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Myanmar in ASEAN: Dilemmas, Determinants and Capacity

Moe Thuzar

Fellow, ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore

Abstract

Myanmar marked a quarter-century as an ASEAN member in 2022. Accepted into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) fold under a previous military regime amid international criticism, Myanmar’s ASEAN membership since 1997 has presented both ASEAN and successive administrations in Myanmar with more hard experiences than teachable moments. The collaborative response to humanitarian needs after Cyclone Nargis in 2008 and the decade of Myanmar’s opening and democratic transition (2011–20) offered some optimism that ASEAN’s constructive engagement might prove a workable approach for Myanmar. However, the tendency of Myanmar authorities to manipulate the ASEAN space, including in the aftermath of the 2017 Rohingya exodus following military operations, provides another example of how authorities in Myanmar may resort to precedents in managing regional interventions. ASEAN’s role in dealing with crises in Myanmar gained more salience after the 1 February 2021 coup. While past precedent still provides a reference, new precedents may be emerging, offering some insight into the opportunities and limitations of ASEAN’s engagement with recalcitrant members, and how authorities in Myanmar view their country’s membership in, and interactions with, ASEAN and, by extension, with ASEAN’s external interlocutors.

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The year 2022 marks a quarter-century of Myanmar’s membership of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Myanmar’s bid to join ASEAN was initiated by the State Law and Order Restoration Council military regime, which took power in 1988, quelling a nationwide democracy uprising that saw the crumbling of close to three decades of (military-dominant) socialist authoritarian rule. It has become a truism that developments in Myanmar have posed a dilemma for ASEAN, ever since Myanmar’s admission into the grouping in 1997, even during the decade of democratisation from 2011 to 2021.

The military’s grip on political power and its reluctance to relinquish control of the state presents the most salient aspect of this dilemma. ASEAN’s responses to various crisis situations over the two and half decades also indicate the grouping’s perceptions of the determinants of the dilemma and the attendant capacities in Myanmar to respond to ASEAN’s interventions. The coup on 1 February 2021 presents the most serious crisis for the country, and for ASEAN’s response.

This chapter reviews two past crises to illustrate ASEAN’s Myanmar dilemmas, and the grouping’s responses to each. The analysis seeks to identify the determinants and capacities for ASEAN’s response to the current crisis in Myanmar. Specifically, the chapter examines ASEAN’s response to Cyclone Nargis in 2008 and its dealings with an earlier military regime, and its response to the Rohingya refugee crisis in 2017, which erupted during the tenure of the democratically elected National League for Democracy (NLD), using these to frame analysis of ASEAN’s responses to date towards the 2021 Myanmar coup. The chapter concludes with a number of policy recommendations, including engagement with Myanmar’s National Unity Government (NUG)¹ and ethnic armed organisations (EAOs), not just the Tatmadaw, and strengthening work with ASEAN’s dialogue partners.

ASEAN responses to past crises in Myanmar

ASEAN was founded in 1967, originally with five member states.² Although criticised for its slow progress, ASEAN has nevertheless developed a unique geopolitical role. Over the last 20 years, it has mitigated a wide range of underlying tensions in East Asia, largely by dint of its central convening role in bringing contesting parties to the table, and a pragmatic balancing of global power pressures.

Mahbubani’s (2017) observation that ASEAN’s strategic diplomacy has resulted in peaceful relations in Southeast Asia, despite a high degree of ethnic, religious, political and economic diversity, uses ASEAN’s experience with Myanmar as one of several examples. However, there are few precedents for ASEAN’s success in overcoming internal conflicts among its members. Most ASEAN members have at least one ethnic or communal conflict within their borders that has resisted resolution for decades. Myanmar stands out as a test case, precedent and example for ASEAN’s interventions. Two instances provide a benchmark of sorts for ASEAN’s response to the political crisis that erupted in Myanmar after the military seized power on 1 February 2021.

Cyclone Nargis

A precedent to justify ASEAN intervening in Myanmar occurred in the aftermath of Cyclone Nargis in 2008. The cyclone devastated Myanmar’s Irrawaddy delta region on 2 May 2008, causing over 130,000 fatalities. International focus on the cyclone’s aftermath arose when offers of humanitarian assistance were met with reticence from the military regime then in power in Myanmar. On 19 May 2008, the ASEAN foreign ministers held a special meeting to consider assisting Myanmar with humanitarian relief. This meeting—convened by Singapore, ASEAN chair for that year—overcame the ASEAN principle of noninterference in the domestic affairs of its members, leading directly to an ASEAN-coordinated international emergency relief program. Barely six months earlier, in November 2007, Prime Minister of Myanmar Thein Sein had rejected ASEAN’s suggestion to have the special envoy of the secretary-general of the United Nations (UN), Ibrahim Gambari, brief the 13th ASEAN Summit in Singapore on the situation in Myanmar following the September 2007 Saffron Revolution. Singapore, as ASEAN chair in 2007, issued the grouping’s strongest-worded statement on Myanmar, expressing ‘revulsion’ at the crackdown on peaceful protests (Singapore Government 2007).³

