A helpful historical reminder from Scott Burchill:
… It is wrong to assign a power of policy veto over the West to one favoured dissident, as appeared to happen in the 1990s with Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi.
[The Australian’s Foreign Editor] Greg Sheridan, Asian Values, Western Dreams (Allen & Unwin, St Leonards 1999), p.315.
SB: In 1990 Suu Kyi won a democratic election in Burma but was prevented from forming a government by the military, which has incarcerated her for most of the last 20 years. To describe her nine years after her election victory as simply “one favoured dissident” betrays an extraordinary contempt for both democracy and the wishes of the Burmese people. No wonder Sheridan has such a well-earned reputation as an apologist for right wing military dictatorships in East Asia. And why he has been conspicuously quiet since her release.