The Durian: the blog of the Center for Asian Democracy

Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images The coup in Myanmar has rightly been greeted with almost universal condemnation. The few exceptions Russia, China, Cambodia, Thailand, are governed by authoritarian leaderships and have little appetite for democracy and civil rights.  Once again, Myanmar’s National League for Democracy’s leadership is under arrest, and students and civil rights activists fear military reprisals if they openly defy the Junta. Naturally, the latest iteration of military rule has once again thrust Daw Aung San Suu Kyi into the spotlight. Once again, she has become the personification of the struggle against military rule, a role she has spent almost half her life dedicated to. Under house arrest for fifteen years, she became an international icon for the struggle for democracy worldwide, winning the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. Once more, the coup has thrust her into the global spotlight, and her image adorns everything

It was not supposed to be like this. On February 1st Myanmar woke to find that the country's military had taken power, its democratically elected leaders arrested, and access to the Internet cut in vast swathes of the country. These actions marked a sharp reversal to the decade of democratic progress that Myanmar had made since its leading political activist Aung San Suu Kyi, was released in November 2010. In the intervening period, the country had enjoyed economic and political liberalization, with Suu Kyi elected to the de facto head of government as State Counsellor following her party's landslide victory elections in 2015. Five years later, Suu Kyi and her party repeated the victory with an increased majority dealing the country's military a stinging rebuke. It was not supposed to be like this. When the country's military Junta drew up a new constitution for a disciplined democracy in 2008, they thought they had ensured their continued dominance of the country's

A new administration is often the chance for a reset in foreign policy. The inauguration of Jo Biden on January 20th as the 46th President of the United States is no exception. The contrast with the Trump administration is already evident with the return to prior norms of conduct. Already gone are the endless self-promoting tweets that frequently made policy on the fly. So what can we expect from a Biden administration when it comes to US-China relations? In many ways, we can expect a return to the priorities and character of the Obama administration. While it is overly simplistic to consider that Biden will effectively represent a proverbial third term of the Obama years, he has staffed many of his key Cabinet posts with colleagues who served under Obama. Most notable is the appointment of Anthony Blinken to Secretary of State and the nomination of Samantha Power to direct the U.S. Agency for International Development. Blinken served as Biden’s National Security Advisor during the Oba