US-SOUTHEAST ASIA RELATIONS ASEAN CONFRONTS DUAL CRISES CATHARIN DALPINO, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY The Feb. 1 coup in Myanmar dealt a serious blow to the ASEAN diplomatic order and presented the incoming Biden administration with its first major policy challenge in Southeast Asia. More profoundly, the coup set into motion a political and humanitarian crisis that has pushed Myanmar into an economic free fall. The imposition of Western sanctions gave China and Russia an opening to strengthen ties with the Tatmadaw. Myanmar was an extreme example of political turmoil, but the instability surrounding Thailand’s anti-regime and anti-monarchy movement persisted into the new year. In January, Vietnam embarked upon a more orderly political transition through the 13th National Party Congress, resulting in a leadership structure focused on ensuring stability, both external and internal. This article is extracted from Comparative Connections: A Triannual E-Journal of Bilateral Relations in the Indo-Pacific, Vol. 23, No. 1, May 2021. Preferred citation: Catharin Dalpino, “US-Southeast Asia Relations: ASEAN Confronts Dual Crises,” Comparative Connections, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp 57-66. US- SOUTHEAST ASIA RELATIONS | M AY 202 1 57 Political turmoil and transition in Southeast The junta reorganized into the State Asia has taken place against a backdrop of the Administrative Council (SAC), with Min Aung continued COVID-19 crisis. A second surge has Hlaing as the chair. The SAC’s immediate action hit the region, fueled by variants, delaying was to detain Aung San Suu Kyi and top NLD economic recovery and curtailing diplomatic leaders, including President Myint Win, alleging and security relations with regional partners. that the November elections had been COVID has limited joint exercises between the fraudulent and calling for new polls. In the US Indo-Pacific Command and their Southeast ensuing weeks, a variety of criminal charges Asian partners, and the flagship Cobra Gold were brought against the leaders, ranging from Exercises, co-chaired by Thailand and the violating COVID restrictions during the United States, have been deferred to the second campaign to the possession of illegal half of the year. Attention has focused instead communications equipment. These charges are on the US–Philippines alliance as Washington intended to sideline leaders elected in November and Manila opened talks on renewing the for months, and possibly years, presumably Visiting Forces Agreement. In early 2021, the until the junta can redirect Myanmar’s political United States entered the “vaccine race” to trajectory back to greater military influence. provide COVID vaccines to Southeast Asia and other areas of the Indo-Pacific with the However, if the SAC’s objective was to turn the announcement in March of a large distribution clock back to the 1990s, when the military ruled program through the Quad. However, COVID’s directly but allowed the theoretical possibility of dramatic surge in India may delay, although an eventual elected government, it had not probably not upend, that effort. reckoned on generational changes in Myanmar’s population. A broad-based and Myanmar’s Military Upends Democracy nation-wide civil disobedience movement (CDM) has emerged that protests the military The timing of Tatmadaw Commander Min Aung overthrow but also seeks to disrupt the normal Hlaing’s overthrow of the newly elected (in course and pace of business with strikes and November 2020) government in Myanmar on slowdowns. The health care sector and banking Feb. 1 was very precise. The parliament was on sectors were the movement’s first targets, the the verge of opening in Naypyidaw, the capital latter because it is largely under the Tatmadaw’s compound that was accessible through a broad control through military holding companies. highway but easily sealed off, after which the new cabinet was to be announced. Min Aung The resistance movement has persisted, and the Hlaing’s discontent with the results of general crackdown continues to be swift and brutal. The elections on Nov. 8, 2020, which gave the junta moved quickly to use live fire ammunition National League for Democracy (NLD) a strong against demonstrators and announced publicly majority in parliament and weakened the that it would shoot resisters in the head. military’s role in the legislature. The two sides According to the Assistance Association for had been in closed-door talks in the run-up to Political Prisoners (AAPP), which tallies the opening, reportedly on the composition of casualties from its base in Thailand, by the end the new government, and they were presumed of April over 750 civilians had been killed, to have blunted the edge of the military’s including children caught in the crossfire; over resentment. However, the events of Feb. 1 point 4,500 arrested; and more than 3400 still in to a broader and deeper set of grievances than detention. The SAC has restricted internet an election