Word: westernizes
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...compatriots they stay up late into Burma's tropical nights to watch live broadcasts from faraway England. So far, so normal. But knowing the grandfather in this touching scene is Senior General Than Shwe, the xenophobic chief of Burma's junta, makes it seem all wrong. Rabidly anti-Western, yet pro-Wayne Rooney, is this the tyrant we know and hate...
...until a new regional giant emerged. "In 1988, nobody in the Burmese military knew how quickly China would grow economically," says Seekins. "But as this was happening [the regime] took advantage of that situation to promote close ties to China." Burma joined ASEAN in 1997, gaining further allies against Western criticism and more trade opportunities (Thailand gets most of its natural gas from Burma), and is improving ties with India. Even at Naypyidaw, once a symbol of seclusion, the junta plans to build an international airport to handle over 10 million passengers a year. "They're much less isolationist than...
...foes, foreign and domestic. The generals regard a threat to their regime as a threat to the nation. This might seem "misguided, even deluded," observes Andrew Selth, a Burma analyst with Australia's Griffith University, but the generals' fear of invasion is real and has been constantly stoked by Western actions and rhetoric. During pro-democracy protests in 1988, the U.S. deployed a naval taskforce off Burma's coast and later lumped the country with Iran and North Korea as an "outpost of tyranny." Whether real or perceived, Western hostility has prompted the junta to take two concrete actions: building...
...Military defector Aung Lynn Htut is unconvinced. He warns that his former commander will do anything to discredit Suu Kyi, a longtime supporter of Western sanctions. Than Shwe met Webb as part of a campaign to portray the Nobel laureate as "the enemy of the Burmese people [who] is too stubborn to lift sanctions," he says. But even Suu Kyi's pro-sanctions stance is no longer a given. U.S. engagement was "a good thing," she admitted recently through a spokesman for her National League for Democracy party...
Change, and Its Limits Saudi Arabia's western allies have been pushing it to reform its social and political arrangements since the attacks of September 11, 2001. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 came from Saudi Arabia, where a conservative version of Islam, high unemployment, limited democratic rights and archaic attitudes to women fed a mood of unchecked radicalism among some young men. Last February, Abdullah announced a sweeping reshuffle of posts in government to remove some of the more old-style figures, including a top judge who once ruled it would be legal to kill the owners...