Enough

This should be the global response from the streets of Mumbai to New York to Tokyo for this disgrace.  Tell the Chinese leadership we’re sick and tired of them coddling the worst of the worst. 

Christopher Hitchens captures the dynamics of the growing disgust:

Meanwhile, everybody is getting ready for the lovely time they will have at the Beijing Olympics. If there could be a single demand that would fuse almost all the human rights demands of the contemporary world into one, it would be the call to boycott or cancel this disgusting celebration.

I am well aware of the informed arguments of those who believe China’s influence is less than believed on the junta. 

I humbly disagree. The great majority of the junta’s trade and cash flow comes from Chinese sources (all the natural resources they’re robbing the country of like teak and petrol) or Chinese-approved activities (drug money laundering), the far majority of their weapons and training comes from China and though the junta is xenophobic and nationalistic, I somehow doubt most of the military leaders believe they could defy Chinese wishes for very long without serious, perhaps, fatal, consequences.

How, in the words of the esteemed Thomas PM Barnett, is China acting like a strategic partner?  He’s a very visionary thinker, but am I the only one who feels he needs to back this up at this time.

It sure as hell appears that China (and to a lesser extent India and America) does not consider this a priority and has done little to prevent the tragedy that has taken place thus far.  How does that help the situation?  How does this promote harmony and prosperity for the Asia of the 21st Century?

Where are the much-vaunted Chinese diplomats on the ground?  Where’s the Chinese pressure?  Where’s the Chinese concern for their global image?  They look like what they are and will continue to be for seemingly another generation: the world’s foremost friend of the worst dictators and mass murderers.  Worse yet, they’re direct enablers of such appalling and threatening behavior. 

How is China a good neighbor to Thailand and the other ASEAN nations who have to put up with the hundreds of thousands of Burmese refugees? The flood of drugs from Burma?  The flow of AIDS?

What has China done yet?

As much as the next person, I want China to be a strategic partner for the US. It can be, and it should, on matters like Afghanistan and Africa, but it certainly hasn’t yet.  The disgraceful behavior continues.

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