20 articles found : Show all articles
As pro-democracy protests in Myanmar turn lethal, Jusuf Wanandi of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta urges big powers outside the region to step aside and let the parties inside the country decide – if necessary with help from ASEAN.
ASEAN has watched the coup in Myanmar with great concern. Four of the region's leading analysts — Pou Sothirak, Philips J. Vermonte, Herizal Hazri, Herman J. Kraft, and Thitinan Pongsudhirak — argue a return to democracy is necessary to ensure Myanmar’s integration with the world, including with its neighbours in Southeast Asia.
As tensions rise between China and the Quad nations, ASEAN has the ability to leverage its centrality and encourage peaceful co-operation in the region, writes regional expert Le Trung Kien.
Faced with growing strategic rivalry in the Indo-Pacific, and unprecedented health and economic crises this year, ASEAN might have struggled to retain its ability to bring the region together. But strategic analyst Huong Le Thu argues Vietnam’s artful chairmanship has ensured ASEAN has, for now, retained its ability to effectively channel regional cooperation.
Two events happened in August that went largely unnoticed by most of the mainstream media in Southeast Asia. One was the third Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) Leaders' Meeting between China and the five Mekong members of ASEAN – Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. The other was the inaugural Mekong-US Partnership Ministerial Meeting between America and the same ASEAN countries. As Asialink Diplomacy Adviser Chen Chen Lee writes, the Mekong deserves timely and decisive attention from ASEAN, lest the region's stability and growth be challenged.