With the junta in Myamnar refusing to admit foreign aid workers and curbing distribution of emergency supplies, UN and other agencies warn the death toll could rise far higher than the official 60,000 dead or missing.

Only a quarter of victims have received any help at all, triggering a race against time to reach more than a million critically short of food, water and other aid and stalked by hunger and disease.

That in turn has increased pressure on Beijing to convince the generals -- long suspicious of the outside world -- to change course.

While it is difficult to assess the scale or nature of any contacts between Beijing and the junta, analysts are sceptical as to how much China is able to do.

"China looks at what is beneficial to its own interests, not what is beneficial to other countries," said Colonel R. Hariharan, of the Chennai Centre for Chinese Studies in India.

That view reflects decades of Cold War thinking in which China's Communist rulers were absorbed by their own economic and political problems, viewed the outside world with suspicion, and followed a foreign policy based on reclaiming Taiwan, analysts said.

Beijing is slowly emerging with a more multi-dimensional outlook, but has a long way to go in intervening in situations such as Myanmar on a scale that is commensurate with its growing global profile, they added.

"They're not at the point where they can really project positive power in the region," said Bob Broadfoot, head of the Hong Kong-based Political and Economic Risk Consultancy.

"There's still an overwhelming tone of 'what can we get out of it' in their foreign policy. There isn't that altruistic 'how do we play a good global citizen?'"

The Chinese foreign ministry has called on the Myanmar junta to cooperate with the international community, and Beijing has so far sent three planeloads packed with aid supplies to the country.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice also asked her Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, to have Beijing use its sway to convince the regime to open up to foreign help.

Broadfoot said the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami crisis, when China's response was criticised as inadequate, was a "wake-up call" for Beijing, highlighting growing regional expectations of Asia's biggest power.

However, "China just does not have much of a track record on humanitarian issues," he told AFP.

"Just look at their handling of their own disasters. It's not exactly a stellar record to brag about," he added.

China has long been one of Myanmar's strongest allies and has helped keep its regime afloat through trade ties, arms sales, and by shielding it from UN sanctions over human rights abuses, drawing considerable criticism.

Some analysts suggest the desire to avoid further censure might also have constrained China's response to the Myanmar crisis.

"Will people say, 'here comes Big Brother to the junta's rescue again?' That may be a concern (of China's)," said David Zweig, an expert on China foreign policy with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

The current crisis also highlights how far China is from matching the scale of the regional reach of the United States, which employed its navy to great effect to help relief efforts following the 2004 tsunami.

Although it lacks the blue-water naval capability required for that, China does have the capacity to airlift or truck in huge relief supplies across its border with Myanmar.

The whims of the generals could be responsible for stopping that happening so far, said Hariharan, but he also blamed China's relative inexperience in such efforts.

"Why haven't they done more? They could have offered more but their hearts are not in it," he said.

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