Prayut, world leaders jet in for Myanmar's big moment

Fresh from the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) meeting in Beijing, Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha flew into the Myanmar capital of Nay Pyi Taw last night for the Asean summit and a series of associated high-profile meetings.

It will be Gen Prayut’s first Asean summit since coming to power in a military coup in May. The summits will see the Thai PM shaking hands and meeting with regional and world leaders that include US President Barack Obama, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

It will be a strenuous two-day schedule for the Thai leader with a series of 11 summits, plus a few bilateral meetings. Along with other Asean leaders, Gen Prayut will meet with dialogue partners from India, Japan, Australia, the United States and China. 

There will also be an Asean-UN summit, the so-called Asean-plus three summit and the East Asia Summit. Asean leaders will also join a meeting with the Asean Business Advisory Council while Gen Prayut will also attend the Mekong-Japan summit to discuss cooperation at the sub-regional level. 

“With such a tight schedule, while the leaders will have time to talk, the summits will be more of a formality and photo ops,” said a source familiar with the set-up of such regional meetings.  

Thai officials said that with Asean moving toward becoming a community by the end of 2015, leaders will use the Nay Pyi Taw summits to review the progress made and to push forward areas of cooperation, both within the regional grouping and with dialogue partners.  

“The summits will provide an opportunity for the regional leaders to exchange views on major regional and international issues and look at the future of Asean beyond 2015,” said an official travelling with the Thai delegation. Coming out of the Asean summit will be the so-called Nay Pyi Taw Declaration for the Asean Community’s post-2015 vision.

The series of summits will come up with agreements on a wide range of issues, including maritime cooperation, climate change and disaster response, plus combating wildlife trafficking. There will also be statements on a joint response to the outbreak and spread of the deadly Ebola virus and threats from violence and extremism in Iraq and Syria. 

Thailand will reportedly offer to host a regional conference on Ebola within the framework of Asean-plus three. 

According to the official, Gen Prayut will also seek bilateral meetings with a number of regional leaders, including Indonesian President Joko Widodo and Indian Prime Minister Modi.   

It will be Widodo’s first attendance at an Asean summit since his swearing in as president last month. An Indonesian diplomat said the summit would provide the new leader with his first opportunity to get to know his Asean counterparts.  He said while his priority would be economic and other domestic issues, he expects the new president to pursue an active foreign policy.

During his election campaign and in his inauguration speech, President Widodo emphasised the need to promote Indonesia’s status as a “maritime nation”, which the Indonesian diplomat noted should lead to a modernisation of the country’s maritime transportation, more efficient exploitation of its underwater natural resources and more effective defence of its territorial waters.  

Also joining the table with Asean leaders for the first time is Prime Minister Modi of India.  Indian media quoted Anil Wadhwa, secretary of the External Affairs Ministry, as saying that Modi will step up India’s engagement with Asean by seeking to improve regional connectivity to give a boost to trade and people-to-people contact.

The Asean-India summit will give impetus to the next Asean-India five-year plan of action starting 2016 which the Indian official said would lead to improved trade relations and reinforce their strategic engagement. The plan will also focus on security architecture in the region, he said.

He said there could be progress on a project to develop a 3,200-km highway linking India, Myanmar and Thailand that was originally envisaged to be completed by end-2017. It is now expected to be completed in 2018. In a recent tweet, Modi (who is known for his penchant for tweeting) said India’s ties with Asean are “deep-rooted” and that strengthening relations with nations in the group are an important part of its ‘Look East’ policy.

The gathering of regional and world leaders in Nay Pyi Taw this week  will once again put a spotlight on Myanmar, whose attempts at political reforms seem to have been rolled back in recent months.  

President Obama, who is making his second visit to Myanmar, will meet with President Thein Sein and is most likely to emphasise the US stand on the country’s democratic transition and its human rights situation.   

In his phone conversations late last month with the Myanmar president and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, Obama said the US wanted to see the general election scheduled for next year to be free, fair and inclusive. President Thein Sein subsequently arranged for a roundtable meeting with military leaders and representatives of ethnic groups and political parties. