After all the news about all those brave monks marching through the streets of Rangoon, at the moment Burma is presently out of the news. Whatever the reason for that, it is hardly likely that the underlying issues in the country have, miraculously, gone away. Just to the contrary!
The New Statesman, has a timely analysis on the unrest in Burma and what the West sees as China's position in all of this:
"As Burmese pro-democracy activists are rounded up, the west looks to China to intervene. We are failing to see the seismic changes that authoritarian capitalism is bringing the world.
In Beijing you might never have known about the saffron revolution that started with a bang and ended with a whimper in Burma. No pictures of chanting monks on state-controlled television, no anguished politicians saying "something must be done". Yet the consensus in Washington and European capitals was that only China could resolve the crisis.
Over the past year, there have been similar cries about Darfur and North Korea. Suddenly China has become what the former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright once called her own country - "the essential nation". It is not just China's new diplomatic reach, born of economic muscle, that is drawing international attention, but also its system of "authoritarian capitalism", which is increasingly seen as a counterweight to liberal democracy."
Read the full piece here. Of course, of keen interest in the news out of Burma is the ongoing position of Aung San Suu Kyi. The New Statesman publishes an interview with the remarkable woman which John Pilger had with her when he last saw her 10 years ago - here:
"As the people of Burma rise up again, we have had a rare glimpse of Aung San Suu Kyi. There she stood, at the back gate of her lakeside home in Rangoon, where she is under house arrest. She looked very thin. For years, people would brave the roadblocks just to pass by her house and be re assured by the sound of her playing the piano. She told me she would lie awake listening for voices outside and to the thumping of her heart. "I found it difficult to breathe lying on my back after I became ill."
That was a decade ago. Stealing into her house, as I did then, required all the ingenuity of the Burmese underground. Aung San Suu Kyi wore silk and had orchids in her hair. She is a striking, glamorous figure whose face in repose shows the resolve that has seen her along her heroic journey. "What do I call you?" I asked. "Well, if you can't manage the whole thing, friends call me Suu."
The New Statesman, has a timely analysis on the unrest in Burma and what the West sees as China's position in all of this:
"As Burmese pro-democracy activists are rounded up, the west looks to China to intervene. We are failing to see the seismic changes that authoritarian capitalism is bringing the world.
In Beijing you might never have known about the saffron revolution that started with a bang and ended with a whimper in Burma. No pictures of chanting monks on state-controlled television, no anguished politicians saying "something must be done". Yet the consensus in Washington and European capitals was that only China could resolve the crisis.
Over the past year, there have been similar cries about Darfur and North Korea. Suddenly China has become what the former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright once called her own country - "the essential nation". It is not just China's new diplomatic reach, born of economic muscle, that is drawing international attention, but also its system of "authoritarian capitalism", which is increasingly seen as a counterweight to liberal democracy."
Read the full piece here. Of course, of keen interest in the news out of Burma is the ongoing position of Aung San Suu Kyi. The New Statesman publishes an interview with the remarkable woman which John Pilger had with her when he last saw her 10 years ago - here:
"As the people of Burma rise up again, we have had a rare glimpse of Aung San Suu Kyi. There she stood, at the back gate of her lakeside home in Rangoon, where she is under house arrest. She looked very thin. For years, people would brave the roadblocks just to pass by her house and be re assured by the sound of her playing the piano. She told me she would lie awake listening for voices outside and to the thumping of her heart. "I found it difficult to breathe lying on my back after I became ill."
That was a decade ago. Stealing into her house, as I did then, required all the ingenuity of the Burmese underground. Aung San Suu Kyi wore silk and had orchids in her hair. She is a striking, glamorous figure whose face in repose shows the resolve that has seen her along her heroic journey. "What do I call you?" I asked. "Well, if you can't manage the whole thing, friends call me Suu."
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