BurmaNet News, February 13, 2007

[Editor]

February 13, 2007 Issue # 3141


INSIDE BURMA
AP: Myanmar junta extends detention of deputy opposition leader Tin Oo
AFP: Myanmar's leader makes rare appearance to allay health concerns

DRUGS
Khonumthung News: Poppy cultivation up in northwestern Burma

BUSINESS / TRADE
DVB: Daewoo arms trial delayed until March
Thai Press Reports: Asean-European FTA negotiations hits snag

REGIONAL
AFP: Indonesia, Myanmar to hold first meeting of joint commission
Irrawaddy: An open boat to nowhere

OPINION / OTHER
Wall Street Journal: On a far frontier - Melik Kaylan
Washington Post: America's quiet victories in Asia - Michael J. Green

____________________________________
INSIDE BURMA

February 13, Associated Press
Myanmar junta extends detention of deputy opposition leader Tin Oo - Aye
Aye Win

Yangon: Myanmar's military government late Tuesday extended by one year
the house arrest of Tin Oo, the deputy leader of pro-democracy leader Aung
San Suu Kyi's party, despite calls by the party and international
community to release him.

Officials from the Home Ministry visited the house of Tin Oo on Tuesday
evening to read out the order extending his house arrest, according to a
relative who asked not to be named for fear of government reprisal.
Myanmar's junta tightly controls the release of all news.

Detention orders come into force when they are delivered and read to the
detainee.

Tin Oo is vice chairman of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party,
and has been in detention since May 2003, when a pro-government mob
attacked their motorcade as they were making a political tour of northern
Myanmar. Both party leaders have been in either prison or under house
arrest since then.

Tin Oo's detention was previously extended by a year in February 2005 and
February 2006, He is not allowed to receive visitors but has been allowed
a medical checkup.

Myanmar's ruling military junta in May last year extended Suu Kyi's house
arrest by one year, defying international pressure to free the Nobel
laureate.

The junta took power in 1988 after violently suppressing mass
pro-democracy protests. It held a general election in 1990, but refused to
recognize the results after a landslide victory by Suu Kyi's party. Since
then, the military's failure to hand over power has caused the country to
be ostracized by many Western nations, and kept it in conflict with the
National League for Democracy.

The extension had been expected, since the military government has shown
no signs of wishing to talk with Suu Kyi's to resolve the country's
political deadlock. Tin Oo was one of the party's founders in 1988.

Tin Oo, who like Suu Kyi has previously spent many years under detention,
was first held in 2003 in Kale prison, infamous for its harsh conditions,
about 700 kilometers (435 miles) north of Yangon. He was sent to his
Yangon home on Feb. 13, 2004 to live under house arrest.

The NLD on Monday urged the junta to release its detained party leaders
and other political prisoners. The party issued its statement to mark
Union Day, the anniversary of a historic agreement between the country's
ethnic groups that led to independence from Britain in 1948.

____________________________________

February 13, Agence France Presse
Myanmar's leader makes rare appearance to allay health concerns

Naypyidaw: Myanmar's secretive leader, Senior General Than Shwe, made a
rare public appearance at celebrations marking a national holiday this
week.

Than Shwe attended a ceremony and a state banquet late Monday in the new
administrative capital of Naypyidaw, in the mountains of central Myanmar,
where he greeted and bantered with guests.

His appearance at the festivities came amid an ongoing effort by the junta
to ease widespread concerns about his health, following a nearly two-week
stay in Singapore last month for medical checks.

State television broadcast rare images of Than Shwe leading the junta's
quarterly meeting just days after his return from Singapore, and on Friday
he was shown at a ceremony laying a cornerstone for a new pagoda in
Naypyidaw.

But Monday marked the first time that he was seen in public since his
return from hospital. He had missed a state reception marking Independence
Day on January 4, after his hospital visit was unexpectedly extended.

Wearing black traditional dress and a peach-colored turban, Than Shwe
spoke with government officials, businessmen and journalists invited to
the dinner in Naypyidaw for the Union Day celebrations.

Rumours about his health have circulated widely since his visit to
Singapore, but Than Shwe appeared strong throughout the three-hour
ceremony and the dinner that followed.

Than Shwe has ruled Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, since 1992, but
Thailand-based analysts still believe his health is weakening and he is
considering handing more power to his trusted protege, Shwe Mann.

