“Burmese junta leader Min Aung Hlaing has been banned from ASEAN summits since the February 2021 coup. Will this last? Above all, does it still really matter?” wonders The Straits Times. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Brunei and Indonesia) continues to insist that Burma send only “non-political representatives” in its meetings, the junta having not respected the five-point process established by ASEAN in April 2021 to resolve the crisis opened by the coup d’état of 1is February 2021.
A so-called refusal of diplomatic relations more and more symbolic. Thus, notes the Singaporean daily, the Thai authorities have recognized the Burmese ambassador to Thailand. Similarly, Burmese Defense Minister Mya Tun Oo was allowed to take part in the meeting of ASEAN defense ministers on June 22. Cambodia, at the head of the rotating presidency of the group, has defended this participation as a means of presenting a united front of Asean.
Chinese recognition
Asked by The Straits TimesJason Tower, director for Burma of the United States Institute for Peace, judges that the Cambodian position agrees with that of Beijing, which “deal with the junta as with any government