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Myanmar may have highlighted differences, but ASEAN still united: Experts
Though it has been posited that the Myanmar crisis has caused a rift in the regional grouping, at least two experts refute this premise, saying that working through differing views toward consensus is actually the ASEAN way.
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A worker adjusts an ASEAN flag on Oct. 28, 2021 at a meeting hall in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (Reuters/Lim Huey Teng)
T
he Myanmar crisis may have accentuated differences between ASEAN member states and will be one of Indonesia’s most pressing challenges during its chairmanship, experts have said.
But they also suggested there was still reason to remain hopeful, underlining that differing opinions and divergent governance had always been characteristic of the 10-member bloc. As such, disagreements over conflict resolution were neither unprecedented nor impossible to overcome.
“Conflicting opinions within the ASEAN landscape are not new. [...] But it is a challenge. It will always be,” Dewi Fortuna Anwar, senior ASEAN researcher at the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), told The Jakarta Post.
On Dec. 22, foreign ministers from Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos met informally in Bangkok to discuss progress on the Five-Point Consensus, ASEAN’s peace plan for Myanmar.
While maritime states like Indonesia and Malaysia were inconspicuously absent from the meeting, which the Indonesian Foreign Ministry told reporters was “informal” and not representative of ASEAN, some media reported this as a sign of an increasingly divided organization.
A week later, Malaysian Foreign Minister Zambry Abdul Kadir said although the informal meeting might cause misunderstanding, ASEAN could not force any party to terminate their relationship or engagement with Myanmar.
“Any attempts at resolving the Myanmar crisis should be based on the 5PC,” he asserted, referring to the bloc’s Myanmar strategy. “They cannot go beyond it.” Zambry added that he remained unaware of the details discussed at the Bangkok meeting.
