Politics & Power Quote by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi

Sanctions and boycotts are often framed as moral megaphones: loud, blunt, and non-negotiable. Aung San Suu Kyi’s phrasing turns them into leverage with an off-switch. The key word is “tied” - not “punishment,” not “isolation,” but a conditional mechanism that only makes sense if it forces a conversation. She’s arguing for pressure that has a purpose beyond signaling virtue: compulsion toward negotiation.

The subtext is strategic, even slightly admonishing. Activists and sympathetic governments can fall in love with the purity of refusal; regimes can use that refusal as proof of foreign hostility. By linking economic pain to “serious political dialogue,” she tries to deny Myanmar’s military rulers their favorite narrative (the nation besieged by outsiders) while also pushing international allies not to treat sanctions as a permanent stance or a substitute for diplomacy. It’s a demand for precision: punish without a pathway and you risk entrenching the very actors you want to weaken.

Context matters. Suu Kyi emerged as the global face of Myanmar’s democracy movement, operating under a junta skilled at waiting out outrage. Her line anticipates fatigue abroad and repression at home. It also signals to business and neighboring powers that engagement is possible, but only with political cost attached. The genius here is the balancing act: keeping the ethical clarity of boycott politics while insisting that real change requires a table, not just a blacklist.