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Thailand snubs ASEAN with Myanmar meet
Jakarta insists that bloc’s rules must be followed.
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espite mounting protests from other major ASEAN member states, Thailand on Monday went ahead with its secret meeting in support of Myanmar’s junta, exposing clear internal cracks within ASEAN on the matter as Indonesia’s chairmanship enters its last three months.
Speaking to local media, outgoing Thai Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai, in a last-ditch attempt to uphold the junta’s status quo, doubled down by saying that the countries that chose to skip the meeting should be thanking Bangkok for its “track 1.5” diplomatic initiative blending government and academia.
Since the military putsch that overthrew democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s civilian government over two years ago, ASEAN has maintained an approach based on the Five-Point Consensus (5PC) peace initiative, which calls for the cessation of violence, inclusive dialogue and the delivery of humanitarian assistance.
But with the junta regime’s continued defiance, ASEAN in 2021 moved to bar all Myanmar political representatives from its high-level meetings, effectively excluding the junta leaders from engaging with the bloc except during visits from the chair’s special envoy.
Thailand, whose outgoing leaders similarly took power through a military putsch in 2014, took it upon themselves to step beyond the association’s boundaries to engage with their junta allies.
“The role of Thailand in this meeting is not the role of a caretaker government. It is an ongoing mission,” Don told the Bangkok Post, while also admitting he was aware that Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi was “upset” with the plan.
“We have been dealing with the issue for the sake of national interest,” Thailand’s longtime top diplomat said in an attempt to justify the outgoing government’s move.
In a separate interview with Thai PBS on Monday, Don played up Thailand’s interests vis-a-vis Myanmar, with which it shares a border.
“[Some countries] are not joining, but that’s normal,” he said of the divisive meeting.
The dialogue saw Laos, Cambodia, India, China, Brunei and Vietnam reserving seats for the talks, while Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore refused to attend.
Rules of the game
Separately, in Jakarta, senior Foreign Ministry officials insisted that Bangkok’s engagement with the Myanmar junta was “not in line with the 5PC” and that there are “rules of the game” within ASEAN for it to follow.
Since Thailand’s engagement with the junta was outside of the ASEAN framework, the officials insisted that it was “up to personal interpretation” whether Bangkok’s initiative could be considered overstepping Indonesia’s leadership.
It was agreed upon during previous summits, the foreign minister’s chief of staff Achmad Rizal Purnama said, that a review of the implementation of the 5PC should be explored, but that such work should only be carried out within ASEAN through its consensus-based mechanisms.
“Engagement with only one stakeholder in Myanmar contravenes the 5PC. We’re not going to say whether this engagement is in opposition to Indonesia’s chairmanship, but we will say that it was the 5PC that was agreed upon, and that we must stick to the 5PC,” said Ngurah Swajaya, the ministry’s coordinator for the Office of the Special Envoy on Myanmar, on Monday.
He also rejected Thailand’s suggestion that dialogue with the junta was the only way forward, saying that the lack of engagement had never been the problem, considering Indonesia’s inclusive approach to engagement so far.
Apart from quietly engaging with Myanmar’s State Administration Council (SAC), which is the highest decision-making body that the junta controls, Jakarta has quietly spoken to various other parties, including experts from the United Nations.
The UN’s special rapporteur for Myanmar, Tom Andrews, is currently in Jakarta until June 21 to discuss ways to stand with and for the people of Myanmar in the midst of the coup crisis.
Regional realities
Thailand’s gamble also comes weeks before the region’s top diplomats meet again for the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AMM) in Jakarta in July, during which the topic of the coup crisis will “definitely” be raised.
Analysts have been blunt about the move being another slap in the face for ASEAN’s de facto leader Indonesia, which tries very hard to maintain the region’s united front.
“From the diplomatic side, it is safe to say that Indonesia has been hijacked by Thailand,” Dafri Agussalim, executive director of the ASEAN Studies Center at Gadjah Mada University (UGM), told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
“It isn’t even the first time that Thailand has sabotaged Jakarta,” he said, pointing to the pro-military government’s tendency to side with its junta-led neighbor.
That Laos, the next chair of ASEAN, attended the meeting in Pattaya, was a clear sign that next year will likely see Vientiane discontinue Jakarta’s approach, Dafri suggested.
With division still plaguing the association some nine months into Indonesia’s chairmanship, experts said that the latest development was more evidence that ASEAN is disunited.
“This has nothing to do with the Indonesian chairmanship. This is the ASEAN reality,” said Dewi Fortuna Anwar, a senior international relations expert at the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), on Monday.
“That means, despite being nearly 60 years old, ASEAN has repeatedly emphasized the importance of unity, but only because it still remains an aspiration,” she said.