ASEAN’s response in May 2008 evolved in the context of a tense standoff between the international community and Myanmar’s military regime, caused by the disconnect between the international community’s eagerness to send aid and the military’s suspicion of their motives. An ASEAN Secretariat report documenting aspects of ASEAN’s response mentioned that Singapore’s foreign minister, George Yeo, recalled that ‘some countries had dispatched warships carrying supplies to the region and even talked openly about invoking the Responsibility to Protect’ principle (Marr 2010). Yeo was referring to US Navy vessels off Myanmar’s coast (the US Navy was participating in the annual ‘Cobra Gold’ US–Thailand joint military exercises at the time). He was also referring to the French foreign minister’s proposal to invoke the UN’s ‘Responsibility to Protect’ (R2P) clause and deliver aid directly to the Myanmar people without waiting for approval from the military government. Myanmar’s military junta saw the R2P invocation as blatantly disrespectful of the ASEAN principle of noninterference in a member country’s domestic affairs. But, in May 2008, ASEAN itself played the R2P card as one of three options open to Myanmar:

1. a UN-led mechanism for managing the post-Nargis relief and reconstruction effort
2. an ASEAN-led mechanism, in which ASEAN would be at the forefront of a coalition of neighbouring countries and other competent organisations; specifically, ASEAN would work together with the Myanmar government to manage access by the coalition partners in implementing relief and reconstruction programs in the affected area
3. the delivery of aid by force, if necessary, on the basis of the R2P principle.

The State Peace and Development Council regime acceded to the second option. Four days after the special ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, it allowed relief workers into the country irrespective of nationality. Subsequently, the international humanitarian community has had the opportunity to openly maintain a presence in Myanmar.

At the 19 May 2008 meeting, ASEAN foreign ministers also took the first step towards creating an ASEAN-led tripartite coordination mechanism. They established the ASEAN Humanitarian Task Force to work closely with the UN and the Myanmar Government. ASEAN also led the ASEAN–UN Pledging Conference in Yangon on 25 May 2008. Representatives of countries that had been treating Myanmar as a pariah state for its human rights abuses set aside politics and attended the conference along with representatives from ASEAN member countries and other Asian countries. The Humanitarian Task Force established a formal implementation mechanism involving ASEAN, the UN and Myanmar, called the Tripartite Core Group (TCG), to organise immediate assistance and undertake a post-Nargis joint assessment.

Although not an instrument to bring about political change in Myanmar, the TCG mechanism showed Myanmar government officials over the next two years new ways of working with a wide range of interest groups, both domestic and foreign, without upsetting the established political order. Frank discussions in the TCG led to the streamlining of several rigid and lengthy bureaucratic processes, and also exposed Myanmar’s military to humanitarian operations.

ASEAN’s initiative to broker and lead the coordination of international humanitarian response to Myanmar, and its calling attention to issues requiring special engagement with Myanmar, set a precedent for future ASEAN responses to crises in Myanmar. Since 2008, ASEAN’s cross-border coordination role has evolved and expanded, despite the institutional hurdles of the noninterference and consensus principles.⁴

ASEAN and Rohingya repatriation

Another defining moment occurred at a special ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Myanmar on 19 November 2016. It was the first time ASEAN foreign ministers had been invited by a member country to discuss a domestic conflict, namely the escalating pattern of attacks in Rakhine State on the Muslim community self-identified as Rohingya. Myanmar’s stance up to that point, under both military (pre-2011) and Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) (2011–16) regimes, had been to insist on the domestic nature of the issue and refuse to have the topic tabled for ASEAN’s discussion agenda. An important factor enabling this meeting was the recognition of the potential trans-boundary impacts of this internal conflict on other ASEAN members (e.g. human trafficking and migration), necessitating discussion of humanitarian and other responses from a regionally coordinated viewpoint. Another factor was that Aung San Suu Kyi, head of the country’s new civilian-led government, showed a willingness to brief ASEAN counterparts. This suggests that ASEAN’s quiet diplomacy approach, led by Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Masurdi in this instance, was still preferred for managing sensitive and difficult topics, regardless of whether the Myanmar leadership was civilian or military.

Nonetheless, the careful language used in the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ statement on the matter (CabSecRI 2017), and Minister Retno’s factual recounting of ASEAN’s role and Indonesia’s initiative (Asia Society 2017), indicate that the NLD government’s willingness to cooperate with ASEAN was still limited to, or framed within, the humanitarian assistance sphere. This attitude constrained any potentially constructive interventions that ASEAN could have initiated or instituted for an ongoing process for addressing the Rohingya issue, even within the bounds of the recommendations presented by the Advisory Commission on Rakhine led by former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan. The NLD government had just announced its commitment to implementing that commission’s 88 recommendations when the military crackdown on Rohingya communities commenced on 25 August 2017 (Callahan 2018).

