The eight-nation South Asian Association For Regional Cooperation (Saarc) needs to involve China and Burma to make the regional organization vibrant and effective, foreign affairs analysts told a conference on Tuesday. “The concept of South Asia and the Saarc needs to be redesigned and re-imagined (with a greater periphery),” said Dr. Imtiaz Ahmed, according to Bangladesh newspaper The Daily Star. The professor of international relations at Dhaka University said bureaucracy and a “conservative mindset” appeared to be a major barrier to expanding Saarc.