The political crisis in Myanmar has not shown any sign of abating since the military took over state power on Feb 1. Escalating protests and foreign sanctions only point to the opposite.

With scheduled trials getting started on April 1, there has been no indication that the military regime will release leading figures from the National League for Democracy, or the NLD, and the former civilian government.

Protests by several civilian elements in the form of demonstrations have grown massively, accompanied by an increasing scale of violence and hundreds of civilian and police casualties amid the street protests fanned by social media.

There have been various diplomatic efforts from several countries, either through the initiative of their respective governments or their representatives in regional or international institutions, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the United Nations — which has called for an immediate end to the crisis in Myanmar.

What is intriguering is that there have been accusations from both domestic Myanmar civilian elements and some international elements that China is the “mastermind” and “supporter” of the military takeover action plan.

This kind of accusation within Myanmar emerged mostly from non-government parties, or to be precise, some young people who joined street demonstrations to protest the military takeover.

The accusations spread fast in the social media. Then in recent weeks, various opinion pieces leveling accusations against China, written by journalists and observers, have appeared in both the regional and Western media.

China has repeatedly refuted the allegations. As a close and friendly neighbor China has expressed hope that the conflicting sides would handle the situation properly and reach a solution to ease tensions and alleviate the crisis.

The media noise notwithstanding, the accusations against China are baseless, in my opinion, and ought to be rejected. The media should bear in mind that it should try to cool the situation, rather than aggravating the atmosphere by putting out speculative stories. It should play a positive role in upholding international norms and values of peace.

Amid international concerns diplomatic efforts were immediately carried out. The UN has issued a resolution calling for the release of Myanmar political figures who have been detained by the military. However, it has abandoned efforts to pass a resolution aimed at condemning the Tatmadaw's takeover of the Myanmar government because, by various considerations, the resolution will not do much good to help ease tensions,  but instead only make the situation more complicated.

The United States government has also heavily criticized the Tatmadaw's takeover of power in Myamnar and imposed sanctions in the form of a US$1 billion asset freeze and will add more sanctions. The European Union is suspending development assistance with the German government voicing strong criticism. Britain has imposed sanctions on six military figures, Norway and New Zealand took similar moves.

The question is whether the imposition of such economic sanctions is effective in suppressing Myanmar's military rulers.

In my opinion, sanctions imposed by Western countries as a strategy will not have an effective impact on the policies of Myanmar's military rulers, because Myanmar has a fairly low level of economic dependence on Western countries.

Members of the ASEAN bloc, including Indonesia, prefer diplomatic efforts that prioritize the dialogue process between the two sides in order to achieve solutions to alleviate the crisis.

The question related to international diplomacy is this: To what extent will such efforts be truly effective in ending the Myanmar political conflict? Will moves such as strong criticism or imposition of economic sanctions, for example, be sufficiently effective in promoting crisis resolution? Or will a diplomatic effort that emphasizes an “Asian value” approach (ie, being a “friend” instead of “patronizing”) yield better results?

Effective diplomacy in the context of ending the conflict in a short time seems difficult to materialize. However, that does not mean that diplomacy is a futile option. What is needed is a long period of diplomacy without any tough measures.

If external factors such as international diplomacy do not appear very effective in abating Myanmar’s political crisis in the short term, the most plausible solution ultimately will depend on the goodwill of its people – especially the two leadership camps, the NLD and the Tatmadaw – toward each other.

Among the options put forward to end the crisis, one is for the Tatmadaw to return the reins of government to the NLD. Obviously, the chance of this happening is quite remote.

Another option is seeking a democratic transition and brokering a compromise between the NLD and Tatmadaw by involving a third party as a mediator. This is the ideal choice and seems most realistic to many parties, including the ASEAN, even though there is no guarantee that such an outcome can be realized.

A third option is to let the Tatmadaw remain in power to control the government of the Myanmar state. This choice, of course, poses risks to spark increasingly violent, massive and bloody resistance from civilian elements.

In addition, this third option risks the deterioration of the national economic sector, considering increasing instability for foreign investments and operations.

Quo vadis Myanmar? Only Myanmar can answer that question.

The author is convener of the China unit at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a Jakarta-based think tank. 

The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.