To address the consequences of the 2017 exodus, ASEAN’s proposal to assist Myanmar with the Rohingya repatriation followed the Nargis precedent, although the communities in question and attitudes in Myanmar towards the problem could not have been more different. The NLD government started its Rohingya response by emphasising peace and development in Rakhine State, and prioritising a civilian-led coordination of responses to humanitarian needs in Rakhine. It established the Union Enterprise on Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement and Development in Rakhine on 17 October 2017, with direct oversight by the State Counsellor’s Office. The NLD government’s emphasis on this initiative as the vehicle for humanitarian and other assistance in Rakhine, and its preference for bilateral initiatives over a regional response, indicate Myanmar’s unease with having the Rohingya issue discussed in a regional or multilateral setting, despite the recognition among policymakers dealing with this issue that a do-nothing approach or insistence that this was a domestic matter was no longer an option. If Myanmar had to accept external intervention on this issue, the ASEAN platform presented a more favourable space for the authorities in Myanmar.

The 2019 State of Southeast Asia survey conducted by the ASEAN Studies Centre at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute reveals Myanmar’s preferences. Close to 60 per cent of respondents in Myanmar preferred that ASEAN mediate between the Myanmar government and other stakeholders. A relatively large minority (41.4 per cent) of respondents viewed the issue as Myanmar’s domestic affair, and only a few (7.1 per cent) wanted diplomatic pressure on Myanmar. Regionally, the most preferred option was mediation (66.5 per cent), with humanitarian assistance (50.9 per cent) and diplomatic pressure (38 per cent) as second and third preferences, respectively.

The 2017 Rohingya crisis response revealed Myanmar’s ability to manoeuvre within the ASEAN space. The deployment of an ASEAN-coordinated needs assessment team for the repatriation process was delayed as a result of the repatriation process itself being delayed. The ASEAN secretary-general visited Myanmar in December 2018 and May 2019 to discuss ASEAN’s role in helping Myanmar address repatriation and other related concerns. A preliminary needs assessment report in 2019 identified three potential areas of cooperation: enhancing capacity of reception and transit centres, strengthening information dissemination and supporting the provision of basic services (AHA Centre 2019).

It should be noted that the Rohingya and other sectors of the international community have subsequently been critical of ASEAN’s response to the Rohingya crisis. In particular, concerns have been expressed that Myanmar authorities may have used ASEAN’s preliminary needs assessment report to downplay the impact of the 2017 violence against Rohingya communities.

Since 2017, ASEAN’s key statements have included a paragraph on the current status of the regional response in Myanmar. Hopes for a safe and voluntary return of the Rohingya have been hampered by the security situation in Rakhine State and, more recently, by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the underlying and main concern behind the Rohingyas’ reluctance to be repatriated on a voluntary basis remains the history of persecution and systematic discrimination they have faced, mainly at the hands of Myanmar’s security apparatus. The February 2021 coup has further complicated matters. The State Administration Council (SAC) junta initially indicated some interest in restarting repatriation talks with Bangladesh, but, in an interview with Chinese-language Phoenix Television in May 2021, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing denied the possibility of accepting a return of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar (Reuters 2022a).⁵

ASEAN and Myanmar after the 1 February 2021 coup

When the military seized power in February 2021, deposing the NLD government, ASEAN initially turned to its past experience with military regimes in Myanmar as a way forward. However, there were some nuances in its approach that signalled a different attitude. For example, although occasional references were made to its (only) successful intervention in Myanmar (i.e. the Nargis response), other developments showed that ASEAN was breaking, somewhat, with its past practices regarding Myanmar. It should be noted, however, that these developments only started in October 2021, eight months after the coup began. Prior to that, ASEAN faced a credibility challenge, both in Myanmar and internationally, due to its response to the coup. Further, despite these nuances, some doubts remain as to whether ASEAN can maintain its credibility and centrality in responding to what may constitute its most serious internal challenge to date.

Although ASEAN issued a statement a day after the coup, it was not until March 2021 that ASEAN foreign ministers convened to prepare for a leaders’ meeting on Myanmar, which finally took place on 24 April 2021. At the meeting, ASEAN heads of state and government met with Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and agreed upon a Five-Point Consensus⁶ that called for a cessation of violence and a mediated dialogue among key stakeholders to find a peaceful solution. The SAC’s subsequent conflation of the Five-Point Consensus with its own political roadmap affected internal perceptions of ASEAN’s response to Myanmar. Meanwhile, the surge of COVID-19 infections and deaths in mid-2021 compounded the effects of the coup. The inability of regional governments (facing pandemic challenges of their own) to urgently respond to the plight of the Myanmar people caused a shift in how people in Myanmar viewed international interventions. Initial calls for R2P-type interventions gave way to calls for self-determination and a growing climate of cynicism towards regional and international diplomacy.

Nevertheless, ASEAN’s decision on 15 October 2021 (BMoFA 2021) that the 38th and 39th ASEAN Summits, and related summit meetings for 2021, would invite a ‘non-political representative’ (i.e. a senior civil servant) from Myanmar raised some hope, as the decision effectively barred the SAC chief and his ministerial-level nominees. Even though accepting any representative associated with the SAC constituted a pragmatic acceptance of the SAC’s presence at the regional table, ASEAN persisted with this approach, holding many of its sectoral meetings with SAC representatives in the Myanmar seat, at ministerial, senior official and working group levels.⁷

Currently, Myanmar is the 2022–23 rotational executive director and secretariat for ASEANAPOL, the regional mechanism for cooperation among police forces in the 10 member states. In November 2021, Myanmar assumed the rotational two-year chairmanship of ASEAN’s Supreme Audit Institutions (ASEANSAI 2021). In June 2022, the SAC’s defence minister attended the Defence Ministers Meeting chaired by Cambodia (MMoI 2022).

