On January 1, Laos took the reins from Indonesia as chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. As a result, it also became responsible for steering the bloc’s approach to the region’s most pressing crisis – the conflict in Myanmar since the 2021 coup.

Despite sharing a small border with Myanmar, Laos has few ties with the country. But as a one-party, authoritarian state, some fear that it will side with the military regime in Nay Pyi Taw. Vientiane is also widely perceived as being beholden to its superpower neighbour and largest creditor, China, which has maintained formal relations with Myanmar’s junta in contrast to ASEAN, which continues to exclude top junta leaders from regional meetings.

However, diplomats and ASEAN analysts interviewed by Frontier point to Laos’s previous chairmanship as proof that it’s not merely Beijing’s puppet. Vientiane takes its role in ASEAN seriously, they say, and so would be reluctant to undermine the Five Point Consensus. This agreement, reached between members of the bloc and the junta in April 2021, sets certain conditions, such as an end to the violence and dialogue between all parties, before the regime can be brought in from the cold.

Nonetheless, with its limited resources and pressing problems of its own, it’s unclear if Laos has the will or capacity to make a breakthrough where previous chairs have failed. It has also appeared to show little interest in an initiative started by Jakarta, before it handed over the chairmanship, to ensure continuity and pool resources through a “troika” partnership between Laos, Indonesia and Malaysia as the current, preceding and future chairs. This has led some to conclude that Vientiane will quietly go through the motions without taking any risks, before passing the buck to Kuala Lumpur and leaving Myanmar’s crisis unresolved.

xandreu wrote: ↑Thu Mar 07, 2024 12:34 am It's my understanding that one of the founding principles of ASEAN is that no member gets involved with another members internal affairs. I may be wrong, but I'm sure I've read that on more than one occasion. Or words to that effect.

reggie perrin's dad wrote: ↑Thu Mar 07, 2024 9:06 am

xandreu wrote: ↑Thu Mar 07, 2024 12:34 am It's my understanding that one of the founding principles of ASEAN is that no member gets involved with another members internal affairs. I may be wrong, but I'm sure I've read that on more than one occasion. Or words to that effect.

From the ASEAN charter.

"2. ASEAN and its Member States shall act in accordance with the following Principles:

(e) non-interference in the internal affairs of ASEAN Member States"

What are they supposed to do, Richard? ASEAN has already passed them over for the chair in 2026

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/9/5 ... .%E2%80%9D


IR is a complex game. Rightly or wrongly, one nation or even a group of them can't tell another nation what to do.