The Post Scolds China

The Washington Post scolds China in an editorial today. The subject is Burma and China's increasing willingness to block any actions against tyrannical regimes.

In the past three days, Burma's ruling junta has carried out a bloody and criminal crackdown on a peaceful protest movement led by thousands of Buddhist monks. The regime admits that 10 people have died in the volleys of gunfire and the baton charges its soldiers have directed at demonstrators. More likely is that the death toll is in the scores. Hundreds of monks and democratic opposition activists have been rounded up at night and trucked away to unknown fates; troops have occupied and ransacked monasteries.

Sadly, the degree of international outrage over these events has been inversely proportional to the influence those speaking out have over the Burmese regime. The Bush administration and European Union have been admirably outspoken, but the generals have a long record of dismissing the West. Burma's neighbors, who made the controversial decision to admit the regime to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations a decade ago, expressed "revulsion" at the use of violence against the protests but did not call for an end to military rule. India, which has struck military and economic deals with Burma, was even milder, saying it "is concerned at and is closely monitoring the situation."

But the weakest response of all was left to China, which did $2 billion worth of business with Burma last year alone and is its principal supplier of weapons. China's ambassador at the United Nations blocked a Security Council resolution condemning the crackdown. The strongest word Beijing has been able to cough up is "restraint." U.S. officials counted it as an achievement that China supported the dispatch of a U.N. envoy to Burma……

As was pointed out in the last post, democracies talk, tyrannies act. China has been blocking meaningful sanctions against rogue states for many years now. It is not getting better. The Post says that the cracked and bleeding skulls of the Monks in Burma will cast a stain of the Beijing Olympics. Before the crackdown and the cracked heads, western analysts were confidently predicting that China would restrain the junta to protect their Olympic image. That didn't quite work, did it?

China understands what the west refuses to. Democracies talk and scold. Tyrannies do pretty much what they want. It is doubtful that they care one whit how much the Post scolds them.

Substituting Talk For Action

Mark Steyn explains the difference between democracies and tyrannies in terms so simple even a left wing academic could understand. It's not about risk-free dissent, it is about action.

At some point during this past week, it was decided that the relevant Ahmadinejad comparison was to Nikita Krushchev. The Soviet leader toured America in 1960, was taken to a turkey farm, paid a visit to Frank Sinatra and Co. on the set of "Can-Can" and pronounced the movie "decadent." And yet the republic survived. As one of my most distinguished fellow columnists, Peggy Noonan, put it in the Wall Street Journal, Krushchev's visit reminded the world that "we are the confident nation." And, as several e-mailers observed, warming to Noonan's theme, back then hysterical right-wing ninnies didn't get their panties in a twist just because a man dedicated to the destruction of our way of life was in town for a couple of days.

Whether or not this was a more "confident" nation in 1960, it's certainly a more post-modern nation now. I don't know whether Stina Reksten, as a 28-year old Norwegian, can be held up as an exemplar of American youth, but she certainly seems to have mastered the lingo: We've invited the president of Iran to speak but let's not confuse "the very dire human-rights situation" – or his nuclear program, or his Holocaust denial, or his role in the seizing of the U.S. Embassy hostages, or his government's role in the deaths of American troops and Iraqi civilians – with the more important business of applauding ourselves for our celebration of "academic freedom."

So much of contemporary life is about opportunities for self-congratulation. Risk-free dissent is the default mode of our culture, and extremely seductive. If dissent means refusing to let the Bush administration bully you into wearing a flag lapel pin, why, then Katie Couric (bravely speaking out on this issue just last week) is the new Mandela! If Rumsfeld is a "fascist." then anyone can fight fascism. It's no longer about the secret police kicking your door down and clubbing you to a pulp. Well, OK, it is if you're a Buddhist monk in Burma……

That then is the difference. Democracies talk, tyrannies act. In Burma, the junta has acted ruthlessly while democracies expressed concern. In Iran, Ahmadinejad hangs homosexuals; democracies invite him to speak at Columbia. Post modern democracies have forgotten all the lessons of history. At some point talk no longer works. Woodrow Wilson tried talk right up until he saw that it would not work. Then the doughboys went to France. Franklin Roosevelt was all for talking, until the bombs shattered the quiet of a bright, sunny morning in Hawaii. Then he was all-in for the war. Truman was willing to talk right up until the North Koreans crossed the 38th parallel. Then he sent the Army. John Kennedy talked up a storm until the missiles arrived in Cuba. Then he sent the Navy to blockade.

In the post modern west, the default is talk until talking fails, then start a new round of talk. Express concern when the militias in Sudan butcher humans. Send a bit of food aid so the targeted villagers present bigger targets for the tyrants who prefer acting to talking. Express concern about those monk guys over in Burma while the junta cracks their skulls with batons or shoots a few holes in them. Howl endlessly if a western leader acts instead of talks. Screech and whine your risk-free dissent against that risk-free target and ignore the real monsters. Or invite them to talk at Columbia. Or even to attend classes at Yale.

Forget the lessons of history.