The chairman’s statement at the emergency ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on 15 October 2021 (BMoFA 2021) mentioned the NUG by name. Prior to this, ASEAN had remained largely silent on the NUG, although several ASEAN member states had unilaterally made informal contact with NUG representatives. Malaysia’s foreign minister, Saifuddin Abdullah, publicised his informal meeting with his NUG counterpart Zin Mar Aung on the sidelines of the ASEAN–US Summit in Washington DC in May 2022 (Reuters 2022b). Prior to this, Saifuddin had publicly called for ASEAN to collectively meet with the NUG, drawing an angry response from the SAC’s foreign ministry (Irrawaddy 2022b).

It is worth monitoring whether ASEAN’s think tank community will engage more fully with NUG representatives. On 27 January 2022, the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Indonesia convened an online panel discussion on Myanmar, inviting the NUG’s ambassador to ASEAN to discuss ASEAN’s role in dealing with the Myanmar crisis (CSIS-Indonesia 2022). This, and another panel on 17 November featuring the NUG’s deputy foreign minister discussing Indonesia’s role as ASEAN chair and the Myanmar crisis, have been the only publicised instances to date.⁸

In response to ASEAN’s October 2021 decision, the SAC retaliated by refusing to attend the summits under Brunei’s chairmanship, and challenged ASEAN on its charter provisions regarding participation at ASEAN meetings, citing the principle of equality. ASEAN, however, upheld its decision and convened the 2021 summits, with Myanmar’s Zoom screen blank.⁹ ASEAN held to this default position for the ASEAN–China Special Summit in November 2021, setting a precedent for the ASEAN–US Special Summit in May 2022 and the ASEAN–India Special Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in June 2022. In each instance, the SAC refused to send a non-political representative, citing the aforementioned equality principle.

These instances indicate a gradual change in ASEAN’s approach to recalcitrant members—though views may differ internally regarding the available options to overcome the current Myanmar impasse. Myanmar has been ASEAN’s main recalcitrant member since it joined the association in 1979, with issues such as the generals’ reluctance to cede power prior to 2010, the Thein Sein administration’s refusal to consider the Rohingya issue, and the NLD administration’s scoping of the ASEAN space and available institutional mechanisms to respond to the 2017 Rohingya crisis.

For the current political crisis in Myanmar, ASEAN still adheres to the broad rubric of the Five-Point Consensus despite the SAC’s glaring lack of adherence to it. On the same day that ASEAN agreed on the Five-Point Consensus (24 April 2021), the military used lethal force against protesters. The military’s violence resulted in increased levels of armed resistance against the SAC across the entire length and breadth of the country by several EAOs and localised militias known as People’s Defence Forces (PDFs). Some of the PDFs and young people fleeing arrest sought EAO support for urban warfare training. The Myanmar public justifies and even applauds this armed resistance to the SAC as self-defence in the face of international inaction (or inability to take action) to intervene in Myanmar. Since 7 September 2021, this armed resistance has taken the form of a ‘people’s defensive war’. The SAC has labelled the EAOs and PDFs, and even the NUG, as terrorists in an attempt to justify its refusal to engage in any form of dialogue. In June 2022, however, the SAC seemed to backtrack on its rhetoric with an invitation—largely ignored—for PDFs to surrender and return to civilian life (Irrawaddy 2022c).

ASEAN’s default position regarding the SAC’s representation at key, high-level political meetings highlights its awareness of: 1) the SAC’s attempts to influence ASEAN’s processes towards its own interests, 2) the reputational damage caused by the SAC’s disregard of ASEAN’s processes and 3) the regional security implications arising from the continuing violence in Myanmar. ASEAN is clear about its ability to intervene in a situation that affects regional stability. In the past, such interventions have taken the form of statements of concern, at times accompanied by quiet diplomacy.

Before taking up her appointment as the UN secretary-general’s special envoy on Myanmar, Dr Noeleen Heyzer observed in March 2021 (then in her capacity as a member of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Board on Mediation) that ‘we have to accept the fact that the age of quiet diplomacy is over in the age of social media’, and that ‘ASEAN’s diplomacy needs to reflect this new reality’ (Tan Hui Yee 2021). Heyzer was herself affected by this new reality in 2022 when a remark she made in an interview about ‘power sharing’ with the military drew a fierce reaction from Myanmar activists and civil society organisations supporting the anti-junta movement (Vaphual & Ratcliffe 2022). Her August 2022 visit to Naypyidaw as UN special envoy also provoked criticism for seeming to accord the SAC some legitimacy. Her statements to the media post-visit (UN 2022) did not endear her to the SAC, which asserted that she had not fully reflected the SAC’s perspective. The SAC published a ‘full description’ of the meeting in the state-run newspaper Global New Light of Myanmar (2022).