Myanmar's military regime is under US and European sanctions over human
rights abuses, the ongoing house arrest of opposition leader Aung San Suu
Kyi and its slow progress on democratic reforms.

____________________________________
DRUGS

February 13, Khonumthung News
Poppy cultivation up in northwestern Burma

There has been a marked increase in poppy cultivation in Chin state, in
the northwest part of Burma even as the United Nations views Burma as a
country which has intensified its anti-drug campaign.

The driving force is the joint activity relating to opium production and
trafficking by military authorities and local businessmen from Chin state
and Sagain Division in Burma. This is said to compel hill farmers to
engage in poppy cultivation. As a result, the farmers have begun to
abandon their traditional hill farm cultivation.

Poppy cultivation is done mainly in Lamzang, Taingen, Lemthang, Muanluah,
Hai Mual, Old Haimual, Bochung, Singpial and Tuisung village in Tedim
Township, remote areas of Tongzang town ship, Falam Township in Chin state
and Sakhan Kyi in Kalay town in Sagaing division, according to sources
from Indo-burma border.

Farmers in Chin state are said to grow poppy plants in plastic bags hung
on the trees in farmlands.

Between May and August 2006, the production of opium from 67 acres of
poppy cultivation in Chin state touched around 7546.9 kilograms.

Most prisons across Chin state have people serving long term sentences for
drug abuse and trafficking.

Observers said that forced labour, extortion by the military in Chin state
have put local farmers in a difficult situation and does not give them
enough time for hill farm cultivation. The farmers instead are paying
attention to poppy cultivation.

"Year after year we see more drug trafficking across border areas. Most
arrested drug traffickers are from Burma," said a staff member of
anti-drug agency in Mizoram State, India.

According to the local media in India the issue of drug trafficking and
border fencing along the Indo-Burma border will be included in the
discussions between Burmese officials during the visit of India's Union
Home secretary V K Duggal to Burma between February 13 to 17.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in its statement released
last year said that opium cultivation in Burma has declined 34 percent to
21,500 hectares compared to 83 percent on 130,300 hectares in 1998. But
Burma still remained the second largest opium producer in the world after
Afghanistan.

The first attempts at poppy cultivation was said to have begun in the
period of Ne Win, former Burmese military ruler. But the project failed
due to the intervention of a Chin students group.

____________________________________
BUSINESS / TRADE

February 13, Democratic Voice of Burma
Daewoo arms trial delayed until March

The trial of 14 South Korean executives linked to Daewoo International’s
alleged illegal supply of arms to Burma has been postponed until the end
of March, the Seoul prosecutor’s office told DVB on Tuesday.

The case of Lee Tae-Yong, the former head of Daewoo International, and 13
other executives affiliated to the South Korean conglomerate had been
scheduled to go to trial on December 28 last year.

A prosecutor involved in the case who requested anonymity said on Tuesday
that the defendants will not appear in the Seoul Central District Court
until March 22, following delays in arranging their legal defense.

“The defendants didn’t prepare for their trial enough [in advance of the
original December court date],” the prosecutor said.

The 14 accused men face up to five years in jail if found guilty of
supplying arms to Burma, a blacklisted country, without prior permission
from the South Korean government.

Seoul’s Hi-Tech Crime Investigation Department said in December last year
it had found evidence that the executives were responsible for illegally
transferring technology to the Burmese regime to build an arms factory
outside of Prome in Pegu Division capable of manufacturing six types of
shells for 105mm howitzers and anti-tank weaponry.

The defendants are accused of depositing the proceeds from the deal—said
to be worth US $133.38 million—in their own personal bank accounts.
Prosecutors added in December’s indictment notice that the Burmese
government had already paid 90 percent of the money to the defendants by
October last year.

The unfolding fiasco at Daewoo has prompted changes at the top of the
organisation.On December 22, six days before the original court date, Lee
resigned as head of Daewoo International during a shareholders’
conference, a decision an unnamed spokesperson for the company said had
been made “because Mr Lee’s term of office was over.”

The former CEO had been at the helm since December 2000. Lee’s former
understudy, Kang Young-Won, immediately took over as head of Daewoo.

On January 11, less than three weeks later, Kang travelled to Naypyidaw
“to discuss matters of mutual cooperation” with Burmese government
officials, including minister of energy brigadier general Lun Thi and
finance and revenue minister major general Hla Tun, state-run The New
Light of Myanmar reported.

