There’s a reason nobody is talking about a military “regime change” in Burma, but it’s not the reason David Warren writes about here. Warren says,

The Burmese regime could hardly survive a direct military strike. … But this would require a West assured of its own ideals and principles, generous and willing to make sacrifices for them; a West not debilitated by layer upon layer of “politically-correct” self-doubt. And that simply isn’t on the table.

Actually, son, there are two reasons no one is going to invade Burma to overthrow the junta. The first reason is that Burma shares a 2,000 kilometer border with China, and there are two things to keep in mind about China:

1. China has the largest standing army in the world.

2. China is holding a big honking chunk of U.S. debt. Wikipedia:

The country holding the most U.S. debt is Japan which held $612.3 billion at the end of the first quarter of 2007. The People’s Republic of China holds the second most U.S. debt, ending the first quarter of 2007 with over $1.2 trillion in total foreign reserves, of which about $420.2 billion are U.S. Treasury securities.[

The West is not dithering because of some political neurosis, presenting as “layer upon layer of ‘politically-correct’ self-doubt.” The West is hamstrung regarding Burma because the West is afraid of what China might do.

In the event of an armed invasion of Burma by western forces to effect “regime change,” I don’t know that China would counterattack. But China could hurt us in a lot of other ways.

Recently Ambrose Evans-Pritchard wrote at The Telegraph (August 8, 2007):

The Chinese government has begun a concerted campaign of economic threats against the United States, hinting that it may liquidate its vast holding of US treasuries if Washington imposes trade sanctions to force a yuan revaluation.

Two officials at leading Communist Party bodies have given interviews in recent days warning – for the first time – that Beijing may use its $1.33 trillion (£658bn) of foreign reserves as a political weapon to counter pressure from the US Congress.

Shifts in Chinese policy are often announced through key think tanks and academies.

Described as China’s “nuclear option” in the state media, such action could trigger a dollar crash at a time when the US currency is already breaking down through historic support levels.

It would also cause a spike in US bond yields, hammering the US housing market and perhaps tipping the economy into recession. It is estimated that China holds over $900bn in a mix of US bonds.

In effect, the Chinese are underwriting Bush’s tax cuts. And I believe China has more leverage over us than we have over them.

There’s a fascinating analysis by Lindsey Hilsum called “Why Burma was crushed” at The New Statesman.

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. …

… Western leaders dream of a Burma reinvented in their image – with a little lustre from association with the revered opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi rubbing off on them. But China is still ruled by the Communist Party that shot and mowed down protesters in Tiananmen Square in 1989, and which suppresses Buddhist monks in Tibet.

Authoritarian capitalism, not liberal democracy, has made China successful. The Beijing government’s ideal would be for the Burmese generals to allow limited political participation, so that stability could be assured and China’s supply of timber, gemstones, oil and natural gas guaranteed.

And there’s a bigger picture to consider.

Western leaders continue to assert that capitalism inevitably brings democracy in its wake. “As China reforms its economy, its leaders are finding that once the door to freedom is opened even a crack, it cannot be closed,” said Bush in 2005. “As the people of China grow in prosperity, their demands for political freedom will grow as well.” The US president cited South Korea and Taiwan as examples. “The economic wealth that South Korea created at home helped nurture a thriving middle class that eventually demanded free elections and a democratic government that would be accountable to the people,” he said.

But, as the scholars Azar Gat and James Mann have pointed out, China – unlike smaller east Asian countries – is not under the US military umbrella. It is forging its own path and it is not the one that Bush predicted. As the Communist Party of China prepares for its 17th Congress this month, scores of popular websites have been closed. Meetings of Aids activists have been banned and environmental campaigners have been jailed. Human rights campaigners say that far from more freedom being allowed in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the space for dissent is narrowing. …

… China is no longer alone. Russia’s retreat from democracy at a time when high oil prices are boosting the economy suggests that an alternative axis is coming into being. China and Russia parted ideological course in 1960, but today, once again, they share a vision.

The Russian economist Sergei Karaganov, dean of the School of International Economics and Foreign Affairs of the State University in Moscow, describes this as a “new era of confrontation”, with China and Russia on one side and the US and EU on the other. “In an environment characterised by acute competition, the fight for the lofty values of democracy will almost inevitably acquire the character of geopolitical confrontation,” he says. “This will impede the probable process of liberalisation in the countries of the new ‘authoritarian’ capitalism – in particular, in Russia.”

The other reason no one will take military action in Burma has to do with U.S. business interests. Amy Goodman wrote in yesterday’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

The Bush administration is making headlines with its strong language against the Burmese regime. President Bush declared increased sanctions in his U.N. General Assembly speech. First lady Laura Bush has come out with perhaps the strongest statements. Explaining she has a cousin who is a Burma activist, Laura Bush said, “The deplorable acts of violence being perpetrated against Buddhist monks and peaceful Burmese demonstrators shame the military regime.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, at the meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said, “The United States is determined to keep an international focus on the travesty that is taking place.” Keeping an international focus is essential, but should not distract from one of the most powerful supporters of the junta, one that is much closer to home. Rice knows it well: Chevron.

Fueling the military junta that has ruled for decades are Burma’s natural-gas reserves, controlled by the Burmese regime in partnership with the U.S. multinational oil giant Chevron, the French oil company Total and a Thai oil firm. Offshore natural-gas facilities deliver their extracted gas to Thailand through Burma’s Yadana pipeline. The pipeline was built with slave labor, forced into servitude by the Burmese military.

