PoliticsdiplomacyPeace Talks and Treaties
ASEAN's Meek Diplomacy on Myanmar Crisis Questioned
The 47th ASEAN summit concluded this week not with a decisive bang but with the familiar, calculated murmur of diplomatic caution, leaving seasoned political risk analysts like myself to question the bloc's strategic calculus regarding the Myanmar crisis. While the three-day gathering of the 11-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations ostensibly addressed the relentless, brutal clashes between the entrenched junta and a galvanized opposition, the issue was conspicuously deprioritized on the formal agenda, overshadowed by the signing of various trade deals with the United States—a move that signals a clear, if unstated, prioritization of economic stability over geopolitical intervention.This isn't a new pattern for ASEAN; it's a high-stakes gamble rooted in its foundational principle of non-interference, a doctrine that has historically maintained a fragile regional equilibrium but now faces its most severe stress test. The bloc's primary instrument, the Five-Point Consensus agreed upon in April 2021, lies in tatters, openly flouted by the junta which has continued its violent campaign against its own people, leading to a devastating humanitarian catastrophe with over a million displaced and thousands killed.From a risk-assessment perspective, ASEAN's meek diplomacy creates a dangerous vacuum, one that is rapidly being filled by other actors: China and Russia continue to provide the junta with diplomatic cover and material support, while ethnic armed organizations and the shadow National Unity Government are consolidating power on the ground, effectively rendering the central state authority a fiction. The scenario planning here points to several high-probability, high-impact outcomes—a protracted civil war that destabilizes the entire Mekong subregion, creating a safe haven for transnational crime and unchecked refugee flows, or a decisive victory by opposition forces that leaves ASEAN looking irrelevant and forces a painful, post-hoc realignment of its foreign policy.The summit's failure to materially alter its approach, perhaps by engaging directly with the NUG or imposing tangible costs on the junta, is not merely a diplomatic failure; it is a fundamental mispricing of political risk. By treating the Myanmar crisis as a contained, internal matter, ASEAN is underestimating the contagion effect.The escalating conflict threatens critical regional supply chains, exacerbates existing tensions over the Mekong River's resources, and provides a blueprint for other authoritarian regimes within the bloc on how to withstand regional pressure. The question is no longer whether ASEAN has done enough—it palpably has not—but whether its consensus-based model is structurally capable of managing an existential threat of this magnitude. The continued violence and the summit's muted response suggest that the greatest risk to regional security may not be the crisis in Myanmar itself, but the institutional paralysis preventing a coherent response to it.
#ASEAN
#Myanmar
#conflict
#diplomacy
#summit
#peace process
#featured
