Which is why, wonders The Economist (The Saffron Revolution), it is important to note how the outside world handles this moment. While the UN has increased involvement, China could be key. Experience is not so heartening: “China’s traditional posture, heard again this week, is to oppose any ‘interference in the internal affairs of another country’. It trots out this formula so often when foreigners criticise its own behaviour that, even if it supports change, it is hard for it to utter more than platitudes, as it has this month, about the desirability of a ‘democracy process that is appropriate for the country’. China has also been the chief beneficiary of the partial Western boycott. Myanmar offers two of the prizes China values most in its foreign friends: hydrocarbon resources and a friendly army, willing to give it access to facilities on its coast on the Bay of Bengal. China has become the junta’s biggest commercial partner and diplomatic supporter.” But China would also be desirous of gaining stability on its borders and being seen to be a responsible power ahead of the Beijing Olympics. The last thing China would want, notes the leader, are calls for a boycott.

Foreign Affairs has already put on its website an article from the November/December issue: Asia’s forgotten crisis: a new approach to Burma by Michael Green and Derek Mitchell. They say, in an article written before the monks began their stir, neither sanctions nor constructive engagement has worked: “Given the differing perspective (of interested countries), a new mulitaleral initiative cannot be based on a single, uniform approach. Sanctions policies will need to coexist with various forms of engagement, and it will be necessary to coordinate all of these measures toward the common end of encouraging reform, reconciliation, and ultimately the return of democracy. To succeed the region’s major players will need to work together. Bringing them together will require the United States’ leadership. One way to proceed would be for Washington to lead the five key parties —Asean, China, India, Japan and the US—in developing a coordinated international initiative.”

Meanwhile: Newsweek profiles Lt Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, till recently ISI chief and likely to succeed Gen Musharraf as chief of Pakistan’s army.