The original pipeline partner, Unocal, was sued by EarthRights International for the use of slave labor. As soon as the suit was settled out of court, Chevron bought Unocal.

Chevron’s role in propping up the brutal regime in Burma is clear. According to Marco Simons, U.S. legal director at EarthRights International: “Sanctions haven’t worked because gas is the lifeline of the regime. Before Yadana went online, Burma’s regime was facing severe shortages of currency. It’s really Yadana and gas projects that kept the military regime afloat to buy arms and ammunition and pay its soldiers.”

The U.S. government has had sanctions in place against Burma since 1997. A loophole exists, though, for companies grandfathered in. Unocal’s exemption from the Burmese sanctions has been passed on to its new owner, Chevron.

Rice served on the Chevron board of directors for a decade. She even had a Chevron oil tanker named after her. While she served on the board, Chevron was sued for involvement in the killing of non-violent protesters in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. As in Burma, Nigerians suffer political repression and pollution where oil and gas are extracted, and live in dire poverty. The protests in Burma were actually triggered by a government-imposed increase in fuel prices.

So, the West flaps about, issuing statements and maybe sending an envoy or two. Please note I don’t believe an armed invasion is the only option or even the most desirable option. But I believe the West is too compromised to exercise any option.

See also:

“Monks Are Silenced, and for Now, Internet Is, Too”

Monks flee crackdown as reports of brutality emerge

From the Daily Mail:

Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma’s ruling junta has revealed.

The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win, said: “Many more people have been killed in recent days than you’ve heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand.”

Mr Win, who spoke out as a Swedish diplomat predicted that the revolt has failed, said he fled when he was ordered to take part in a massacre of holy men. He has now reached the border with Thailand. …

… Reports from exiles along the frontier confirmed that hundreds of monks had simply “disappeared” as 20,000 troops swarmed around Rangoon yesterday to prevent further demonstrations by religious groups and civilians.

Word reaching dissidents hiding out on the border suggested that as well as executions, some 2,000 monks are being held in the notorious Insein Prison or in university rooms which have been turned into cells.

There were reports that many were savagely beaten at a sports ground on the outskirts of Rangoon, where they were heard crying for help.

This is what we had feared.

Rosalind Russell writes for The Independent:

“We cannot turn back now. Whether it takes a month, a year or more, we will not stop.” With his russet-red robes pulled around his knees, rocking back and forth on a low, wooden stool, the senior monk spoke quietly but determinedly.

Over the past few days, the monk has seen many of his fellow Buddhists rounded up and carted away as Burma’s military regime brutally cracked down on anti-government protests, trying to suck any oxygen away from the flame of revolt. Pools of blood stain monastery doorways, memories linger of monks as young as 15 being clobbered over the head with truncheons and rifle butts.

But in the now-tranquil, tree-filled courtyard in central Rangoon, it is not of these atrocities that the monk, in his early sixties and wishing to remain anonymous, wants to speak. It is the atrocities which the Burmese people have suffered. The people are living under rulers busy enriching themselves with natural gas, timber, diamonds and rubies while spending less on health care per head than nearly any other country on earth. They are living in poverty more akin to sub-Saharan Africa than Asia.

“As monks, we see everything in society. We go everywhere, to ask for our food and we see how people live,” he says. “We know that they give to us when they themselves do not have enough to eat, because there is no work and the costs of living are so high. We also see how the wealthy live. We see how everything is getting worse and worse.” And that is why he is adamant that the fight must continue. “We have already lost too much and the people cannot continue to suffer as they do,” he explained. “We knew well the risks before we started. It is up to us. We have to see this through to the end, whatever the end will be.”

At the Washington Post, Fred Hiatt has a moment of clarity:

Tell China that, as far as the United States is concerned, it can have its Olympic Games or it can have its regime in Burma. It can’t have both.

Here, too, I understand the arguments against: China’s rulers are gradually becoming more responsible in the world; to threaten their Games would only get their backs up. The Games themselves offer a chance to enhance international understanding; if we let world affairs interfere, there will always — every two years — be some cause. The athletes have trained for years; they deserve their chance.

And yet: Hundreds of thousands of Burmese have risked everything — their homes, their families, their lives — to be free. They have done so with nothing on their side but courage, faith and the hope that the world might stand with them. And they still have a chance to succeed.

Whether they do depends mostly on decisions made inside Burma. But people and countries outside can have some effect. Burma’s neighbors in Southeast Asia could do more. The world’s largest democracy, India, could do far more. China could do most of all.

China’s Communist rulers have reasons not to help Burma’s democrats. They enjoy privileged access to Burma’s timber and other resources, for one. Even more fundamentally, dictators will shudder when they see another illegitimate regime threatened by people power.

What could push them the other way? Their desire to be seen as responsible players, maybe. Their desire to have their one-party rule recognized as more sophisticated and legitimate than the paranoid generals of Burma, maybe. And, maybe, their deep desire to host a successful Olympics next summer.

If a threat to those Games — delivered privately, if that would be most effective, with no loss of face — could help tip the balance, then let the Games not begin. Some things matter more.

A UN envoy has arrived in Burma and may or may not meet with junta leaders on Tuesday.