(Karishmar Vyas’s post from The ABC NEWS Australia on 26 October 2025.)
Myanmar too low on agenda as regional leaders meet
Trump for summit: Sitting inside an open-air shack along Thailand's porous
border with Myanmar, Koko Chit couldn't believe that he was still alive.
Desperate for money, he had left his wife and three
children in July and travelled back to northern Myanmar to scavenge for jade at
Hpakant's notorious mines. The work was deadly, but it was the civil war that
almost killed him.
"There's no security there. When you go to work, there's fighting," says Chit, 31, who didn't give his real name because he feared for his life. "The State Administration Council (Myanmar's military) conscripts workers. They fire their guns to threaten people for no reason. And the resistance forces fire back."
Caught between soldiers and an array of ethnic and
civilian militias, Chit is one of 3.3 million people in Myanmar who have been
displaced by a war that erupted after the military toppled the country’s
elected government in 2021. Since then, more than 6,300 people have been
killed, large parts of the country have been bombed and over 22,500 people
remain in military detention.
Yet, Myanmar is low on the check list as regional
leaders and President Donald Trump meet in Malaysia for the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit this week. Instead, the president and
his regional counterparts are congratulating themselves for helping Thailand
and Cambodia strike a peace deal, following a border conflict in July that
fizzled in five days.
ASEAN's limp response to Myanmar's deadly civil war
has long frustrated many in the international community. Earlier this month,
the European Union (EU) commissioner Kajsa Ollongren urged the body to take
action against Myanmar's junta.
"We're calling upon all neighbouring
countries, including the ASEAN countries, to really firmly push for a change of
course," Ollongren told AFP. "As long as Myanmar is unstable, as long
as it's sort of a source of instability for the whole region, it should be the
number one concern… for the ASEAN countries," she said.
While the region may be concerned about the
conflict, taking action against a member country is simply not in ASEAN's DNA. Unlike
the EU, the organisation does not require its members to be faithful to a
particular set of values, like human rights, democracy or even rule of law.
Instead, the cardinal rule for membership appears to be to mind your own
business.
"I don't think ASEAN and its elites have any
problem with different forms of governance or authoritarianism
whatsoever," William. J. Jones, assistant professor of international
relations at Mahidol University International College in Bangkok, said. "If
you look at the Bangkok Declaration of 1967, the original ASEAN treaty, the
only criteria for membership is geography."
"(In ASEAN) We have a common wish list of
developing a general kind of peace and taking care of our own problems
internally, and not having foreign powers dictate to us, because we all have
this colonial heritage. I think that's a general kind of glue that allows a
region with this degree of diversity and difference to speak the same
language," said Jones, who studies human rights in the ASEAN block. “ASEAN's
limp response to Myanmar's deadly civil war has long frustrated many in the
international community.
'A lack of consensus'
Occasionally, the organisation has tried to tackle
its Myanmar problem, but the attempts appear half-hearted. After General Min
Aung Hlaing and the Tatmadaw military orchestrated the coup in February 2021,
ASEAN leaders formulated a Five-Point plan, demanding amongst other things an
end to the violence and dialogue with opposition political parties. Yet behind
this united front, ASEAN members were deeply divided.
"(There was) ambivalence from countries like
Laos, Brunei, Vietnam, Cambodia. Laos took the approach of quiet diplomacy.
Thailand played this odd role of support (for Myanmar). And then you have…
Malaysia, which has been trying to play a more active role, and pushing towards
at least an end to the conflict," Jones said. "So there's a lack of
unity, a lack of consensus and a lack of understanding around what should they
actually do towards Myanmar."
Sensing the disarray, Myanmar did all of nothing,
pivoting instead to strengthening ties with China and Russia, which provide a
steady stream of weapons and funding for the military to continue its assault
on dissidents across the country.
A critical opportunity
Four years on, ASEAN is once again facing a
critical opportunity. Myanmar's military has announced multiphase elections
beginning on December 28, a move that observers have called a naked ploy to
legitimise its otherwise illegitimate government.
Despite having no control over vast regions of
Myanmar, they have invited election observers from a number of nations,
including ASEAN states. As Southeast Asian countries mull their decision, it's
important to remember that others are also observing, waiting to find out if
the region will continue to sit on the fence as Myanmar burns.
"There will be more fighting. I believe that
(General) Min Aung Hlaing will not back down easily since he has already seized
the country," said Koko Chit, surrounded by his fellow refugees who are
increasingly spilling into Thailand's border regions. "I just want to see
my country improve. I want my country to have freedom like before."
