Cornering the junta

Street demonstrations alone are unlikely to bring down Burma's ruthless military junta. They have been tried before, notably in 1988, when about 3,000 civilians reportedly died in the resulting crackdown. Nor will any amount of huffing and puffing by Gordon Brown and other western leaders have much impact, especially if - as in the past - it is unsupported by concrete, punitive measures.

Similarly irrelevant for all practical purposes is the Association of South-East Nations (Asean), the regional organisation that has repeatedly failed to take firm action on Burma despite myriad embarrassments over its behaviour. Asean's calls for democratic reforms and the release of political prisoners, reiterated by Indonesia and the Philippines this month, are treated with ill-concealed contempt in Rangoon. And after last year's coup, Burma's southern neighbour, Thailand, has its own military junta problem.

In the Asian century, regional experts say, it is China and India, not the colonial and imperial powers of yesteryear, who hold the key to Burma's future - a fact that the US, Britain's successor as global policeman, is loath to admit. Only Beijing and Delhi have sufficient political and economic clout to twist the junta's arm. And only if they call time and pull the rug are the generals likely to topple.

"Change in Burma can be achieved by a combination of internal protest and international pressure," said Mark Farmaner of the pro-reform Burma Campaign UK. But the attitude of China and India is crucial, he said. Both countries are pursuing significant investment and oil and gas projects in Burma and, with Russia, are leading suppliers of arms, bypassing an EU embargo.

"It would be a mistake to think that China is happy with the junta. It sees Burma as an unstable tinpot regime causing growing cross-border narcotics and HIV/Aids problems for China when it has more important things to do," Mr Farmaner said. Chinese officials had said privately that they would like to see change, he added, but for the present, Beijing remained the junta's main political backer. That apparent contradiction was partly explained earlier this year when energy-hungry China won a major gas deal despite bidding $2.5bn less for the project than India.

For its part, India, competing with China for influence, is putting its economic interests and concerns about cross-border insurgents active in northeast India ahead of human rights and democracy, said Zoya Phan in a Burma Campaign report. "The world's largest democracy has abandoned Burma's democrats. India should be ashamed of what they have done, supplying money and weapons to one of world's most brutal regimes."

While they have remained largely silent so far, neither China nor India are immune to international opinion, as Beijing's recent policy shifts on Sudan and Zimbabwe indicate. And political and diplomatic support for the Burmese pro-democracy movement, misleadingly dubbed the "saffron revolution", has been building rapidly in recent weeks.

Britain was instrumental in bringing the issue back to the UN security council last week and in emphasising support for a mission there by UN envoy Ibrahim Gambari next month. Conservative international development spokesman Andrew Mitchell, who personally lobbied the regime in Rangoon earlier this year, called the protests "a key moment" in which "we look to the international community and especially China and India to ensure at last that meaningful progress" is made.

"The UK government has continually pressed the Burmese regime to stop their oppression and intimidation and called for a robust international response," said the British foreign secretary David Miliband after the UN meeting. Following a critical report on Burma in July by the House of Commons International Development Committee, Britain is expected to increase bilateral humanitarian aid.

Additional pressure is being exerted by the US, the European parliament, and via the UN general assembly. The French president Nicolas Sarkozy, fresh from his triumphs in Libya (and dodging political bullets at home), has also got in on the act with a planned meeting this week with Burma's government-in-exile.

Despite past failures, it may be that this growing external firestorm will help tip the internal balance in the demonstrators' favour. Inside Burma, what looks different this time around is the broad-based alliance that is emerging between the '88 generation opposition loyal to the iconic Aung San Suu Kyi, influential Buddhist leaders and monks, students, government workers, media celebrities, and ordinary civilians.

What looks frighteningly familiar are the generals' reported preparations to infiltrate and crush the demonstrations before they turn into a full-fledged national uprising. That begs a practical question of Mr Brown and other concerned leaders: if mass murder begins in Burma, what will "we" do?

Simon Tisdall