A break in Burma’s dam?

IN THE UNENDING debate between engaging and isolating dictators, those favoring engagement invariably manage to discover inside autocratic regimes “reformers” whose brave efforts will be squelched if the outside world does not reward them.

The problem is that outsiders are not very good at peering inside autocracies. Is there a reform wing in North Korea? The honest answer is that no one knows, and the problem is engagement carries its own risk: that dictatorships will pretend at reform to tighten their stranglehold with the help of Western aid and trade. That is why the best way to judge a regime is by its actions.

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That is the case today in Burma, the Southeast Asian nation of 50 million or so people also known as Myanmar. A corrupt military junta has ruled for decades, ignoring an election it overwhelmingly lost in 1990 and brutally suppressing a nonviolent uprising for democracy in 2007. About six months ago, the ruling generals took off their uniforms, donned civilian clothes and proclaimed a new era, complete with a new parliament and even a relatively new capital. Longtime democracy activists were skeptical; engagement advocates began pushing for a more welcoming Western stance.

Since the announcement, there have been encouraging signs. Censorship or blocking of some Web sites reportedly has eased. Aung San Suu Kyi, leader of Burma’s most popular party and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, has been freed from house arrest and permitted some limited travel and political engagement.

Now, in perhaps the most notable development, Burma’s president announced Friday that the government is “suspending” plans to build, in cooperation with China, a gargantuan dam at the headwaters of the Irrawaddy River. The dam would create a lake larger than the city-state of Singapore, force the removal of thousands of people, alter vast swaths of fragile ecosystems — and all to produce electricity that would be sold, for the most part, back to China. Given Burmese people’s resentment of Chinese encroachment, the project was sensitive and had generated courageous opposition, including from Aung San Suu Kyi. The government’s reversal thus would seem to represent a rare bow to public opinion.

The suspension of the dam project, rather than its cancellation, is promising, but stopping short of cancellation reflects generally what has happened so far: atmospherics, promises of reform and fragile gestures. Meanwhile, human rights abuses have if anything intensified in the regime’s nasty war against ethnic groups in the north.

The United States is right to welcome and encourage signs of progress while insisting on more substantive reform before changing policy. A minimum requirement is the release of 2,000 or so political prisoners, many of whom have been tortured and mistreated. The regime also should stop stifling the nation’s media and political parties. When Burma’s democrats can express their views on sanctions as openly as do the nation’s generals, and without fear of reprisal, the West can make a more informed judgment about the proper response.