However, during the past two years, Aung San Suu Kyi's silence on the current government's treatment of the Rohingya Muslims and the continued turmoil in northern Myanmar has been viewed as tacit agreement with the measures taken by the current government and has thus drawn some criticism from the international community.

In any case, although Aung San Suu Kyi is very familiar with Western concepts of democracy, liberty and the rule of law, she lacks practical experiences with nation-building in the true sense. It is therefore imperative for her to reconsider several issues in light of the interests of Myanmar itself, instead of simply allowing Myanmar to fall under the influence of the West. After all, economic sanctions and military threats against Myanmar's former junta from Western countries neither ended her house arrest nor directly led to Myanmar's reform and opening up.

In recent years, Aung San Suu Kyi and her party have neither illustrated systematic campaign guidelines, nor fully expressed their ideas about Myanmar's domestic and foreign policies nor proposed constructive measures to deal with some thorny issues. If Aung San Suu Kyi seeks to win this year's election while leading the National League for Democracy, she must boldly face, meet and find proper ways to overcome the challenges and clearly illustrate her philosophy about the prospects of national governance.

Of all of Myanmar's neighboring countries, China has undergone the most robust nation-building in recent years. Mutual interests and bilateral relations between China and Myanmar are not only the closest and the most critical, they are also most important to Myanmar's future economic development.

During the process of assessing the situation at the Chinese-operated Letpadaung Copper Mine in Myanmar, Aung San Suu Kyi recognized the legitimacy of such projects and the actions taken by Chinese companies in Myanmar, seeing their importance to Myanmar's nation-building. That's why she asked the local people not to harm the interests of foreign investors and thus cause Myanmar to lose international credibility.

Aung San Suu Kyi may also find that there are many common interests shared by China and Myanmar. She should therefore make great efforts to maintain stable China-Myanmar relations with a pragmatic manner, a forward-looking vision, deft diplomacy, an enterprising spirit and steady work. Only in this way will China be willing to provide more support and help to Myanmar as it tries to rid itself of its status as one of the least-developed countries in the world.

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