Today's news that Aung San Suu Kyi has again been convicted in a kangaroo court in Myanmar is a further reproach to the Tory government. So far from exerting a global reach as Boris Johnson promised, it has done nothing to protect a fighter for democracy, the widow of a British citizen and mother of two more in what was once a Commonwealth country. Perhaps this is for the basest of reasons: they approve of the junta's genocide of Muslims, much as too many of their predecessors approved of Hitler's solution of "the Jewish problem".
Well, there it turns out that there was a practical reason for not allowing the virtual takeover of Myanmar by China. The country is rich in the ores of neodymium and other vital "rare earth" metals. China is extracting these and not in an environmentally-friendly way.
Misha Glenny's Radio 4 series on rare earths revealed another source closer to home: Ukraine. This is another nation where the UK (and, let us face it, our then European partners) could have warned off a dictator before it was too late.
But the major rare earth monopolist is China. Glenny cites other territories where China has insidiously extended her grip.
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