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As the 47th Asean summit came to a close this week, questions remained over the bloc’s handling of the Myanmar crisis and whether it had done enough to bring peace to the war-torn country. The three-day summit saw the 11-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations discuss various issues, including the ongoing clashes between Myanmar’s junta and opposition forces. Several members also signed trade deals with the United States. “Myanmar was lower on the agenda at the summit compared with other pressing regional economic and strategic issues, such as trade, security cooperation and managing US-China competition,” Vu Lam, a policy analyst and Asean observer, told This Week in Asia. “Consequently, the political will and capital to address the Myanmar issue were understandably inadequate.” In a statement issued by the bloc, the region’s foreign ministers upheld the previously agreed five-point consensus as its “main reference for addressing the political crisis in Myanmar” and urged “its full implementation to help the people of Myanmar achieve an inclusive and durable peaceful resolution”. It called for “all parties and stakeholders ... to de-escalate violence and stop targeted attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure and enhance trust-building efforts”, alongside the full implementation of an expanded ceasefire as reaffirmed by an earlier statement put out by the bloc in May. Myanmar’s junta has largely ignored the five-point consensus, prompting Asean to ban the country’s military leadership from most of its meetings. Instead, Naypyidaw has been sending non-political representatives to Asean’s meetings, including at this year’s summit. The impasse between Asean and Myanmar is a reflection of consensus being the bloc’s sole instrument with which to address the crisis, according to Moe Thuzar, Myanmar studies programme coordinator at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. Top diplomats from Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines were set to fly to Myanmar in August to discuss plans by the junta to hold its first general election later this year, but the trip was reportedly postponed. While Myanmar had invited Asean to send observers to the polls, the bloc did not reach a consensus at its recently concluded summit and reportedly left its members to make decisions on the mission individually. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr confirmed that the bloc had “carefully discussed” deploying a monitoring team, but said “Asean is leaving it to each country to decide on their own”. “Asean will not take a common position, because in our discussions, everyone has a different idea,” he said on Tuesday. According to Thuzar, the move likely reflects Asean’s apprehension about the election, with the result “unlikely to be automatically accepted as a fait accompli” by the bloc. Myanmar has been plagued by civil unrest and conflict over the past four years, leaving more than 7,000 killed, 30,000 imprisoned and hundreds of thousands more displaced. The country’s elected leader, 80-year-old Aung San Suu Kyi, has been in military custody since her government was overthrown by the junta in a 2021 coup. Her son has said her health is deteriorating and there are fears she might die soon. The the junta-led government controls less than half of the country, with critics accusing the military of increasing human rights violations. At the Asean summit, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged the junta government to focus on providing aid to its people instead of its election. “I don’t think anybody believes that those elections will be free and fair,” he said. “I don’t think anybody believes those elections will contribute to the solution of the problems of Myanmar.” ‘Meek diplomatic response’ Bridget Welsh, an honorary research associate at the University of Nottingham Malaysia who specialises in Southeast Asian politics, warned that Myanmar was “on the verge of a sham election” and said Asean “should have fundamentally condemned the polls”. “Asean failed the Myanmar people again, choosing a diplomatic path rather than a principled one that put pressure on the junta ... Asean is going through the motions and being played by the junta who use Asean for legitimacy,” she told This Week in Asia. Welsh said the five-point consensus was “no longer relevant”, adding that it was an “excuse to engage, but the substance of engagement has yet to meaningfully address the crisis”. With the Philippines taking over as Asean chair in 2026, all eyes will be on Manila and its handling of the Myanmar crisis. Thuzar said that the Philippines would likely seek to maintain the diplomatic momentum from 2025, including a proposal initiated by Asean this year for a more inclusive and comprehensive engagement with Myanmar stakeholders, including the appointment of a special envoy. But the Philippines may face similar constraints as Asean’s current chair Malaysia, according to Lam. “There are stronger measures available. However, without broader shifts in Asean cohesion and consensus-building, meaningful progress is beyond any single chair’s effort,” he said. Apart from installing a special envoy, Welsh urged Asean to ensure more inclusive representation of Myanmar’s opposition forces and take a harder line against the junta. “Let’s see if the Philippines has any democratic principles, as Malaysia chose to meet the junta and not defend the Myanmar people adequately,” she said. “They also allowed the scam economy to deepen, putting the region and the world more at risk. Again, a meek diplomatic response has caused harm.”
