SINGAPORE -- Top leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations began a series of virtual summits on Tuesday, with multiple challenges hanging over the region's premier diplomatic events of the year.
The meetings -- which run until Thursday and include regionwide discussions as well as talks with key individual partners like the U.S., China, Japan and India -- come amid prolonged political unrest in Myanmar that has cast doubt on the bloc's international relevance. At the same time, the intensifying security rivalry between Washington and Beijing threatens ASEAN's "centrality" in the region.
The ASEAN Summit, which started Tuesday morning, marks the first meeting of the 10-member bloc's leaders in six months. In April, they gathered in person in Jakarta for an emergency meeting to discuss the crisis in Myanmar, where the military had ousted Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government in February -- triggering protests and a bloody crackdown. They agreed on a "five-point consensus" to restore peace, but despite the participation of Myanmar's top general Min Aung Hlaing in the deal, the military has stonewalled and little progress has been made.
A draft chairman's statement for this week's ASEAN Summit seen by Nikkei expresses leaders' "concern" over Myanmar's situation, calling on "all parties concerned in Myanmar to implement their commitment to the five-point consensus," including a visit to the country by ASEAN's special envoy "with full access to all parties concerned."
That envoy -- Brunei's second foreign minister, Erywan Yusof -- has yet to be able to visit the country to mediate. As a result, ASEAN foreign ministers on Oct. 15 decided not to invite Min Aung Hlaing or any political representatives to this week's talks.
"This was a difficult but necessary decision to uphold ASEAN's credibility given the unsatisfactory and highly limited progress in the implementation of the five-point consensus," a Singapore Foreign Ministry spokesperson said.
Efforts to resolve the crisis have been complicated by ASEAN's principle of noninterference in individual members' affairs. Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said last week that the bloc needed to do some "soul-searching" over it and "cannot use the principle of noninterference as a shield to avoid issues being addressed."
Even as ASEAN attempts to apply more pressure, experts see few signs that Myanmar's brass will go along with the road map, despite repeated promises to do so.
"It is rare for ASEAN to impose conditions on meeting attendance," said Sharon Seah, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, a Singaporean think tank. But she noted the response from Myanmar's military-led State Administration Council -- the regime said it was "extremely disappointed" in the decision and that "foreign intervention" was at play -- "does not give any indication that the SAC will play ball."
Last Friday, Myanmar's leadership said ASEAN was failing to abide by its charter, while on Sunday it pledged again in state media to go along with the five-point consensus.
Seah expected this week's meetings would "urge cooperation from Myanmar to allow the special envoy to make his visit, meet the necessary parties and open dialogue with stakeholders."
The regime of Myanmar's Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, pictured in 2018, has accused ASEAN of failing to uphold its principle of non-interference in members' internal affairs. © Reuters The urgency to uphold ASEAN's credibility only grows as Southeast Asia becomes a key friction point in the U.S.-China competition.
The bloc has long positioned itself as "central" to the region's security architecture. The latest earthquake to shake that notion came last month, when Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. announced their new AUKUS alliance, which will enable Canberra to obtain nuclear-powered submarines.
Some ASEAN members, particularly Indonesia and Malaysia, have expressed concerns over the new trio. The draft chairman's statement does not mention AUKUS, but it has a paragraph stating the bloc's "commitment to preserve the Southeast Asian region as a nuclear weapon-free zone" -- echoing previous summit statements.
"It is up to ASEAN to show that it remains united and cohesive and that it can make solid decisions to defend its centrality," Seah said. "What does that mean in practical terms? It means securing broad agreement on the expected outcomes at the summit and related meetings without showing cracks, delivering a strong statement that shows all ASEAN member states acting as one."
The level of U.S. participation in this year's East Asia Summit on Wednesday -- a broader regional meeting -- will also be in focus after former President Donald Trump skipped the events four times during his term. President Joe Biden is expected to participate in an ASEAN-U.S. meeting later on Tuesday, according to Reuters. Over the past months, his administration has dispatched a parade of high-ranking officials -- Vice President Kamala Harris, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman -- to ASEAN member states.
But China, another fierce AUKUS critic, has also been stepping up economic relationships with Southeast Asian countries through coronavirus vaccine distribution and other support. Picking at a sore point for ASEAN, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin last week told reporters that AUKUS "aims to undermine the ASEAN-centered regional cooperation architecture with the outdated Cold War mentality and compromise regional prosperity and stability."
Several ASEAN states, of course, have their own disputes with Beijing over its aggressive assertion of claims to most of the South China Sea.
A Thai Foreign Ministry official told reporters that the summit statements would touch on a code of conduct for the South China Sea, which China and ASEAN have been negotiating. In August, ASEAN said they reached a provisional agreement on the preamble section of the code. "The updates should be seen in the chairman statement as normal protocol every year; there is one paragraph about the South China Sea," the official said. "It will mention how the discussion has progressed."
On the economic front, recovery from the pandemic remains a vital issue for ASEAN. Yet the bloc has come up with few coordinated initiatives. At last year's ASEAN Summit, the members discussed the potential launch of regional travel corridors, but they have yet to follow through apart from scattered reopening moves by individual members.
The Thai Foreign Ministry says this week's discussions will focus on "promoting cooperation to address COVID-19 and its impacts, post-COVID-19 recovery, ASEAN community building, as well as key regional and global developments."
One matter on which progress could be made is the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP), the world's largest trade pact, involving all 10 ASEAN members plus Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. After the pact was concluded last year, its implementation is pending ratification by at least six ASEAN signatories and three others. This week's meetings are expected to discuss the status of the deal in individual countries, aiming for an official launch in early 2022.