China issued an evenhanded plea for calm in Burma on Thursday, calling on all sides to exercise restraint but asking the military-led government to "properly deal" with the unfolding conflict.
"China hopes that all parties in Myanmar [Burma] exercise restraint and properly handle the current issue so as to ensure the situation there does not escalate and get complicated," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a twice-weekly media briefing.
Jiang said that order should be restored quickly so that neither Burma's nor the region's stability was affected and called on its government to address the domestic tensions that caused the unrest.
"We hope that Myanmar would be devoted to improving the people's welfare, maintaining national harmony, and properly dealing with its domestic social conflict so that as to restore peace at an early date," she said.
The crackdown by Burma's junta against democracy demonstrators, many of them Buddhist monks, has put China in a bind. The communist government has developed close diplomatic ties with junta leaders and is a major trading partner and investor in its neighbor. But with the Beijing Olympics 11 months away, China is eager to fend off criticism that it shelters unpopular or abusive regimes around the world.
Jiang said she had no information on whether Beijing had dispatched envoys to Burma or the junta had sent emissaries to China.
In her appeal for restraint, Jiang urged the foreign media not to aggravate tensions in Burma by "exaggerating and hyping up" the situation in their reports. "We do not believe that is responsible," she said.
"China hopes that all parties in Myanmar [Burma] exercise restraint and properly handle the current issue so as to ensure the situation there does not escalate and get complicated," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a twice-weekly media briefing.
Jiang said that order should be restored quickly so that neither Burma's nor the region's stability was affected and called on its government to address the domestic tensions that caused the unrest.
"We hope that Myanmar would be devoted to improving the people's welfare, maintaining national harmony, and properly dealing with its domestic social conflict so that as to restore peace at an early date," she said.
The crackdown by Burma's junta against democracy demonstrators, many of them Buddhist monks, has put China in a bind. The communist government has developed close diplomatic ties with junta leaders and is a major trading partner and investor in its neighbor. But with the Beijing Olympics 11 months away, China is eager to fend off criticism that it shelters unpopular or abusive regimes around the world.
Jiang said she had no information on whether Beijing had dispatched envoys to Burma or the junta had sent emissaries to China.
In her appeal for restraint, Jiang urged the foreign media not to aggravate tensions in Burma by "exaggerating and hyping up" the situation in their reports. "We do not believe that is responsible," she said.