ASEAN has also grappled with increasing criticism of its Myanmar response since the coup. ASEAN’s earlier attempts, up to the point of the April 2021 ASEAN Leaders Meeting on Myanmar, were mainly efforts to keep up with the reality of what was happening on the ground in Myanmar, and the on-ground sentiments towards the SAC’s promise of elections and restoration of stability. The intensity of these on-ground sentiments, reflected in the many protests across Myanmar—including burnings of the ASEAN flag in June 2021 signalling disagreement with the ASEAN chair’s move to consult the SAC on the appointment of the special envoy on Myanmar—and the online activism on social media, constituted a wake-up call, jolting ASEAN to the new reality in Myanmar.

In this context, it is important to note the forces within ASEAN driving change in practice and policy towards Myanmar. Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei (which was the ASEAN chair in 2021) and (sporadically) the Philippines have treated the Myanmar crisis and ASEAN’s response to it as a matter of principle. For these countries, adherence to the ASEAN Charter and upholding the centrality of regional decisions are paramount considerations. However, the SAC has challenged ASEAN with a narrow, one-dimensional interpretation of the charter’s principles. These challenges have mainly taken the form of statements issued by the SAC’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in response to decisions made by ASEAN leaders and foreign ministers regarding Myanmar’s representation at leaders’ or foreign ministers’ meetings. For its part, ASEAN’s decisions have mainly been informed by the SAC’s lack of commitment to address the Five-Point Consensus. In response, the SAC has resorted to making unilateral statements invoking ASEAN’s noninterference principle and threatening ‘negative impacts’ on ASEAN’s community-building efforts (MMoFA 2022a). It has also attempted to influence ASEAN’s internal deliberations on Myanmar via its bilateral links with some countries in the region. This looks likely to continue unless either external or internal forces (or a combination of both) somehow compel the SAC to change its attitude towards mediation and reconciliation.

Myanmar and ASEAN in 2022

Focus on humanitarian assistance

Kicking off Cambodia’s 2022 rotational chairmanship year, Prime Minister Hun Sen made much of his bilateral visit to Myanmar in January 2022—as did his military hosts in Naypyidaw (Tan Hui Yee 2022). The negative publicity from that visit gave Hun Sen pause to consider the import and broader implications of ASEAN’s collective response to the Myanmar crisis, not least the credibility challenge that would redound to ASEAN if the situation continued to deteriorate (RFA 2022a).

Following Hun Sen’s Myanmar visit, ASEAN expanded its October 2021 decision to the foreign ministers’ level. The ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Annual Retreat, which usually kicks off ASEAN’s key political discussions and agenda-setting for the year, followed the October 2021 precedent of inviting a non-political representative, drawing another retort from the SAC in a statement issued by Myanmar’s foreign affairs ministry on 14 February 2022 (MMoFA 2022b).

After his Myanmar visit, Hun Sen’s follow-up conversations with counterparts from other ASEAN member states, such as Indonesia and Singapore, revealed the seriousness with which these founding members viewed ASEAN’s collective decision to send a clear message to the SAC about its adherence and commitment to the Five-Point Consensus priorities, not least those to cease violence and allow unfettered humanitarian assistance. In fact, in the first of his video calls with junta chief Min Aung Hlaing, Hun Sen made a four-point appeal, including to allow a visit by the ASEAN special envoy for 2022 and to provide ‘full cooperation in support of ASEAN efforts’ in order to provide humanitarian relief for people in Myanmar (CMoFAIC 2022a).

In 2022, ASEAN’s focus on humanitarian assistance for Myanmar became more pronounced. ASEAN’s secretary-general had led an appeal and a pledging conference in August 2021, but ASEAN was unable to coordinate aid delivery on the ground in Myanmar. The SAC instead designated the Myanmar Red Cross Society as the in-country coordinator for humanitarian assistance from ASEAN. In a statement issued at the one-year mark of the coup, the ASEAN chair voiced ASEAN member states’ collective concern at the ongoing crisis in Myanmar, referring specifically to the ‘continued violence and deteriorating humanitarian situation’ (CMoFAIC 2022b). The statement, released by Cambodia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation on 2 February 2022, also referred to the importance of the ASEAN special envoy’s missions to Myanmar.

Hun Sen’s January 2022 video call paved the way for ASEAN Special Envoy Prak Sokhonn’s visit to Myanmar in March 2022. The Myanmar junta heavily circumscribed his visit, including determining who he could and could not meet. Unable to meet with senior NLD leaders, and finding no traction in his efforts to seek the cessation of violence and the ‘engendering of an inclusive political dialogue that is Myanmar-owned and Myanmar-led’, Prak Sokhonn prioritised facilitating ASEAN humanitarian assistance as his next deliverable (CMoFAIC 2022c). This has become his main deliverable to date.

