The China Factor – Min Zin

From The Bangkok Post : Sunday Perspective:

A few weeks after the protests last year in Burma, a Chinese diplomat approached an influential Burmese advocate in New York and asked why the Burmese dubbed their protest the “Saffron Revolution.”

“The diplomat was obviously quite uncomfortable with this particular name, which he whispered to me,” said the Burmese advocate, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Chinese are very sensitive to the ‘colour revolutions’,” she added.

In the wake of successful “color revolutions” such as Georgia’s 2003 Rose Revolution and Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution – victories of nonviolent democracy movements in post-communist countries – Beijing is anxious to prevent similar occurrences at home or among its neighbors. [Full Text]