HONG KONG -- One significant though insufficiently noticed aspect of U.S. President George W. Bush's weeklong visit to Asia was his consistent effort to focus attention on Myanmar, and to pressure Asian allies, notably Japan, to be more forthright in their criticisms of the military junta's shortcomings.
In the keynote speech for his Asian tour, in Kyoto on Nov. 16, it went largely unreported that Bush took the opportunity to place the Myanmarese tragedy more clearly on the international agenda in one passionate paragraph:
"We see that lack of freedom in Myanmar -- a nation that should be one of the most prosperous and successful in Asia but is instead one of the region's poorest. Fifteen years ago, the Myanmarese people cast their ballots -- and they chose democracy. The government responded by jailing the leader of the prodemocracy majority. The result is that a country rich in human talent and natural resources is a place where millions struggle simply to stay alive.