loss. The NLD’s determination to service, usually allowing it during business strengthen ties with the ethnic political parties hours but cutting it off at other times, and has by bringing them into the government would put into place a series of martial laws making it have affected the Tatmadaw’s hold on some a crime to oppose the regime. conflict areas. Moreover, the party’s signal that the government—rather than the military— The elected government in internal exile and would issue licenses to foreign banks and other protest leaders have formed the National Unity changes in economic policy threatened the Government (NUG), intended to raise their military leadership’s control of certain profile in the international community and, they economic sectors and, thus, a major source of hope, to function as a shadow government. In income. the meantime, Myanmar’s economic state is rapidly deteriorating; in mid-April the World Bank calculated that the economy had 58 M AY 202 1 | US- SOUTHEAST ASIA RELATIONS contracted by 10%. Food prices have doubled ASEAN rarely attempts to mediate between and fuel prices have risen by 15%. The parties in a member state, but the severity of the disruption to the daily conduct of business and situation in Myanmar led Indonesian Foreign to vital supply chains, already damaged by the Minister Retno Marsudi to engage Min Aung COVID-19 pandemic could, according to the Hlaing in Bangkok on Feb. 24, with Thai Foreign United Nations Development Program, push Minister Don Pramudwinai; there were no half the population into poverty by the end of tangible results, but the meeting drew ire from the year. protestors within Myanmar, who feared that ASEAN was on a path to de facto recognition of the SAC as the legal government of Myanmar. Complaints intensified when the ASEAN foreign ministers held a virtual meeting on March 2 with Min Aung Hlaing in an attempt to persuade him to stop the use of lethal force against civilians and to release political detainees. Brunei insisted that they were engaging the junta as a military rather than a government, an explanation that drew scorn and disbelief in the resistance movement. ASEAN’s initial aim is to reduce the violence of the coup’s aftermath and, Figure 1 Protesters, wearing red makeup to simulate tears with the SAC’s refusal to release Aung San Suu of blood, making the three-finger salute during a Kyi and other NLD leaders or to grant demonstration against the military coup in Hlaing international access to them, ASEAN is not in a Township, Yangon, Myanmar, April 1, 2021. Photo: AFP via position to broker talks between the parties and Getty Images views engaging Min Aung Hlaing as its only option. ASEAN’s Dilemma This dilemma deepened in late April, when Although the coup caught ASEAN by surprise, as ASEAN convened an in-person “special the 2021 chair Brunei was quick to issue a meeting” on Myanmar in Jakarta, which hosts statement calling for restraint and the ASEAN Secretariat. Although it was reconciliation between the parties. From the originally intended to be a summit, the fact that outset, however, cracks were evident, making a three countries—Thailand, the Philippines, and common position for the group difficult, if not Laos—sent their foreign ministers instead of impossible, to formulate. Indonesia and heads of government prevented that. The Malaysia were quick to condemn the violence; chairman’s statement from the meeting Singapore joined Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur, but outlined five “points of consensus”: (1) There cautioned the international community against should be an immediate cessation of violence on the implementation of broad-based sanctions the part of all sides of the conflict; (2) The like those imposed by the United States in the conflict in general should be resolved through 1990s and 2000s. Manila and Bangkok were dialogue among the parties; (3) ASEAN will reticent, not wanting to draw attention to their appoint a special envoy to act as an interlocutor own human rights situations. The Feb. 1 coup between the parties to help resolve the conflict; was particularly awkward for Thai Prime (4) ASEAN will dispatch a delegation to Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who began his Myanmar to confer with the parties led by the own rule as a coup leader in 2014, although he special envoy; and, Myanmar will accept transitioned to the role of an elected prime humanitarian aid and utilize ASEAN HA/DR minister in 2019, albeit under a new constitution mechanisms to receive international assistance. that the military had crafted. Moreover, the strength and determination of Myanmar’s What is missing from this list is as important as resistance movement has re-energized Thai what ASEAN managed to include. Most obvious protests against his administration. Min Aung was a call for the release of political prisoners, Hlaing’s early appeal to Prayuth for support has although the chairman’s statement duly noted only worsened this dilemma for Prayuth.