JAKARTA, Indonesia—Southeast Asian leaders decided that Myanmar won’t take over the rotating leadership of their regional bloc as scheduled in 2026, Asian diplomats and a leader said Tuesday, in the latest blow to efforts by its ruling generals to gain international recognition after violently seizing power in 2021.
Western governments led by the United States have condemned the Myanmar army’s ouster of Aung San Suu Kyi’s democratically elected government in 2021 and have demanded her immediate release from yearslong detention along with other officials.
The Philippines agreed to take over the regional bloc’s chairmanship in 2026 at an Asean summit hosted by Indonesia on Tuesday, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said in a statement, citing what he told fellow leaders in the closed-door meetings.
“It is my pleasure to announce that the Philippines is ready to take the helm and chair Asean in 2026,” Marcos told his Asean counterparts in Jakarta, the statement said.
‘New chapter’—Marcos
Marcos said he will push to bring the Asean to its “new chapter” once the country hosts the regional bloc’s summit in 2026.
“We will fortify the foundations of our Community-building and navigate Asean as it embarks on a new chapter,” the chief executive said in his intervention during the Plenary of the 43rd Asean Summit in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Marcos sought the support of other Asean members in the said initiative, which will involve strengthening Asean Centrality, promoting peace, security, stability, and prosperity in the region.
This amid the prolonged geopolitical and socioeconomic challenges the bloc faces.
Despite these issues, Marcos said he is confident the regional bloc will still “improve its macroeconomic fundamentals” through initiatives that enhance “connectivity and supply chains” like the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) as well as interoperability of digital systems.
“The Philippines will always continue to strive to maintain Asean as a competitive and integrated regional economy,” Marcos said.
“Key to our integration efforts is facilitating a rules-based multilateral trading system that is open, free, and fair,” he added.
He also said it will involve boosting the competitiveness of micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), start-ups, as well as upskilling the marginalized and the vulnerable.
The hosting of the Asean Summit, which is held twice every year, is handled by the country holding the Asean chairmanship.
The 44th Asean Summit will be hosted by Lao PDR next year.
Since the inauguration of Asean in 1967, the Philippines has already hosted the regional bloc’s summit in 1987, 2007, and in 2017.
Civil strife
Marcos did not explain why Myanmar lost the prestigious yearlong Asean chairmanship, but two Asean diplomats told The Associated Press that it was related to the civil strife in the country and fears that the bloc’s relations with the United States and the European Union, among others, might be undermined because of their non-recognition of the military-led government in Myanmar.
The diplomats spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the delicate issue publicly.
Continuing deadly civil strife in Myanmar and new flare-ups in long-simmering territorial disputes in the South China Sea were high in the agenda of the 10-nation bloc’s talks on Tuesday.
Thorny issues including the US-China rivalry in the region have set off divisions within Asean, and Indonesian President Joko Widodo renewed his call for unity.
“All of us are aware of the magnitude of the world’s challenges today, where the main key to facing them is the unity and centrality of Asean,” Widodo told fellow leaders.
He likened the regional group to a big ship carrying Southeast Asia’s people. “Asean leaders must ensure that this ship is able to keep going, able to keep sailing,” Widodo said. “We must be captains of our own ships to bring about peace, to bring about stability, to bring about shared prosperity.”
In a punitive step for their failure to comply with a five-point domestic peace plan crafted by Asean leaders in 2021, Myanmar’s top generals and their appointed officials were again barred from attending this year’s summit in Jakarta despite suggestions by some member states that they be allowed back because their ejection had failed to resolve the country’s crisis.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said Asean would stick with the plan.
Myanmar security forces have killed about 4,000 civilians and arrested 24,410 others since the army takeover, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a rights monitoring organization.
After their summit on Tuesday, the regional group’s leaders will meet with Asian and Western counterparts from Wednesday to Thursday, including US Vice President Kamala Harris, who is attending in lieu of President Joe Biden, Chinese Premier Li Qiang, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said before flying to Jakarta that he plans to offer assurances of the safety of the ongoing release into the sea of treated radioactive wastewater from the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant. The release began on Aug. 24 and China immediately imposed a ban on all Japanese seafood.
Asked about the possibility of a meeting with Chinese Premier Li in Jakarta, Kishida said there had been no decision made on that.
On the South China Sea territorial disputes, the Asean leaders “reaffirmed the need to enhance mutual trust and confidence, exercise self-restraint in the conduct of activities that would complicate or escalate disputes and affect peace and stability and avoid actions that may further complicate the situation,” according to a post-summit communiqué to be issued by Widodo in behalf of the other leaders.
Asean members Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei are involved in the territorial standoffs in the South China Sea, which China claims virtually in its entirely.
“We discussed the situation in the South China Sea, during which concerns were expressed by some Asean member states on the land reclamations, activities, serious incidents in the area, including actions that put the safety of all persons at risk, damage to the marine environment, which have eroded trust and confidence, increased tensions, and may undermine peace, security, and stability in the region,” the leaders planned to say, using similar language as in past communiqués. Reports by Samuel P. Medenilla and Associated Press writers Niniek Karmini and Jim Gomez
Image credits: Willy Kurniawan/Pool Photo via AP
