Commentary: ASEAN is losing patience on Myanmar. Can Malaysia push for a new approach?

SINGAPORE: In 2025, the writing on the wall seems to loom larger for Myanmar’s State Administration Council (SAC) military regime.

Never entirely in control of Myanmar’s border regions, the military has lost ground and support after the 2021 coup, including in Bamar-majority central Myanmar. Its grip weakened further with the unprecedented loss of two regional military commands in August and December 2024. However, it continues to assert that it remains in control and is capable of conducting elections.

On Mar 8, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing announced plans for elections in December or January, saying that 53 political parties had registered to run in the polls.

However, the practicality of conducting nationwide elections remains highly uncertain. A BBC investigative report mentions "ethnic armies and a patchwork of resistance groups now control 42 per cent of the country's land mass", and while the junta still holds on to state/region capitals, its control of many areas in Myanmar is increasingly being contested.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) – which has struggled to find a solution to the Myanmar crisis – appears increasingly sceptical and impatient of election claims.

At the annual Foreign Ministers’ Retreat in January, leaders told the SAC’s representative that peace, not elections, should be the priority, said Malaysia’s Foreign Affairs Minister Mohamad Hasan at a press conference.

MALAYSIA’S OPPORTUNITY TO LEAD

ASEAN’s peace plan for Myanmar, in the form of the Five-Point Consensus (5PC) adopted in 2021, has faced mounting criticism due to the junta’s persistent refusal to comply.

The 5PC prioritises ending violence and delivering humanitarian aid, while mandating a special envoy to mediate among the different parties.

Since 2021, ASEAN’s rotating chairs have dispatched envoys to convey the bloc’s concerns directly to Min Aung Hlaing. They have also endeavoured to meet with other Myanmar stakeholders, though such engagements were most frequent and numerous in Indonesia’s chairmanship year in 2023. Laos continued a similar modus operandi to Indonesia’s on a quieter scale.

Malaysia’s 2025 chairmanship has started off with an approach that builds on past chairs’ experience. Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s ASEAN advisory group captures attention as it comprises former ASEAN senior officials who have managed past regional responses to events in Myanmar. 

On the diplomatic front, a calibration of engagement shows an intent to meet with Myanmar stakeholders across the political divide. In February, special envoy Othman Hashim met the parallel National Unity Government (NUG) and various ethnic armed organisations in Thailand, following earlier talks with the SAC in Naypyidaw. He has since also met with various Myanmar stakeholders across political, ethnic, social and civil society sectors. 

Engagement does not equate acceptance, yet since 2021, ASEAN’s engagement with Myanmar’s factions has been complicated by concerns that any interaction could be seen as granting legitimacy. The SAC regime and the NUG have both asserted they are Myanmar’s legitimate representative. Engaging with one or the other in Myanmar’s present conflict situation invariably causes conflation of engagement with support.

Malaysia’s turn at ASEAN’s helm this year thus bears the weight of the past four years of dealing with the SAC’s intransigence and the challenge to set an implementation strategy that addresses imperatives and necessities in Myanmar beyond ceasing violence and humanitarian assistance delivery as laid out in the 5PC.  

If Malaysia can set into motion – and entrench – a more forward-looking strategy, drawing on individual ASEAN members’ strengths and capacities, it would provide much-needed continuity for future ASEAN chairs.

This does not necessarily mean abandoning the 5PC, which ASEAN has insisted on continuing as its main reference. However, Myanmar’s conflict dynamics have changed, and ASEAN’s strategy must change with it to help Myanmar prepare for a post-conflict future. This requires a medium-term, multi-pronged approach that draws on individual ASEAN members’ strengths, communicates a consistent message to Myanmar actors and coordinates efforts with ASEAN’s various external partners.

PREPARING FOR MYANMAR’S POST-CONFLICT FUTURE

According to the United Nations, an estimated 20 million people - more than one third of Myanmar’s population - are in need of humanitarian aid. ASEAN’s relief efforts to Myanmar are channelled through the ASEAN Coordinating Centre on Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre). 

However, the AHA Centre’s effectiveness is constrained by its intergovernmental nature of working and limited experience with politically driven humanitarian crises. In 2023, an ASEAN aid convoy was attacked in Myanmar's southern Shan state, highlighting the security risks.

Some ASEAN members have begun working around those limitations. Thailand, for instance, initiated a cross-border humanitarian corridor last year to deliver aid directly to Myanmar. But as the crisis persists, the humanitarian fallout is no longer confined within Myanmar’s borders. A growing number of people are fleeing conflict and forced conscription, seeking better education and livelihood opportunities in neighbouring countries. The strain on regional resources has become more urgent with recent funding cuts to programmes and activities supported by USAID.

The situation requires incoming ASEAN chairs, starting with Malaysia in 2025, to consider more innovative ways for humanitarian assistance to reach all affected communities in Myanmar, including those displaced along its borders with Bangladesh and India. The Rohingya crisis, which has been on ASEAN’s agenda since 2017, remains unresolved, and repatriation efforts appear even more uncertain amid the conflict.

Experts have emphasised the need to start working with and empowering locally led efforts and networks, rather than waiting for violence to end. At the same time, the new profile of Myanmar migrants in neighbouring countries requires considering how their collective skills and expertise can benefit a host country’s economy and society.

Capacity-building and leadership training may sound intuitive or even trite. Even so, initiatives to prepare Myanmar’s people to shape the future they envision must take into account the emergence of new governance and administrative actors amid conflict in areas that are contesting or liberated from SAC control.

Myanmar’s future policymakers must rethink how they will pursue governance, judiciary and legal systems in a functioning federal system, as well as the many sectors – especially health and education – that require a skilled, competent workforce.

ASEAN’S NEXT MOVE ON MYANMAR

ASEAN leaders have over the years repeatedly invited external partners to work with the bloc in helping to stop the violence in Myanmar. Various partners have paid lip service but have yet to coordinate their efforts with ASEAN’s.

Might Malaysia’s ASEAN chairmanship year galvanise more action and commitment and induce Myanmar’s neighbours, such as China and India, and important investors such as Japan, to coordinate their bilateral moves with an ASEAN-coordinated strategy?

Four years after the coup, ASEAN’s Myanmar response remains focused on halting the ongoing conflict before any other steps can be taken. While continued regional diplomacy and international coordination are essential, the changing realities of Myanmar’s conflict dynamics suggest that ASEAN’s response will not end even if and when the spiral of violence ends. 

ASEAN members must develop a strategy for the “morning after” in Myanmar, to provide space for various Myanmar actors to engage in dialogue, plan for the country’s future, and lay the groundwork for lasting change.

Myanmar’s complex political and ethnic landscape means that ASEAN’s Myanmar strategy also requires a sustained effort and commitment, where ASEAN’s different members coordinate their strengths, rather than compete among different interests.

Moe Thuzar is a Senior Fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, where she coordinates its Myanmar Studies Programme. She was previously a lead researcher in the ISEAS ASEAN Studies Centre and served nearly 10 years at the ASEAN Secretariat.