The SAC agreed to Prak Sokhonn’s proposal to convene a consultative meeting on humanitarian assistance, but then framed that proposal to its meet its own interests. The ASEAN consultative meeting was held on 6 May 2022, at the foreign minister level. It did not include UN Special Envoy to Myanmar Noeleen Heyzer, whose mandate included the facilitation of humanitarian assistance provision to Myanmar. Instead, Joyce Msuya, the assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, and UN specialised agencies were present. The Special Advisory Council for Myanmar, which comprises former UN experts on Myanmar, shared that Heyzer was ‘invited then disinvited’ (Irrawaddy 2022a) to the meeting, which included representatives from all ASEAN member states, and some non-ASEAN countries such as the US, the UK and Japan. Heyzer’s absence raised speculation that the junta may have blocked her participation in reaction to her earlier meetings with the NUG (Irrawaddy 2022a). Prior to the meeting, on 2 May, the junta had termed Saifuddin’s proposal for ‘informal engagement’ with the NUG on humanitarian aid delivery as ‘irresponsible and reckless’ (Irrawaddy 2022b).

The ASEAN consultative meeting on 6 May identified certain states and regions in Myanmar, notably Kayah, Kayin, Magway, Sagaing and Bago, that were disproportionately in need of assistance due to fighting and civilian displacement. However, details on how those areas would receive priority assistance and how it would be delivered remained unclear. At a press conference following the meeting, Prak Sokhonn presented the meeting’s outcomes as progress, though he noted that humanitarian assistance to Myanmar still faced numerous obstacles, including the junta’s fear that aid would end up in the hands of resistance groups and the junta’s desire to tax humanitarian assistance. While the latter issue was ‘negotiated successfully’, removing the requirement to tax humanitarian assistance, a lack of clarity on aid delivery remained (CMoFAIC 2022c). The outcome of the meeting also gave rise to the criticism that ASEAN seemed to be giving the junta control of aid delivery. At the meeting, the SAC’s taskforce on humanitarian aid undertook to ensure that aid reached affected communities, especially those in areas under EAO control (PPP 2022). The NUG flagged its concern that the junta would ‘continue to hamper urgent and effective delivery of humanitarian aid’, and called for ‘crucial stakeholders’ such as ‘Ethnic Resistance Groups’ and local aid organisations to be involved in discussions on aid distribution (NUG 2022).

ASEAN–US Summit expectations

Prior to the ASEAN–US Special Summit in Washington on 12–13 May 2022, expectations ran high on how the Myanmar crisis would be approached. The Myanmar crisis was one of several pressing issues of geopolitical and regional importance competing for attention. The Joint Vision Statement of the ASEAN–US Special Summit (ASEAN 2022a) devoted an entire paragraph to Myanmar under the heading ‘Preserving Peace, Building Trust’. Paragraph 26 covered all the broad priority points: ‘timely and complete implementation’ of the Five-Point Consensus; US support for ASEAN’s response to the Myanmar crisis, including the work of the ASEAN special envoy in carrying out his mandate; and calls for humanitarian assistance to be ‘without discrimination’ and for the ‘release of all political detainees including foreigners’. The call for close coordination between the ASEAN and UN special envoys suggested an awareness of the undercurrents of the 6 May ASEAN consultative meeting on humanitarian assistance for Myanmar. Meanwhile, increased publicity of the United States’ informal engagement with the NUG¹⁰ served as an indication of the Biden administration’s attitude towards, and position on, the Myanmar crisis, despite its continued practice of not mentioning the NUG in official documents or statements.

Beyond these publicised instances of engaging with the NUG, the ASEAN–US Special Summit itself did not issue specific recommendations on the way forward for the Myanmar crisis. In June 2022, US State Department Counsellor Derek Chollet affirmed at the 19th Shangri-La Dialogue’s special session on Myanmar that Myanmar remained a ‘top priority’ for the US but, echoing observations made at the same session by Heyzer and Saifuddin on the need to strengthen ASEAN’s role and seek more inclusive dialogue, acknowledged that ‘the road ahead is going to be very difficult’ (Ng 2022).

All this seems to indicate that quiet diplomacy via a few key ASEAN members and informal consultations with experts and stakeholders on possible policy options may still be the United States’ preferred approach. The Myanmar crisis may also rank lower in terms of priority and attendant policy attention in view of the United States’ domestic policy concerns as well as the foreign policy and security implications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In November 2022, at the 40th and 41st ASEAN Summits under Cambodia’s chairmanship, the nine ASEAN heads of state/government issued a statement on their review of the Five-Point Consensus, reiterating that it remained a ‘valid reference’ to be ‘implemented in its entirety’ (ASEAN 2022b). At the time, four of the five points of the consensus agreement remained either unmet or only partially met. ASEAN leaders called for specific and time-bound indicators that measured the implementation, or lack thereof, of the consensus—an approach that failed to meet any of the expected ideals for stringent measures towards the SAC. The question of expanding non-political representation to other sectoral meetings was delegated to the foreign ministers to decide ‘as the situation requires’, leaving this open for interpretation (Moe Thuzar & Seah 2022).

What are the options?

