The BBC's James Miles

Participants in Indonesia's student-led protests often compared their campaign with that waged by Chinese students in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

It was a comparison that clearly occurred also to Chinese dissidents and the leadership in Beijing. At least until Mr Suharto stepped down, the official Chinese media avoided giving prominence to the news that was gripping much of the rest of the world.

Officials apparently feared that to dwell on the upheaval in Jakarta would revive memories of Tiananmen.

Similar problems

Suharto's fall is only the beginning, say Indonesia's student protesters

China's own dissident community is small, unorganized and kept under close surveillance by the authorities. Despite the Chinese leadership's obvious concerns, it is hard to see how Jakarta's protests could lead to any similar upheaval on the streets of Beijing.

There is in China no equivalent of Indonesia's Amien Rais, one of the most prominent leaders of the anti-government movement.

But Beijing knows that it faces many of the same problems that triggered the demonstrations in Indonesia - growing unemployment, widespread corruption, and an economy losing the vigour of recent years.

"Asian awakening"

In Hong Kong, pro-democracy activists staged a small celebratory rally outside the Indonesian consulate when Mr Suharto stepped down.

Is the mood contagious?

Mr Suharto's departure came as the former British colony was preparing for its first elections under Chinese rule. One of Hong Kong's most prominent politicians, Martin Lee - an outspoken critic of the Beijing government - noted that the polls were the first in communist China's history with what he called an element of democracy.

Mr Lee described the Indonesian protests as part of an awakening in Asia, and said he didn't believe Beijing would be able to resist the further development of democracy in Hong Kong.

The tide, he said, is going our way.

Few in Hong Kong are as negative about their own government as Indonesians were about Mr Suharto's. Opinion polls in Hong Kong suggest the chief executive Tung Chee Hwa still enjoys widespread support, despite the denting of his popularity caused by the territory's economic downturn and his handling of recent crises such as an outbreak of chicken flu.

Dissidents take heart

Burmese opposition figure Sein Win on parallels with Indonesia

Elsewhere in Asia, however, many are likely to see parallels between their own countries and Indonesia under Mr Suharto.

Dissidents in Vietnam and Burma, for example, would take heart from Mr Suharto's downfall - although as in China's it's hard to imagine in the current political climate in those countries that activists could coalesce in sufficient numbers to repeat the performance of Indonesia's students.

Will the political virus spread?

Singing the changes: Student protesters in Jakarta

In the wake of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, Asia's communist states - notably China, Vietnam and North Korea - clearly feared the domino effect would spread to their continent.

But although communism did crumble in Mongolia, it survived in those Asian countries practicing a more independent political line.