(Al Jazeera Media Network) The ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Retreat wrapped up recently in Luang Prabang, the old capital of landlocked Laos, with an emphasis on the stalled five-point consensus agreed between the bloc and the Myanmar military shortly after it seized power in a 2021 coup.
An official from Myanmar attended the meeting for the first time since the military regime was shut out of the top summits for failing to take steps to end the crisis.
Democracy activists and politicians have repeatedly called on ASEAN to take a more robust approach against Min Aung Hlaing and his generals, officially known as the State Administration Council (SAC). But with Laos now chairing the organization, scepticism is growing.
After taking over the ASEAN chairmanship, Laos appointed a special envoy to Myanmar separate from its foreign minister, in a break from precedent. Career diplomat Alounkeo Kittikhoun visited Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw in mid-January, meeting the generals and taking a page from Cambodia’s playbook of 2022 when it chaired the grouping.
Like Cambodia, and perhaps even more so, Laos is seen as close to China.
“ASEAN’s foreign ministers endorsed the much-criticized Thai humanitarian initiative and, given the growing role of China and other Myanmar neighbours since Operation 1027, ASEAN appears to be fading into the background,” said Laetitia van den Assum, a former Dutch ambassador to Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, referring to the offensive launched by ethnic armed groups and anti-coup forces late last year that took swathes of territory from the military.
She says Vientiane’s year-long stint as chair is likely to be “a hard slog.”
“For a country with a national debt of 125 percent of GDP [gross domestic product], and most of that debt owed to China, it may find it hard to find a way to make progress with some of ASEAN’s most pressing problems,” she told Al Jazeera.
Sasa, a cabinet minister with Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG), notes the group had failed to act even after the SAC’s atrocities over the past three years “blatantly disregarded ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus,” which stipulates an end to the violence, undermining the bloc’s standing.
In addition, the generals have violated UN Security Council Resolution 2669, which also demanded an end to violence and the immediate release of President Win Myint and de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Sasa told Al Jazeera.
The NUG is made up of politicians removed from office in the coup, as well as pro-democracy activists.
“ASEAN and its member states should engage with Myanmar’s legitimate democratic representatives, including the NUG and its allies. If so, ASEAN will help facilitate the restoration of peace, stability, and federal democratic governance in Myanmar,” the minister said.
There are concerns, too, about Thailand. It is one of the founding members of ASEAN, and its powerful military, which has itself carried out multiple coups, maintains close ties with the generals in Myanmar.
Thailand has indicated the humanitarian initiative was supposed to help pave the way for talks to end the crisis.
“Thailand wants to pull the SAC back into ASEAN and to make the junta presentable, and the humanitarian corridor proposed by Thailand is the first step of many,” van den Assum said.
Thailand has sheltered about 90,000 refugees from Myanmar across nine refugee camps since the mid-1980s, Human Rights Watch said late last year. After the 2021 coup, at least 45,000 more Myanmar refugees fled to Thailand, the report estimated. Concerns are growing that Myanmar’s new conscription law, due to come into effect next month, could send even more people over the border.
Thailand and Cambodia “want to see Myanmar back fully in the ASEAN family,” Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said last month, a position he said was shared by visiting Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet.
Even before Laos took over the chairmanship of ASEAN from Indonesia, there were questions over the organization’s ability to address Myanmar’s deepening crisis. The controversies and inactions – not only over Myanmar but also issues such as the South China Sea – have raised further questions about ASEAN’s relevance and its relationship with China, which is vying for influence with the United States.
China, which claims almost the entire South China Sea, held military drills there last month as the US and the Philippines conducted their own joint exercises in the same waters. Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam – all ASEAN members – are also claimants to parts of the sea, as is Taiwan.
Beijing has been involved in a number of confrontations with Manila at the disputed Second Thomas Shoal and Scarborough Reef over the past year but has refused to back down. ASEAN has also been unable to make progress on a binding code of conduct with China – first discussed in 2002 – in the waters, adding to the perception that China expects Southeast Asia to bow to its demands.
ASEAN’s inertia suggests members are likely to pursue their own foreign policy on the divisive issue, with the Philippines and Vietnam last month signing agreements to broaden cooperation between their coast guards in the South China Sea.
The new Thai government’s approach to Myanmar, especially its recognition of the SAC, has drawn public criticism, notably from Kasit Piromya, a well-respected veteran ambassador and Thailand’s former foreign minister.
“Refusing to acknowledge that the junta is the sole reason for this destruction of democracy, society, and millions of lives is damaging to the government’s credibility on its own,” Kasit warned in an opinion piece published in the Bangkok Post. “When taken in conjunction with empowering his counterpart and the junta in general, however, Khun Parnpree is inherently signing off on the junta’s actions,” the veteran diplomat said, referring to Thai Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-nukara.
Van den Assum says many civil society and humanitarian groups have formally rejected Thailand’s proposal and say it is unlikely to generate the funding needed.
“Under this arrangement, Myanmar’s Red Cross Society gets its instructions from the SAC. We have seen what the SAC has done with other humanitarian operations. For example, after Typhoon Mocha in May, the SAC blocked humanitarian relief to Arakan for months,” she warned, referring to western Rakhine state.
