After being excluded from last month’s Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in an unprecedented rebuke of Myanmar’s recalcitrant military regime, junta chief Min Aung Hlaing was similarly conspicuously absent from two virtual ASEAN meetings with the European Union (EU) and China this week.
In what analysts viewed as the most severe sanction against any ASEAN member has ever been dealt by the regional bloc, ASEAN leaders barred the commander-in-chief, increasingly regarded as an international pariah, from attending an October 26-28 summit and called for a “non-political” Myanmar figure to participate instead. The junta refused.
Frustrated by Naypyidaw’s failure to honor pledges to allow an ASEAN special envoy access to deposed civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other elected lawmakers overthrown in February’s coup, the decision to bar the junta chief was seen as a last-ditch effort to salvage credibility lost to the months-long impasse.
Now, with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen taking the reins of ASEAN’s annually rotating chairmanship in 2022, debate is swirling over whether Phnom Penh has the mettle to display leadership by dealing sternly with Myanmar or instead defer to China, its closest political ally and economic benefactor, in its handling of the crisis.
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Nile Bowie is a journalist and correspondent with the Asia Times covering current affairs in Singapore and Malaysia. He can be reached at nilebowie@gmail.com.
