Southeast Asian leaders are beset by thorny questions as they hold an Asean summit without Biden; Myanmar’s woes top the list

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) – Southeast Asian leaders led by host Indonesian President Joko Widodo meet for their final summit this year, beset by divisive issues with no solutions in sight: the deadly civil conflict in Myanmar, new flare-ups in the disputed South China Sea and the old US-China rivalry.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meetings will begin on Tuesday in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, under tight security. The absence of US President Joe Biden, who usually attends, adds to the already bleak backdrop of the 10-state bloc’s traditional show of unity and group handshakes.

ASEAN foreign ministers met on Monday ahead of the leaders’ summit. Mohammad Mahfud, Indonesia’s coordinating minister in charge of political, legal and security affairs, told the region’s top diplomats that “the strength of his community is being challenged by one crisis after another.”

The lack of progress in efforts to resolve the Myanmar crisis “left a negative mark on Asean,” he said, warning that accelerating geopolitical tensions and rivalries “could lead to open conflict that our region will be forced into.” deal”.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said a five-point plan drawn up by the leaders will be reviewed in 2021 to help Myanmar return to normality.

Following Tuesday’s discussions, the Asean heads of state will meet with their Asian and Western counterparts from Wednesday to Thursday, providing a larger venue that the United States and China, and their allies, have used for wide-ranging talks on free trade, climate change and global security. . It has also become a battleground for their rivalries.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang was scheduled to join the meetings, including the 18-member East Asia Summit. There he would meet with US Vice President Kamala Harris, who will fly in Biden’s place, and with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Although he will skip Asean, Biden will fly to Asia for the G20 summit in India and then visit Vietnam to improve ties. Washington says Biden was not relegating the bloc to a lower echelon of geopolitical priorities, citing the US president’s effort to deepen US engagement with the region.

“It’s hard to look at what we’ve done as an administration, from the beginning, and come to the conclusion that we’re somehow not interested in the Indo-Pacific or that we’re de-prioritizing the Southeast Asian nations and those relationships. John Kirby, a spokesman for homeland security, said at a news conference Friday in Washington.

In November, Biden attended ASEAN summit meetings in Cambodia and in May 2022 hosted eight of the bloc’s leaders at the White House to demonstrate his administration’s commitment to his region as it confronted Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. .

The Biden administration has also been strengthening an arc of security alliances in the Indo-Pacific, including Southeast Asia, which has alarmed China.

Marty Natalegawa, a respected former Indonesian foreign minister, expressed disappointment at Biden’s failure to appear, but said such red flags were more alarmingly emblematic of Asean’s dwindling relevance.

“The absence of the president of the United States, while disappointing and symbolically significant, to me is the least of concerns because what is really more concerning is the more fundamental structural tendency of ASEAN to become less and less prominent.” Natalegawa told The Associated Press. In an interview.

Founded in 1967 in the Cold War era, Asean has the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of each member state. It also decides by consensus, which means that even a member can reject any unfavorable decision or proposal.

Those fundamental rules have attracted a sharply diverse membership, ranging from fledgling democracies to conservative monarchies, but have also prevented the bloc from taking punitive action against state-sanctioned atrocities.

The bloc currently groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Natalegawa said ASEAN’s failure to effectively restrain Myanmar’s military government from committing human rights atrocities and its “deafening silence” when a Chinese coast guard ship recently used a water cannon to block a Philippine supply in the disputed South China Sea underscores why the group’s aspiration “Being at the center of Asian diplomacy has been questioned. Member states have turned to the United States or China for security,” he said.

“Absenteeism in ASEAN is creating unmet needs, and those needs are being met elsewhere,” he said.

Myanmar’s civil conflict, which has raged for more than two years after the army toppled the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, and disputes in the South China Sea were expected to again overshadow the summit’s agenda. Jakarta, as in previous years. Indonesia tried to focus attention on boosting regional economies with an upbeat theme this year: “ASEAN Matters: Epicenter of Growth,” but geopolitical and security issues have continued to nagging and provoking diplomatic fallout.

The European Union has warned that its relations with Asean may suffer if it has to deal with Myanmar in any leadership role. Following the warning from the EU, Myanmar’s military government, which has not been recognized by Asean (but is still a member), has warned that it may not be able to preside over the regional bloc as planned in 2026, three ASEAN diplomats said. Southeast Asia to the meeting. PA.

ASEAN leaders would have to decide in Jakarta whether to ask the Philippines to replace Myanmar as host for that year, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity due to a lack of authority to publicly discuss the issues.

According to the two diplomats, Myanmar would also not be able to take on a three-year role starting next year as coordinator of ASEAN-EU relations.

Myanmar’s generals and their appointees have been barred from attending meetings of ASEAN leaders and foreign ministers, including summits this week, after the military government failed to fully comply with a peace plan from five points calling for an immediate end to the violence and the start of dialogue between the contending parties, including Suu Kyi and other officials, who have been jailed since their ouster.

In a crucial reform that would allow ASEAN to respond faster and prevent such crises from escalating into deadly disasters, its member states have discussed proposed rules that would allow the group to make a decision even in the absence of consensus from all member states, one of them said. the three diplomats

Dinna Prapto Raharja, a Jakarta-based analyst and professor of international relations, said Asean’s credibility is at stake if the Myanmar crisis drags on. While the bloc does not have a dispute resolution mechanism for these kinds of internal conflicts, it should be flexible enough to leverage its influence and connections to help address such issues.

Marsudi acknowledged that bleak outlook and the pressure for the regional bloc to make a difference.

“The eyes of our peoples are on us to show that Asean still matters,” he told fellow foreign ministers.

___ PA

Associated Press writers Jim Gomez, Andi Jatmiko and Fadlan Syam in Jakarta, Indonesia, and Christopher Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.