____________________________________

February 13, Thai Press Reports
Asean-European FTA negotiations hits snag

A planned free-trade agreement (FTA) between Asean and the European Union
hit a snag recently, as the EU might not sign if the agreement includes
Burma, says a senior Thai official, The Nation reports.

Trade Negotiations Department deputy director-general Chana
Kanaratanadilok said although the Asean delegates proposed to their EU
counterparts that negotiations should be done on a region-to-region basis,
the EU might not sign the agreement with some countries, such as Burma.

Some EU members prefer a strong approach in pressing the Burmese junta on
human-rights issues. EU officials also insisted that Asean members that
were not ready to join the Asean-EU FTA, such as Cambodia, Laos and
Vietnam, should join only when they are ready.

Chana represented Thailand at the Asean-EU FTA talks late last month, when
officials discussed the format of the agreement before sending it for
approval by the Council of Europe prior to the start of formal
negotiations.

Chana said that if the members could not agree on the format of the
agreement, then negotiations would be delayed further. Plus the EU could
choose to enter into FTAs with individual Asean members, which would come
at a disadvantage to those members that did not enter into such deals.

"Now Asean must discuss how to deal with the Burma issue - whether it will
agree to discuss it as '10 plus one' or 'nine plus one'. Thailand wants to
see negotiations conducted on behalf of the region, in order to boost its
bargaining power," said Chana. "Even now, you can see how the Asean talks
have become complicated," he added.

Phasit Poomchoosri, a Commerce Ministry official, said Thailand believed
all 10 Asean countries should participate at the negotiating table but
that if they were not ready, they might not have to sign the agreement.
"We don't want to see any country isolated," he said.

As for progress in the Asean-South Korean FTA talks set to resume next
month, he said Thailand refused to sign the agreement with South Korea,
because that country refused to open its market to Thai rice. This time,
Thailand will ask South Korea to open its market to certain types of Thai
products, such as fragrant rice.

____________________________________
REGIONAL

February 13, Agence France Presse
Indonesia, Myanmar to hold first meeting of joint commission

Jakarta: Indonesia and Myanmar will hold their first meeting of a joint
commission aimed at strengthening ties in Jakarta this week, the foreign
ministry said Tuesday.

The two foreign ministers will attend the commission meeting on Wednesday
and Thursday, the ministry said on its website.

The foreign ministry spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment.

During an Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit last month,
Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said the meetings of the joint commission
were aimed at strengthening bilateral ties and would discuss various
potential areas for cooperation.

A number of ASEAN nations, including Indonesia, have openly expressed
frustration and disappointment with the sluggish pace of democratic reform
in Myanmar.

____________________________________

February Issue, Irrawaddy
An open boat to nowhere - Yeni

Phang Nga, Thailand: Burma’s Rohingyas in search of a new life end up
behind bars

The food ran out 14 days into the voyage. The drinking water was also
nearly exhausted. The cheap onboard compass was not reliable, so it was
only possible to navigate by the stars. Finally, the engine gave out.

The boat made for the nearest coastline, far from its original
destination, Malaysia. It beached in southern Thailand, where the 114 men
on board were promptly arrested by Thai police. Their journey to freedom
had ended.

Zar Phaw, one of the 114, told the harrowing story to The Irrawaddy from
behind the bars of the visitors’ section of the local jail in Takuapa,
southern Thailand. The 38-year-old Muslim man and his 113 companions had
spent more than two weeks in storm-tossed waters of the Andaman Sea in a
small open boat.

Each had paid between 12,000 and 15,000 kyat (US $9-11) for the trip. They
came from villages along the border between Burma and Bangladesh, homeland
of nearly 1 million Muslim Rohingyas, virtually outlawed by the Burmese
regime.

The 114 decided to take their fate into their own hands and embarked on a
dangerous journey to find a better life in Malaysia, where about 12,000
Rohingyas live. They weren’t alone—other groups of Rohingyas landed along
the Thai coast at the end of 2006, and other boats are believed to be
still on the way.

“Many people believe we can find a better life in Malaysia,” said Zar
Phaw. “So I risked all on the boat.”

