the Chinese leaders will be deeply embarrassed by how the torch relay has gone. With one world leader after another announcing they won't be attending the opening ceremony, that embarrassment will only be felt more deeply as the Games draw near.

The Olympics were supposed to be China's big global coming out party. With impressive, sparkly new venues, and numerous gold medal winning performances from its athletes, China was going to show us what an advanced and powerful society it's become. This will probably still happen. But the protestors have already succeeded in making sure Tibet and other human rights issues will hang around the Games, filling column inches and broadcast time, and generally spoiling China's party.

Don't feel too sorry for the Chinese government though. When bidding for the Games, they told the IOC the process of holding an Olympics would help open the country up, and help it improve its human rights record. That hasn't happened, so the protests are fair enough. They might even just change something, although don't count on it. The Chinese may be embarrassed, but as they're proving in insisting the torch relay continues, they're also as stubborn as hell.

Spielberg's Boycott

Steven Spielberg has pulled out of his role as an artistic advisor to this summer's Beijing Olympics, in protest at China's involvement in Darfur. The film director accuses the Chinese government of not doing enough to put pressure on its ally Sudan, to sort out the terrible human suffering there. The Sudanese government is widely blamed for backing a militia that has slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people in its western province of Darfur.

China hasn't done much about Darfur over the last few years, because it relies on Sudan for oil. However, there's plenty western countries could be doing to put more pressure on Sudan too, so it'd be wrong to lay the blame for the continuing crisis solely at Beijing's door. But Mr Spielberg's decision will certainly bother China. The regime in Beijing is putting so much effort into making the Olympics a success, to show off their country, that any criticism will really hit the Chinese government where it hurts.

Things would start to look worse for China if top athletes, or major corporate sponsors, joined Mr Spielberg's boycott. That still seems pretty unlikely. This was an easy decision for Mr Spielberg to make - after all he's not short of a bob or two anyway, and had never actually signed a contract committing him to this Olympics job. It's much harder to imagine athletes who have trained for years to go to the Olympics giving that up for political reasons. That's proved by the experience of the 1980 Moscow Games, when Britain ummed and aahed about whether to join America's boycott in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, then backed down because of angry athletes.

So, Mr Spielberg's decision is probably not going to change anything, apart from making himself feel better. It's still fair enough for him to make his boycott though, as you can't expect people to go against their own conscience. But the greater cause of making China behave better both in its own country and around the world would be better served by letting the Olympics go ahead with everyone there, and the focus of the world on Beijing. Dragging China blinking into the light would be the best way of forcing change, not just in Darfur, but in Tibet and elsewhere too.

China's Great Big Olympic Worry

It's difficult to tell what's going to happen next in Myanmar, the country just about everyone still knows as Burma. The bloodshed of the last couple of days has led to an easing of the pro-democracy/anti-regime protests, but they're still continuing, as the demonstrators rightly ask the military rulers for a fairer shake of things.

What does happen next depends largely on China. It's got more influence over the junta in Rangoon than any other country, and is currently annoying other countries at the UN by refusing to back a Security Council statement criticising Burma. With the Olympics less than a year away, China's desperate to avoid a Tiananmen Square style massacre on its borders. That would really bugger up China's hopes of using the Games to show the world what a great place it is. Don't be surprised if behind-the-scenes pressure from the Chinese takes the sting out of the military's response to the protests in Burma. That could also make some kind of process of reconciliation a bit more likely to happen, which would be good for everybody.

Accused

China and Russia are being accused by Amnesty International of supplying arms to Sudan, that are then used in Darfur. The report says the weapons end up with the government-backed militia, the Janjaweed, who have been fighting rebels and slaughtering innocent civilians for four years. Sudan denies it, while China and Russia aren't commenting, but Amnesty's photographic evidence is certainly compelling.

China and Sudan have been close allies for a while; China uses Sudanese oil to help its fast-growing economy, and in return pretty much ignores what Sudan does in Darfur. The main reason why so little's been done about Darfur at the UN over the years is because the Chinese don't want to upset the Sudanese by agreeing to something they won't like, such as lots of international troops to go and protect the civilians. Even though agreement has been reached for a small UN force, there's still no sign of it actually materialising. China could lean on Sudan and make sure the peacekeepers get to Darfur, but chooses not to. If things are going to improve for the people left in Darfur, Russia and particularly China have got to stop sending arms, and start putting pressure on the Sudanese government to accept what the rest of the world knows is needed.