There have been strong reactions in ‘Western’ capitals to the latest punishment handed out to Aung San Suu Kyi in Burma, the key effect of which is to stop her running in the next round of national elections. Malaysia too is dismayed.

President Sarkozy and the British government are talking of further targeted sanctions.

PM Brown goes on a mixed metaphor rampage, complete with a little cedilla:

The façade of her prosecution is made more monstrous because its real objective is to sever her bond with the people for whom she is a beacon of hope and resistance

Get that? A monstrous facade has an objective to sever a bond between her people and their beacon of hope.

Who drafts this stuff? Just asking.

Foreign Office Minister Ivan Lewis sounds like a human being:

What we must do now, and Britain will lead on this, is ensure that the international community finally acts firmly. The measures that we will propose is that we move quickly to secure further European Union sanctions targeting the regime’s economic interests; the Prime Minister will be writing to the secretary general of the United Nations today and the permanent members of the UN Security Council – we are currently president of that. 

We will urge further international sanctions; specifically we now want to see an arms embargo against that… this regime, and we want to see Burma’s neighbours, the ASEAN countries such as China, Japan and Thailand applying maximum pressure on this Burmese regime.

The main problem is that EU measures will get nowhere if Burma’s Asian neighbours do not support them. ASEAN tends to default to doing such things the ‘Asian way’. And at the UN in the Security Council the chances of China and Russia supporting further sanctions must be modest.

Why? Not because they care tuppence about Burma. Rather because they do care tuppence and a lot more about showing that whatever the ‘West’ wants – especially in Asia – it gets only on their terms.

So, perversely, the louder the Western indignation about the plight of Aung San Suu Kyi, the less likely the Chinese/Russians are to do anything positive about it lest they appear to be somehow ‘subordinate’ in this case. And they have long memories.

In any case, Russia is busy elsewhere. On the anniversary of its Georgia intervention, new laws are being proposed – with far-reaching implications:

The new law would allow foreign deployments to defend a third country against aggression, to protect Russian citizens and military personnel and to fight naval piracy, according to the draft posted on the Kremlin’s website

Get that? Russian special forces will be authorised by Russian law to operate against any perceived threat to Russian citizens outside Russia’s borders.

This new legislation of course is irrelevant under international law if such ‘interventions’ are not justified. And there may be a gloss limiting its potential reach:

The new provisions allowing Russia to defend foreign forces and countries would apply to states that have signed military cooperation pacts with Russia, Ilyukhin said.

But the political message is clear, especially to Russia’s immediate neighbours.

Now, what was that you were going on about? Freedom and democracy? Where? In Burma?

Not today,