Summary: Beijing has recently stepped back from its unconditional support for pariah states, such as Burma, North Korea, and Sudan. This means China may now be more likely to help the West manage the problems such states pose -- but only up to a point, because at heart China still favors nonintervention as a general policy....."...China's patience with the Burmese junta has been wearing thin recently. For several years, Beijing encouraged it to undertake Chinese-style economic and political reforms in order to help the regime consolidate its rule, ensure stability, and regain international acceptability. It supported former Prime Minister Khin Nyunt, whom it considered a Deng-style reformist -- only to see him ousted in 2004. As the Burmese regime hardened further, China's confidence in the junta's capacity or willingness to reform faded. But Beijing moved from providing encouragement to exerting pressure on the regime only after its support for the regime was exposed in the UN Security Council. In mid-2006, the United States circulated a resolution in the Security Council demanding the release of political prisoners, condemning Burma's human rights practices, and calling for the establishment of a political process that would lead to a genuine democratic transition. China twice managed to prevent the measure from being considered, and when the United States and the United Kingdom finally brought it to a vote, last January, China vetoed it (as did Russia) -- the first time since 1973 that Beijing vetoed any matter unrelated to Taiwan. At the same time, however, Beijing called on the regime to "listen to the call of its own people . . . and speed up the process of dialogues and reforms... Shifts in China's policy toward pariah states have been experimental, tentative, and incremental -- and are likely to remain so in the near future. But the strength of China's position with respect to many pariah states is a reality -- and an opportunity. Although there is little reason to believe that China is moving toward full alignment with Western policy, it may be prepared to distance itself from the worst autocracies and rogue states. Even if Beijing's list of such states is likely to remain short, it is bound to include a number of states that pose important security and humanitarian problems to the United States. In just two years, China has moved from outright obstructionism and a defensive insistence on solidarity with the developing world to an attempt to balance its material needs with its acknowledged responsibilities as a major power. And so when Washington and its allies formulate their policies toward pariah states, they should assume that China, although in some respects an obstacle, is now also a critical partner."