ASEAN states welcome Myanmar's Min Aung Hlaing as war continues; Japan floated as mediator

Left · 1Myanmar's president Min Aung Hlaing, who led the 2021 coup, received a red carpet welcome with an honour guard in Kuala Lumpur last week, although Malaysia had said the visit did not amount to recognition. 1 Left · 1Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said Myanmar was prepared to take back its nationals at its own cost; Malaysia hosts about 193,000 Myanmar nationals, most of them Rohingya, and Min Aung Hlaing said he would send Navy ships to repatriate them. 1 Left · 1Anwar pledged to help reintegrate Myanmar into ASEAN, which has barred Min Aung Hlaing from its high-level meetings for refusing to carry out its Five Point Consensus peace plan. 1

Left · 1Malaysia is the fifth ASEAN nation to host him since he became president in April after an election that major opposition parties were barred from contesting; he has also visited Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, and his spokesperson said Indonesia and Brunei could be next. 1 Left · 1Outside Southeast Asia he has visited India, China, Russia and Belarus, and Reuters reported that Washington has begun direct talks with his government, focused on shutting down scam centres, despite US sanctions on him. 1 Left · 1The civil war is in its fifth year and has killed as many as 100,000 people and displaced at least 3.5 million, according to monitoring groups; military offensives, air strikes and recruitment continue, including a 28 September strike on a market in Rakhine State that killed an estimated 50 people. 1

Left · 1Analysts quoted by Al Jazeera say the engagement is driven by pragmatism and lends the military legitimacy: Bridget Welsh called it "a step back for ASEAN", and Sai Kyi Zin Soe said continued air raids show soft diplomacy has had no deterrent effect. 1 Left · 1Khin Zaw Win attributed Min Aung Hlaing's push for recognition partly to China, India and Thailand, which border Myanmar and want the military-installed government recognised; former Dutch diplomat Laetitia van den Assum questioned asking the man accused of crimes against the Rohingya to oversee their return. 1 Left · 1Phil Robertson of Asia Human Rights and Labor Advocates urged the Philippines and Singapore, ASEAN's current and incoming chairs, to keep pressing the five-point plan, and urged Western governments to adopt targeted sanctions such as an aviation fuel ban. 1

Centre · 1In a separate opinion piece in the South China Morning Post, researchers Hirokazu Omatsu and Kyi Sin argue that ASEAN could find an effective partner in Japan, which has stayed quietly engaged in Myanmar since the coup through what philanthropist Yohei Sasakawa calls "silent diplomacy". 2 Centre · 1The authors note that Sasakawa mediated informal ceasefires with the Arakan Army in 2020 and 2022, that the second collapsed after about a year, and that this left the military sceptical of internationally brokered truces, while China's mediation led to the 2025 transfer of Lashio to the junta. 2 Centre · 1They say Japan is seen as more trusted and less coercive than other major powers, has about 300 companies in Myanmar, and could help inform the progress benchmarks ASEAN foreign ministers agreed on 12 July to develop, while supporting an ASEAN-led process without owning it. 2