Sean Turnell [Associate Professor, Macquarie University]: "The conviction and sentencing of democracy icon, Aung San Suu Kyi, on absurd charges in a farcical 'trial' has rightly outraged the world. The sentence, of an 18 month extension to her (already manifestly unjust) house arrest is part of a crude effort by Burma's military junta to ensure that she is unable to take part in 'elections' they are organising for next year. Of course, suspicion that these elections would be anything except free and fair are now all but confirmed by this sentencing travesty.

Converting the expressions of international outrage into action is clearly the next challenge. The United States, Europe, Canada, Australia, and a number of other countries already impose sanctions on Burma, but hitherto these have been rendered less effective by the 'engagement' policies of Burma's neighbours in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and of India and China. Pleasingly, however, ASEAN countries have thus far responded with scarcely less disappointment than elsewhere to this latest demonstration of bad faith by Burma's leaders, and there are grounds for hope that at last a more decisive approach may emerge from the grouping.

Less pleasing are the actions of China. The great protector of Burma's regime in the UN Security Council and elsewhere, the principal supplier to the same of arms and other military equipment, and the prime beneficiary of the rapacious scouring of Burma's forests and other natural resources, China's role in Burma is almost completely irresponsible and destructive. For China, the relationship is truly 'all about' commercial and strategic advantage, but it is a relationship that bears too little scrutiny. Contrary to belief, China is susceptible to international pressure (it has bigger fish to fry than Burma), and is not invulnerable to international pressure to play a more responsible role. Let this pressure begin now.

There are a number of lessons to be learned from these latest events in Burma, but surely one of the most important is that policies of engagement, as if Burma's isolation is imposed by others, is a dead end. There has not been an occasion in recent times when the international community, but especially the USA under President Obama, has held out a more inviting hand. These efforts, as well as those of the UN and others, have been rebuffed. Burma's regime is not interested in international engagement beyond that which entrenches its rule. This is why it controls the economy so tightly, but especially those sectors (energy particularly) that are most connected to the international economy. Engaging Burma on its own terms will not create an alternative loci of power entrenched in a distinct business class – but simply fortify economically and financially a class in military uniform.

Finally, there was a time when non-democratic countries were perceived as possessing economic advantage. Burma is a poster child for the prosecution against this proposition, as the military regime that has ruled the country for nearly fifty years has reduced this once prosperous country ('the rice bowl of Asia') into pauperism. It is Burma's military regime that is responsible for the country's poverty, and it will only be its ending that will return to the people of Burma any measure of economic security.

The conviction of Aung San Suu Kyi, growing ties with North Korea, an endless stream of irrational policies that have destroyed the economy – all from a regime guilty otherwise of human rights abuses on a massive scale, of ethnic cleansing campaigns that have razed more villages than Darfur, of the widespread use of rape against ethnic minorities, and of ecological vandalism of an epic dimension. Enough. The international community must do all that it can to free Burma, not just Aung San Suu Kyi or John Yettaw, from a regime for whom the dustbin of history urgently beckons."