This handout photo taken and released on January 10, 2024 by the Myanmar Military Information Team shows Myanmar's military chief Min Aung Hlaing (right) meeting with Alounkeo Kittikhoun (left), special envoy of the Asean chair on Myanmar, in Naypyidaw. - AFP
THE nation ushered in the new year with several developments in its ongoing civil war.
A coalition of militias based in northern Shan state made significant gains in the north-eastern part of the country.
Following their military successes, China mediated a ceasefire between the ruling junta, or State Administrative Council (SAC), and the rebel alliance.
The Three Brotherhood Alliance is reported to have ties with China, which has thus far avoided antagonising the SAC.
Meanwhile, Laos, the current Asean chair, appointed veteran diplomat Alounkeo Kittikhoun as the regional bloc’s special envoy to Myanmar ahead of the Asean foreign ministerial retreat in Luang Prabang in late January.
Whether these developments will lead to peace in Myanmar is anybody’s guess.
In the first instance, China’s proactive mediation was prompted by the threat of the military conflict spilling over into its territory.
There is also concern over the disruption of border trade and a potential refugee crisis.
While the Beijing-brokered ceasefire arguably highlights China’s relative influence over Myanmar, it also implies Beijing’s lack of desire to get involved unless its own citizens and interests are put at risk.
In the second instance, whether Alounkeo – who met Myanmar strongman Min Aung Hlaing in Naypyidaw on Jan 10 – and Asean can bring the junta to heel is equally unclear, not when the SAC has steadfastly rebuffed the bloc’s conflict resolution efforts by refusing to adhere to the five-point consensus agreed to by the nine Asean leaders and Hlaing in April 2021.
The resulting stalemate led to the banning of Hlaing and other junta representatives from attending Asean meetings, and growing calls for Myanmar’s membership in the bloc to be revoked.
For Asean member states seeking closure on a prolonged and vexing crisis, the latest developments offer both guarded hope and unease.
On the one hand, as much as Beijing’s mediation is welcomed, it underscores the uncomfortable truth that only a major world power – even one which is proprietarily invested in South-East Asia as China is – can achieve what the bloc has been unable to in its own backyard.
According to the nationalistic Chinese news outlet Global Times, Beijing has urged the junta to implement the Asean member nations’ five-point consensus.
According to Myanmar newspaper Global New Light of Myanmar, during the meeting with Alounkeo, Hlaing claimed that his government was “implementing the Asean five-point consensus adjusted with the road map of the State Administration Council”.
Yet the failure of Asean’s peace effort cannot be attributed solely to the bloc’s alleged ineptitude.
Indeed, by accepting Beijing’s ceasefire plan, the junta is signalling whom it would rather listen to, and it is not Asean.
But, as some observers have pointed out, the recent battlefield successes of the rebel forces, coupled with the support of a Myanmar public ravaged and exhausted by war and crackdowns, raise the possibility that even if the ceasefire holds, the junta may not be able to endure for long.
Other than dealing with rebel groups in Shan as well as Kachin and Chin states in the north, the military is reportedly fighting against groups in Rakhine state in the west and Kayah state in the east of the country as well.
With its forces depleted by deaths, desertions and even defections in its multi-front war, the military has been stretched thin.
If so, it behoves Asean leaders to prepare for the likelihood of either an impending collapse of the junta or, failing that, a junta willing to sue for peace.
Between 2007 and 2008, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) military government led by General Than Shwe – Hlaing’s predecessor as military chief – instituted a number of policies that earned it the world’s censure, ranging from a crackdown on a clergy-led popular protest in Yangon (the “Saffron Revolution”) to its refusal to receive international humanitarian assistance immediately following a destructive cyclone, Nargis, which caused untold suffering and devastated large parts of the country.
The SPDC eventually opened up the country to the outside world – but only after it received assurances that Asean, in conjunction with the United Nations, would serve as the conduit and facilitator of foreign aid and assistance for Myanmar.
These developments paved the way for then President Thein Sein’s liberalisation efforts and the 2012 landmark election that brought Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy (NLD) into a power-sharing arrangement with the military.
The arrangement would last until the fateful 2020 election in which the military-backed party lost ground to the NLD, leading to the 2021 coup d’etat led by Hlaing.
Whether the junta will eventually topple under the combined weight of military reversals and popular opposition in the coming days is open to question.
Although China successfully delivered a ceasefire agreement – which already is in doubt, with at least one rebel group accusing the junta of not honouring the agreement – it is not obvious that Beijing is prepared to prop up the junta at all costs.
But no matter the frustrating recalcitrance of the Myanmar military, Asean must be ready – as it proved in previous years – to step into the breach and help, as and when opportunities present themselves.
The things that Asean does so well in its so-called “weakness” – reassure and build trust and confidence – perhaps serve as the antidote to the fears that have driven the junta and contributed to the staggering destruction that it has wrought on Myanmar.
Hlaing and his ilk would do well to take a page from their predecessors and work with Asean rather than against it. — The Straits Times/ANN
