Today , Thais join people in 16 other countries in commemorating the 62nd birthday of the world's only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi, by demanding that China modify its unquestioning support for the Burmese junta.
Beijing, as usual, will turn a deaf ear to such a request saying the "lady" is an internal issue for neighbouring Burma and China has no room to intervene.
Such a reaction will again leave activists fuming around the globe.
Burmese dissidents and democracy advocates firmly believe that only China, one of the five veto-wielding members of the United Nations Security Council, can secure the release of all Burmese political prisoners, including Mrs Suu Kyi, head of the National League for Democracy (NLD), if it really wants to.
Earlier this year, hopes for a constructive change in Burma were raised when the UN Security Council held its first-ever vote on Burma _ a US sponsored resolution which garnered enough votes to pass but was vetoed by China, the Burmese military regime's primary benefactor, selling it weaponry and importing massive quantities of natural resources, and Russia.
Naturally, the gigantic country is unlikely to do anything to upset the Burmese dictatorship just for the sake of the "Gandhi of Southeast Asia".
"Chinese diplomacy is very subtle. We are hearing, and will continue to hear, more harsh words against Burma in response to international calls for China to convince its next-door neighbour that what it was doing was unacceptable. But, in return, we only see some piecemeal collaboration on HIV/Aids and other human security issues, not on Suu Kyi or other touchy political subjects," said Burma expert Pornpimon Trichot from Chulalongkorn University's Institute of East Asian Studies.
"This is because Burma is now also an important strategic energy ally of Beijing as it has abundant oil and gas reserves. An economic free-port is also being created in Rangoon by Beijing, Pornpimon Trichot said.
Mrs Suu Kyi has devoted her life to a peaceful struggle against the Burmese junta that ignored her landslide victory in the general election of May 1990. She was first placed under house arrest in 1989 and confined without charges for six years. Her second house arrest began in September 2000 and lasted for 18 months. She was then re-arrested in 2003.
Prior to the fourth yearly house-arrest extension last month, the world had seen an unprecedented appeal for Suu Kyi's release by 59 former presidents and prime ministers from around the world, including Chuan Leekpai. The appeal was also supported by every single living US president and those throughout Latin America, Africa, and Europe.
Yet, China and Burma remain unperturbed. Burma has said its "road map to democracy" laid out in 2003 by former prime minister Khin Nyunt was still on. The constitution-drafting session on July 18 will be the fifth one. With its leaders in detention, the NLD has boycotted the convention since its May 2004 resumption. The party instead insists on the convening of a parliamentary session involving those who were elected in the 1990 general election, in which the NLD won 392 out of the 485 seats but was barred from assuming power.
Still, Sann Aung, a 1990-elected MP in exile, remains hopeful that change is in the making.
"China has gradually opened lines of communications with Burmese dissidents and is receptive to their voices. China cannot stay isolated for decades where Burma is concerned.
"They also want to put things in order along the border to curb the illicit trade of goods, logging and drugs, not to mention humans," said Sann Aung.
Night prayers for a peaceful transition to democracy, gatherings to call for Mrs Suu Kyi's release in Burma's major cities, and the release of statements from the 88 Generation, middle-aged and older Burmese who played a key role in democratic protests in 1988 have gradually become a real challenge to the military regime in Burma.