The confrontational and aggressive approach to promoting social and democratic (r)evolution in Asia is ineffectual. Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's Senior Minister, believes that "the purely Western moral approach" that human-rights groups take "will have little influence on Burma because the Burmese are determined at the price of isolation to go their own way." Emotion-charged words like "despots" and "recalcitrant" do no good toward advancing mutual respect and goodwill or forming the foundation for an open exchange of views.