In the aftermath of Burma's 2007 "Saffron Revolution" and the military's subsequent crackdown, China has been increasingly pressured to assume a larger role in helping to resolve Burma's crisis.

A gathering cloud of myth however, has formed with regard to Beijing's policy on Burma, indicating that China has limited sway with the military junta’s generals and that Burmese activists and their advocates in the West overestimated China's influence on the generals.

This view is simply wrong or, at worst, Chinese propaganda. Of course China has more power and influence on the generals than any other country. The question is whether the Chinese Communist government wants to use its leverage to facilitate change in Burma. It does not mean that China is the patron that pulls the strings, and the self-isolated, delusive Burmese regime is its puppet.

The generals are highly aware of China's overwhelming strategic weight over Burma and appear eager to diversify and reduce its dependence on China since the mid-1990s. The junta may manage to reduce its military and economic over-reliance on China, but China's political and diplomatic protection remains indispensable to the regime's survival. Moreover, China's influence over the ethnic cease-fire groups in northeastern Burma that borders China's southwestern province could complicate relations between two countries.

If Beijing chose an uncooperative policy toward Burma in the latter's handling of its ethnic groups, the regime's state-building effort would face a serious hurdle. Therefore, the regime has no choice (no matter whether its intentions indicate otherwise) but to rely on China for political and diplomatic protection and cooperation. In other words, Burma's dependency on China is the consequence––by default––of the junta's struggle for survival rather than its stated intentions, such as nationalism and Sinophobia.

Therefore, China has leverage not only in terms of its provision of carrots, but also in terms of the sticks it can wield to hurt the regime. But China has not used its stick to poke the generals toward change at least for two reasons: first, China does not want Western-style democratization on its southern flank; and second, Beijing does not want to be seen as a "threat" to its neighbors.

Although China wants to see economic reform taking place in Burma, China has almost no sympathy for Burma's democratic crusade and its advocates; Beijing considers them too close to the West. China does not have confidence in the opposition's capacity to maintain stability in the divisive nation. And more importantly, China has also gained unrivaled economic advantages by supporting the pariah regime.

The second reason for not using its leverage is related to China's geopolitical strategy that aims to undermine the feasibility and desirability of a US policy of containment mainly by forging solid working relations with its smaller neighbors and other major powers.

While China continued its program of economic and military modernization through the 1990s, it wants to minimize the risk that others, most notably the member-states of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (Asean), will view China as an unacceptably dangerous threat which must be parried or perhaps even forestalled.

If China continued to meddle in Burma's affairs in the 1990s the way it backed Burmese communist insurgents in the late 1960s and 1970s, it would stir grave concerns in Asean. China would be viewed as a bully.

These concerns would coincide with the current South China Sea dispute between China and some Asean members over territorial claims and resources. China's leaders have decided to follow Deng Xiaoping's cryptic instruction: "Hide our capacities and bide our time, but also get some things done." (tao guang yang hui you suo zuo hui). China has adopted an opportunistic foreign policy of maintaining relations with any government that would remain friendly to China and serve China's security and economic interests, irrespective of that government's propensity for reform.

However, this policy of self-serving pragmatism appears to be more and more untenable for at least two reasons. First, it puts China in a difficult dilemma whenever the Burmese regime faces serious vulnerability in domestic power shifts. For instance, Beijing found itself in policy confusion when the opposition National League for Democracy won a landslide victory in the 1990 multi-party elections.

During the Buddhist monk-led protests in 2007, China similarly faced an uneasy situation.