The plight of Burma’s Rohingyas has long been one of the worst stains on
the country’s deplorable human rights record. Officially, the 850,000
Rohingyas living in the townships of Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung,
in northern Arakan State, don’t even exist. Nationalist campaigns
initiated by the Burmese government, often with the support of local
Buddhist communities, have dismissed the Rohingyas as illegal émigrés who
infiltrated the country from neighboring Bangladesh and India. As a
result, they are subjected to various forms of extortion and arbitrary
taxation, land confiscation, forced eviction and destruction of their
homes, and even restrictions on marriage.

In 1991, waves of Rohingya refugees fled across Burma’s western border to
Bangladesh to escape oppression. Most were repatriated, sometimes
forcibly, under an agreement between Bangladesh and Burma, and also with
the involvement of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. But observers
say that repatriated refugees and new arrivals have continued to enter
Bangladesh.

The flow of Rohingya refugees into Bangladesh—and now into the open sea
off the Arakan coast—is actually being encouraged by the Burmese regime,
according to Chris Lewa, a researcher on Rohingyas and coordinator of the
Bangkok-based Arakan Project. She says the regime policy is to make life
so difficult for the Rohingyas, even to the extent of restricting their
access to food, that they are forced to seek livelihoods elsewhere.

“The military regime uses food as a weapon, and its strategy has proven
effective in compelling Rohingyas to leave Arakan,” Lewa says. “It moves
Rohingyas from visible refugees into invisible refugees, labeled economic
migrants.”

But the Rohingyas are just as badly off in Bangladesh, where they are
forbidden to seek legitimate employment. As illegal migrants, they are
exploited by local employers, who pay less than $1 a day. “Life is so hard
there that I could not afford to support my seven children and my wife,”
said Zar Phaw.

Unwanted in both Burma and Bangladesh, the Rohingyas look south, to
Malaysia, where they hope to find understanding from a Muslim people and
government.

Many succeeded in resettling in Malaysia in the early 1990s, but
subsequent high-profile Rohingya actions there brought unwelcome attention
from the authorities, nervous at any incidents at a time of heightened
fears of terrorist activity in Southeast Asia.

In 2002, several Rohingya groups broke into the UNHCR compound in Kuala
Lumpur and sought asylum. Two years later, a group of Rohingya asylum
seekers set ablaze the Burmese embassy in Kuala Lumpur and attacked the
Burmese ambassador.

Despite the two incidents, the Malaysian immigration department pressed on
with a program to register Rohingyas in legal employment and allow
Rohingya children to attend Malaysian schools, but suspended it last
August, claiming corrupt agents and middlemen were making money from the
scheme.

The status of Rohingyas arriving in southern Thailand is also precarious.
More than 300 arrested by Thai police after landing on southern Thai
beaches are being charged with illegal entry and face deportation. A
social worker assisting the detained Rohingyas said in December 2006 that
several hundred were thought to be on their way south in as many as 14
boats. Other boat people are reported to have landed unseen and to be in
hiding.

Neither Thailand nor Malaysia has signed the two central international
agreements on the treatment of refugees—the 1951 United Nations Convention
Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1967 Protocol Relating to the
Status of Refugees—so a grim future faces the boat people. Many are
desperate at the prospect of being deported to Burma and facing not only
renewed harassment but imprisonment and worse.

“Kill me here,” declared Zar Phaw, gripping the prison bars. “I don’t want
to die at the hands of torturers.”

____________________________________
OPINION / OTHER

February 12, Wall Street Journal
On a far frontier - Melik Kaylan

The Thailand-Burma border: From the Burma side, refugees straggle in small
groups across the Salween river or over misty blue hills, fleeing the
Burmese army. Otherwise, it's all forest and silence. After dark, only
isolated military outposts display distant lights.

In contrast, all along the Thai side, miniature border towns with gaily
lit eateries play music and host sandaled tourists day and night. Many are
real tourists, some are clearly pretending, and one soon learns to pick
out the odd ones: huge Scotsmen or Russians with military bearing and
unlikely rope bags, purposeful North Koreans, Chinese and Americans --
intel operatives all, watching each other and the activity on the border,
as the Thais watch the watchers, and the working girls solicit anyone who
smiles. In these tropical entrepots straight out of Graham Greene, desire
and paranoia spice the air in equal measure.


There's good reason to be watchful. Other smaller states aside, Burma sits
strategically between China and U.S.-ally India; both countries vie for
influence and access, through the ruling military junta, to Burma's raw
materials and energy supplies, while human-rights groups go hoarse
itemizing the regime's atrocities against its own citizens.