Notwithstanding its own internal differences on how best to deal with the Myanmar crisis, ASEAN’s default position at the summit and foreign minister levels looks likely to hold, with SAC leaders’ attendance at key regional meetings being restricted to non-political representatives. The focus on humanitarian assistance seems to be ASEAN’s other default priority, specifically, to identify and pursue a common objective in consultation with different stakeholder groups. If the October 2021 decision is ASEAN’s ‘stick’ regarding the Myanmar crisis, then humanitarian assistance might be considered the ‘carrot’. However, the 6 May 2022 consultative meeting outcome shows that ASEAN (and successive special envoys of the ASEAN chair) continue to face the dilemma of balancing diplomatic pragmatism with addressing the pressing needs of a populace whose resilience is crumbling daily. The emphasis on a ‘Myanmar-led, Myanmar-owned’ process (CMoFAIC 2022b) that external interlocutors, including ASEAN, could support is open to different interpretations by different stakeholder groups in Myanmar.¹¹ Determining who the key stakeholders are and how best to mediate between them presents ASEAN with another dilemma.

In theory, there are numerous options for ASEAN to promote peace and development in Myanmar. Few may be politically feasible. The option of expanding the decision to disinvite the SAC to other sectoral ASEAN meetings is not considered here due to its political infeasibility. A fundamental difference between pragmatic and principled approaches adds to, or underpins, the current complexities of ASEAN’s Myanmar response. Nevertheless, three distinct options within the present reality can be readily described. These options are not mutually exclusive and may be considered in combination or parts thereof.

Humanitarian resistance?

As ineffective as it has been, most ASEAN member states would agree it would be worse to not have the Five-Point Consensus. As the points listed in the document are not in any order of priority, the current conflicts across Myanmar necessitate ASEAN’s responsibility to coordinate and provide humanitarian assistance to communities in need. However, the main vehicle by which such assistance would be coordinated, the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance (AHA Centre), requires both a request by and the consent of the member state concerned, as well as access to all areas and communities. This means working within ASEAN’s intergovernmental bounds and engaging with the SAC. Additionally, the AHA Centre does not have the technical expertise to deliver aid in a conflict situation. Even if ASEAN were able to boost, and contribute to, the AHA Centre’s team on the ground in Myanmar, the Nargis experience indicates that the SAC would be the main interlocutor on aid delivery and coordination.

The immediate past executive director of the AHA Centre, Adelina Kamal, classified ASEAN’s current response as a ‘classic band-aid’ approach, which, as it was taking place under the scrutiny of the SAC, could only provide limited results. By contrast, she described the ‘pragmatic’ approach by Myanmar’s neighbour China as a proactive buffering of potential humanitarian spillovers that offered an alternative out-of-the-box ‘humanitarian resistance’ model that placed people at the centre of aid coordination and delivery (Kamal 2022). Malaysia’s recent appeal to ASEAN to consider informally engaging with the NUG in relation to humanitarian assistance provision suggests that there is at least some consideration of alternative options (Irrawaddy 2022a).

The current high-level of cynicism in Myanmar towards ASEAN and the ASEAN-led response coupled with ASEAN’s hesitancy thus far to engage with the NUG collectively may affect the ASEAN special envoy’s mandated task to meet with, and consult, all stakeholders. Among those stakeholders, the EAOs have emerged as important in state- and peace-building in Myanmar, and are now asserting their voice more than in the past.

Engage with the NUG and EAOs?

The military’s narrative of being the only organised institution in the country protecting national security is being challenged as never before. Anti-coup protests have continued despite brutal repression and violence, and the NUG has continued to engage in dialogue with various EAOs, political parties, civil society organisations and Civil Disobedience Movement representatives via the National Unity Consultative Council (NUCC) platform. The lack of headway in engaging with the SAC seems to have created more interest in engaging with the NUG, albeit informally. Even Thai Special Envoy Pornpimol Kanchalanak’s caution in June 2022 on the ‘diminishing returns’ of isolating the SAC carried an underlying acknowledgement of the junta’s recalcitrance (Ng 2022).

Foreign Minister of Malaysia Saifuddin’s call for ASEAN to consider more engagement with the NUG and the NUCC may serve to awaken more interest in these bodies, which, in turn, will need to prepare for such engagement. Part of that preparedness requires a greater awareness and understanding of how an intergovernmental organisation such as ASEAN operates. The EAOs and other NUCC members may, thus, require more assistance in this journey of engagement with ASEAN than the NUG. Even the NUG still faces the challenge of asserting its status as an essential counterpart for dialogue, not least because of the SAC’s domination of the foreign policy space in ASEAN and the grey areas governing the recognition of states over governments.

Further, many external interlocutors may be less aware of the NUCC’s role in discussions on Myanmar’s political future and of its intersection with the NUG. The NUG’s challenge will be to show, and to prove, that its current set-up and dialogue with the NUCC is different from past parallels.¹² The NUG’s Rohingya policy provides a good illustration of this difference, but the NUG also faces the challenge of capacity and necessary human resources to pursue its state-building and peace-building moves (Htet Myet Min Tun & Moe Thuzar 2022).

ASEAN member states should consider ways and means to engage with the NUG and the EAOs to identify where bilateral or third-party capacity support can assist efforts to address and undo decades of structural violence inflicted by the military. This is where ASEAN may consider opportunities and complementarities of working with the UN and other dialogue partners, including Myanmar’s neighbours, in a broader ‘ASEAN Plus’ configuration.

Work with ASEAN’s dialogue partners in a loose coalition?

