The dramatically worsening situation in Myanmar once again occupied a high position on the agenda of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations ( ASEAN ) leaders’ meetings earlier this month in Vientiane, Laos.
The Chair’s Statement was a discomforting reminder of one of ASEAN’s greatest-ever diplomatic failures: the Five Point Consensus (5PC ) on Myanmar.
The five “agreed” points between ASEAN and Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, the head of Myanmar’s State Administration Council ( SAC ) junta, have essentially accomplished nothing since it was finished in April 2021.
We reaffirmed our commitment to the use of ongoing and sustainable strategies and methods to assist the people of Myanmar in finding a quiet solution that is jointly owned and led by Myanmar and aimed at promoting peace, stability, and security in the region, according to the statement.  ,
This “reaffirmation” has been on duplicate in every standard ASEAN statement for over three centuries. But, too, has an internal evaluation of the 5PC, a quarterly training in pointing out the apparent loss of the discussion.
The local grouping claimed that” we reaffirmed the Chair’s thorough report on the application of the 5PC and, in accordance with the assessment of the report, we demanded more progress in all 5PC areas because we were concerned about the substantial lack of progress being made in the application of the 5PC.” We therefore catered to the agreement that the 5PC may continue to serve as the primary tool for addressing Myanmar’s political crisis and that it should be fully implemented.
Malaysia is expected to take over in 2025 while Laos has served as ASEAN’s rotary head this time. Indonesia continues to work on Myanmar concerns despite the fact that its well-intentioned authority in 2023 was thwarted by the browbeating of the SAC and Min Aung Hlaing, who have been denied ASEAN conferences for more than two years.
However, many observers refuse to acknowledge that ASEAN’s partnership with Myanmar is primarily program, prosaic, and generally coup-blind. Myanmar’s coup-installed government attends in-person and online regional discussions on everything from connection, climate change, health, violence, free trade and foreign affairs.
Many speech partners, including Australia, China, Japan, Japan, the European Union, the United States, Russia, and China, each have their own opinions on how to best handle Myanmar and its bloody conflict, but they all place greater value on their interactions with ASEAN than on one imploding member status.
Myanmar just hosted the ASEAN Navy Chiefs Meeting, which was held under the clever motto” Road toward peace and prosperity.” In September, the head of the Myanmar Air Force attended the ASEAN Air Chiefs Conference ( AACC ) in Cambodia.
In 2023, a similar conference hosted in Naypyidaw was boycotted by the air pressure rulers of Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. However, recent quakes have not been in the air, even as the Myanmar Air Force launches its terrifying flying airstrikes and massacrates hundreds of civilians in unrestrained assaults across the nation. Additionally, the military has been bombing towns along numerous rivers and along the coast.  ,
The 5PC’s failure is shared globally, from the United Nations ( UN), Western states, Japan and the SAC’s ostensible allies in China and Russia, who have all committed to ASEAN’s lead role in engaging Myanmar’s regime and resolving the country’s crisis. The single compromise the 5PC has managed to reach so far is social silence.
Some people may believe that the 5PC’s loss is the cause of a wider political dead-end after the SAC’s plan of war crimes against the people of Myanmar for almost four times. Nevertheless, it is an easy-out to throw ASEAN as the ultimate blame of this horrible cul-de-sac.
Min Aung Hlaing and the routine, who have consistently refrained from working on the consensus despite their dishonest people commitment to the international forum, are the main villains, of course. A corrupt UN program, a special envoy of the secretary-general who is still finding her legs after being appointed six months ago, political conflict between China, Russia, and the US, and a world of raging issues and philanthropic needs have all conspired to make Myanmar the country’s “forgotten” war.
A significant gap in diplomatic relations between those groups within China’s orbit, those close to the West, especially the K2C ( Karen, Karenni and Chin revolutionary actors ), and those like the Arakan Army ( AA ), which straddles China, Bangladesh, and Indian demands, has not been convincingly reconciled by the exiled National Unity Government ( NUG) and multiple Ethnic Armed Organizations ( EAOs ).
The diplomatic divides make for an extremely challenging and contradictory environment to navigate, but it’s not insurmountable.
Myanmar thought leaders, think tankers, scholars, media commentators, civil society leaders in women’s groups and human rights organizations are all providing valuable and sophisticated input publicly and quietly to revolutionary figureheads.
However, the majority of the revolution’s senior members only pay close attention. How many 5PC reform or review papers were produced by the revolutionary actors K2C ( Karen, Karenni, and Chin ) prior to the ASEAN Summit in Laos? Where can one go to get Malaysia to become the new chair?
While supporters of the NUG and EAOs talk up “territorial control” and battlefield gains against the Myanmar military, the diplomatic dimension of the anti-SAC struggle is a dismal non-performer.
There is no diplomatic equivalent to Operation 1027, a rebel offensive launched a year ago that had dramatic success and persuaded many that a military victory over the SAC was possible.
The NUG’s international diplomacy is almost irredeemably sclerotic. Most of the efforts to defeat Western governments are wooden, illogical, and indicate that Myanmar’s political leaders are operating abroad.
Most ASEAN states have come to the conclusion that the SAC has a steadfast hold on power, and they are now gearing up for a potential election in 2025 as a subpar re-engagement opportunity. The 5PC of ASEAN has failed, to be sure, but the bloc has provided a useful deflector shield from the fumbling diplomatic ineptitude of the West.
Lurking under all this, as opposed to looming over it, is American absenteeism on Myanmar. The US has a sizable support for humanitarian aid and a sizable US Agency for International Development ( USAID ) program to support revolutionary governance.
However, its embassy in Yangon is mostly silent and appears to lack the leadership that the US would expect from the diplomatic corps. Washington has likely come to the conclusion that the NUG is ineffective and refuses to accept the propaganda being produced by pro-NUG think tanks and activists that a military victory is in store.
China’s interventionism is a reversed version of what it has done recently, as evidenced by its criticism of the Three Brotherhood Alliance ( BBA ) and their allies for phase two of Operation 1027 and the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO ) for their understated but remarkably impressive military victories over the past few months.
It is obvious that Beijing has chosen to support the SAC as a means of negotiating with the numerous revolutionary actors in its purview, or at least to give that appearance for the time being.
The numerous Western donors and peace organizations ‘ competing mediation efforts add to the complexity of the ASEAN deflector shield. Revolutionary leaders are constantly distracted by incessant consultations in regional capitals or travel to Europe or the US rather than developing a credible strategy for engaging ASEAN.
If these efforts have produced any tangible results, they are not publicly discernable. Many of them do n’t go beyond meetings or statements, and they appear to be very repetitive. Implementing a strategy is the goal, not endless tinkering with it.
Without a clear foreign policy direction, opportunism by international actors abounds. But the NUG and EAOs must limit these distractions and concentrate on a collective political, military, economic and diplomatic focus.
There is also the perilous use of some international actors ‘ humanitarian aid as a means of political mediation, which involves essentially gambling with civilian lives. The reality of the past four years, when the regime has directly targeted aid as a weapon of war, is ignored when one assumes there is any chance to engage the SAC in humanitarian aid.
Ire at ASEAN’s inaction misses the point. That much was crystal clear in the immediate wake of the coup in April 2021 regarding the regional grouping, which will always be limited. It also paradoxically gives Myanmar’s revolutionary foreign policy new life, which various anti-coup groups are capable of doing.
ASEAN is correct in saying that the development of Myanmar must be “owned and led”
David Scott Mathieson is an independent analyst who studies human rights, conflict, and human rights in Myanmar.