With $5 billion to date in trade agreements -- and untold billions in
loans and military aid to Burma -- the Chinese are way ahead of India in
the influence race. They are building deepwater ports for their own naval
use on Burma's western coast atop the Bay of Bengal, and gas pipelines
through the interior directly to China. The former threatens India
strategically, while the latter finally liberates China from shipping all
its fuel supply past the strategic threat of Taiwan and the U.S. navy.

Meanwhile, Burma itself exports narcotics and methamphetamine in vast
amounts, sends officers for military training to Moscow and Beijing, and
last year announced an interest in North Korean nukes. The recent
U.S.-sponsored United Nations resolution calling for democratic change in
Burma was vetoed by Russia and China. Seeing this, the Association of
South-East Asian Nations (Asean) declared its support for the Rangoon
regime against internal "insurgents," and the state newspaper has carried
reports of "U.S.-backed" terrorist bombs on its soil.

Much of the world knows about Burma's pro-democracy struggle through the
figure of Nobel Peace laureate Aung Sang Suu Kyi, or the student movement.
Less known are their allies in the tribal resistance. Together they offer
Western interests the last remaining hope of a countervailing strategic
lever, one that a U.S. preoccupied with Iraq seems bent on ignoring
despite the strategic stakes.

In jungle camps some miles inside Burma from the Thai border, I witnessed
historic meetings of leaders from the eight main minority regional ethnic
groups who make up roughly half the country's population -- the Karen,
Karenni, Shan, Chin, Kachin and others. Some walked for many days to get
there. They decided, irrevocably, to settle differences and cooperate
because the Burmese army is destroying them singly, state by ethnic state,
displacing them wholesale while forcibly integrating them into the
dominant Burmese identity.

The tribal populations have suffered acutely as the junta expropriated
their lands for personal gain, drug-running, logging, mining,
pipeline-building and the like, projects in which they are used as slave
labor until they drop. To enforce this, the military piles depravity upon
cruelty, raping children in front of parents and vice-versa, in places
enslaving villagers to methamphetamine, in others using them as human
shields or to walk through minefields. The number of refugees, internally
and externally, is nearing a million, in a country of approximately 50
million that seems to be run, in much of the countryside, as a virtual
organized-crime state from which only the military elite benefit.

Ethnic militias, therefore, serve as self-defense forces against the army
-- not as insurgents or separatists as the junta claims. One thinks of
Darfur as a comparable model, with beleaguered tribes fighting a murderous
government because not fighting merely encourages ethnic cleansing and
genocide. What it doesn't resemble is Iraq: "Lift the lid and chaos
ensues" does not apply here.

For one thing, opposition leaders (all Christian or Buddhist) have mostly
stayed in-country. They know their populations and they admire the West.
Since the 1990s, leading minority ethnic groups have mapped out democratic
constitutions for themselves in tandem with a humane, federalist, vision
for the country -- all along Western lines with volunteer Western legal
advice. They've thought through the tricky details of transition which can
bring chaos in place of freedom, such as how to keep the army stable, and
how to forge national reconciliation.

But as the regime attacks relentlessly, it has denied tribal leaders the
logistical leisure to travel from the regions to meet all together. At the
meetings I witnessed, they set about making practical plans for a united
resistance while adumbrating postwar stability. The real danger of an
Iraq-style free-for-all, one could argue, comes from within the regime
itself because of cracks in the military and suspicion among top junta
figures. The army, now operating its criminal projects year-round -- even
during the rainy season -- is under such strain that some 80% of its
troops are close to mutiny, according to what two foreign intel sources
tell me on the border.

Yet almost no help from the U.S. reaches the ethnic alliance in a context
where a little can go far, and where ethical foreign policy and
realpolitik coincide naturally. What scant support there is comes mostly
from individual or faith-based donations. Extraordinary, selfless
characters make all the difference in such places. The Free Burma Rangers,
a grassroots movement led by Western volunteers along with scores of
locals, provide humanitarian and medical relief deep into the war zone.
They also document atrocities. They are pretty much alone. Almost alone --
now, there's also Greg Shade.