Across ASEAN’s various external partners—dialogue, sectoral and development—there is a broad spectrum of goodwill and expertise for ASEAN to leverage and coordinate in providing assistance and support to the Myanmar people. The UN and ASEAN are dialogue partners, and ASEAN has a separate seat at the UN. Annual ASEAN–UN ministerial meetings take place in October. However, current geopolitical tensions surrounding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the tendency to assign competency to ASEAN for dealing with the Myanmar crisis, seem to indicate that UN attention on Myanmar will largely fall on Special Envoy Heyzer and the UN agencies in Myanmar.

However, in light of the current sentiments towards ASEAN in Myanmar, it may be more beneficial if the grouping is part of a larger international effort. Given that both the SAC and the resistance movement are opposed to considering any form of pragmatic mediated dialogue, the challenge will be to come up with creative ways of assisting the Myanmar people. Still, such a coalition, with ASEAN as a convenor, could galvanise action and commitment from other countries, including ASEAN Dialogue Partners, with economic and strategic interests in Myanmar.

Concluding thoughts

Ultimately, ASEAN’s responsibility to protect the Myanmar people from further distress and disaster must transcend the discomfort of taking up an issue that pushes ASEAN out of its self-imposed constraints and forces it to discuss and respond to the Myanmar crisis—beyond merely at leaders’ or foreign ministers’ meetings. The Myanmar question must become an agenda item for every sectoral ASEAN meeting or discussion; projects and programs must be formulated bearing in mind the need to assist Myanmar in overcoming its multifaceted challenges. Inputs from ASEAN’s research community and from ASEAN parliamentarians and civil society for track two diplomacy must also be sought and considered in formulating policy responses bilaterally and regionally. In Myanmar, too, the role and capacity of civil society must be considered and boosted. Efforts by civil society to build bridges that ease the tensions have borne results in the past. But the antagonisms between communities that have existed for decades will require an equally long period of constructive engagement, nationally and regionally (Tin Maung Maung Than & Moe Thuzar 2012).

At present, ASEAN’s ability to find solutions to the Myanmar dilemma is limited by what veteran ASEAN hands may deem as ASEAN’s ‘structural flaws’ (Desker 2021) as well as its capacity (or not) to persuade the Myanmar military. The Myanmar crisis presents yet another reminder that ASEAN and its member states need to determine the value and import of ASEAN membership and the internal dimension (i.e. implementation) of ASEAN centrality. This is not the first time that Myanmar has created issues for ASEAN, and, sadly, it may not be the last, but ASEAN’s response to the present crisis in Myanmar could still be the first time that clearer precedents and procedures are established for violations of membership obligations.

The Myanmar people, with their limited awareness of what ASEAN as an intergovernmental organisation can or cannot do, welcomed ASEAN’s October 2021 decision. Yet, few are sanguine enough to believe that ASEAN, as a collective grouping, can effectively be relied upon to deal with the crisis in their country. To many protesters and participants in Myanmar’s Spring Revolution, the international community’s readiness to take the cue from ASEAN and its Five-Point Consensus came as a surprise. At the same time, the expectation that individual ASEAN members and international donors could do more to engage with the NUG seems to be quite common. This hope centres on supporting the NUG’s humanitarian assistance effort via local community networks and channels, including in ethnic-controlled areas. The ASEAN leaders’ decision in November 2022 to give more leeway to the AHA Centre and the ASEAN secretary-general may result in new and creative forms of humanitarian assistance.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine highlighted the question of appropriate responses by regional and international organisations and individual member states to acts of aggression or war. While the Myanmar and Ukraine crises are not directly comparable, from the perspective of the Myanmar people, the Myanmar military is behaving like a foreign occupier, robbing the country of its institutional development and its political future.

Even before the Ukraine crisis, Myanmar’s prolonged troubles imparted some awareness of the limitations of international/regional diplomacy. In the 2022 State of Southeast Asia survey on ASEAN’s response to the Myanmar crisis, the attitudes of the Myanmar people were markedly more negative than the regional average. Myanmar respondents (78.8 per cent) were largely dissatisfied with ASEAN’s response, compared to a 33.1 per cent disapproval rating regionally. Compared to their ASEAN peers, more Myanmar respondents (39.9 per cent) wanted ASEAN to employ ‘harder methods’, such as targeted sanctions and suspension to ‘curtail the SAC’ (Moe Thuzar 2022). In 2023, Myanmar respondents to the survey question on ASEAN’s response still mostly viewed the Five-Point Consensus as ‘fundamentally flawed’ (35.7 per cent compared to 19.6 per cent regionally). However, more Myanmar respondents (36.5 per cent) preferred the option of engaging in dialogue with all stakeholders, including the NUG, ‘to build trust’ rather than resort to harder measures (15.7 per cent) than in 2022 (Seah et al. 2023).

The people’s defensive war since September 2021 is an illustration—albeit an extreme one—of supreme dissatisfaction and people taking matters into their own hands. However, it is possible to discern a change in the political sphere. Discussions about overcoming the trust deficit now extend to not only how different political actors and institutions interact with each other, but also to addressing the dynamics between individuals and groups of individuals. Fragile in its nascence, the capacity and desire to move beyond such discussion and take action perhaps adds to the dilemma of determining Myanmar’s value to, and in, ASEAN.

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