The Durian: the blog of the Center for Asian Democracy

 As international condemnation continues in response to the military coup in Myanmar, frustration grows with the United Nations Security Council's inability to take decisive action.  Yet despite renewed calls for the UN to approve sanctions against the military leadership and military-owned economic holding companies, it remains unlikely that the Council will be able to void China's veto. FDR and Churchill meet with Chaing Kai Shek and his wife Soong Mei-ling in 1942 (Source: Wikimedia Commons) When the United Nations was first created in 1944, the architects designed its highest body, the Security Council, with unique veto powers for the wartime allies. At that time, this meant, alongside the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union, China was accorded the same great power status. However, at that juncture, China was officially under the authority of the nationalist Kuomintang party led by General Chiang Kai Shek, and much of it under Japanese occupatio...

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...