An utterly American individualist, self-financing and untiringly
practical, he was last seen on Afghanistan's borders handing out
picture-leaflets of al Qaeda suspects just before the U.S. invasion.
(Crazy as it sounds, nobody had told border guards in nearby countries
whom to watch for!) Mr. Shade last came to Burma in 1988 and brought out
student leaders to testify before Congress. He is at it again, working
this time to bring back ethnic leaders to rouse bipartisan congressional
support. It seems astonishing that, but for the intervention of such lone
idealists, American strategic interests -- now so embattled everywhere --
would go largely undefended in such a pivotal place.

Mr. Kaylan is a writer based in New York.

____________________________________

February 13, The Washington Post
America's quiet victories in Asia - Michael J. Green

Last month the leaders of 16 Asian nations met in the Philippines for the
second East Asian Summit and agreed to work for better energy security and
reduced poverty. The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) signed an agreement with China on trade and services and pledged
to work toward a broader free-trade agreement. President Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo of the Philippines, a traditional U.S. ally, declared that "we are
happy to have China as our big brother in this region." No Americans were
invited to the summit.

Is America's Pacific Century over? Is America losing Asia to China? Not
yet. As with all things Asian, the appearance of harmony in the meetings
in Cebu does not entirely match reality. Almost all the major leaders at
the summit still trust Washington more than their neighbors, China in
particular. And while China may be key to the region's economic dynamism,
the political model the leaders are increasingly embracing for long-term
success is the one championed by the United States.

Take the East Asia Summit itself. When China proposed hosting the meeting
two years ago, many in the region reacted with alarm. Singapore and Japan
pushed successfully for the inclusion of leaders from India, Australia and
New Zealand to balance Chinese influence, and ASEAN won agreement that
only its members could host the summits. Meanwhile, Singapore signed a
strategic framework agreement granting greater access to U.S. forces,
Indonesia took steps that allowed the United States to resume bilateral
military contacts, and Vietnam signed an agreement allowing greater
religious freedom to help ensure a successful summit with President Bush
and closer strategic alignment with Washington. Arroyo's obsequious nod to
"big brother" in Beijing aside, Asian leaders are not about to let the
Pacific become a Chinese lake.

The regional trade agreements are also less threatening to U.S. interests
than they sound. Most economists expect little trade distortion or
barriers to American firms from these agreements, which are pockmarked
with exemptions. To the extent that more advanced economies such as those
of Japan or Singapore are using these intraregional economic discussions
to increase transparency, capacity and governance in the less-developed
economies, such as Indonesia's, it helps U.S. business. Ultimately, Asia
still depends heavily on U.S. capital and foreign direct investment and
markets to sustain economic growth.

America's greatest source of soft power in Asia is the Asian embrace of
democracy. At its founding, ASEAN members were all led by authoritarian
leaders or dictators; the guiding principle of the organization was
"noninterference in internal affairs" --  a platitude that essentially
represented a rejection of universal values. Today, China is embracing
that principle of noninterference, but ASEAN is moving on. The most
important document at Cebu was not about trade or energy but the draft of
ASEAN's new governing charter, which says regional peace and stability
rest on "the active strengthening of democratic values, good governance,
rejection of unconstitutional and undemocratic changes of government, the
rule of law, including international humanitarian law, and respect for
human rights and fundamental freedoms."

Thomas Jefferson could not have put it better, but this is the thinking of
Indonesia's first directly elected president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. It
is the vision of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who has rejected
decades of mercantilist thinking in an effort to define a new purpose for
a resurgent Japan. It is a central theme of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh, who is moving India beyond non-alignment and championing democracy
as the answer to the increasing threat of failed states and terrorism in
India's neighborhood.

None of these leaders embraced democracy because it was imposed by the
United States, nor are they contemplating imposing democracy on their
neighbors. Many continue to have major governance and democracy challenges
(Thailand's coup for one) and are torn over how to manage the undemocratic
disaster that is Burma. Yet all recognize that their economic development
and national security depend on the spread of democratic principles and
good governance. As these values are consolidated across the region, they
will inevitably affect China, Burma and even North Korea.

The United States has a winning hand in Asia and needs to play it. This
means more engagement at senior levels -- with China, but particularly
with like-minded leaders in India, Japan and Indonesia. It means
completing our free-trade negotiations with Korea so that the United
States sets the standard for trade liberalization in the region. Above all
it means not abandoning our commitment to the promotion of democracy in
Asia, where we are succeeding despite setbacks in Iraq and the Middle
East.

The writer was senior director for Asian affairs at the National Security
Council from January 2004 to December 2005. He is at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies and Georgetown University.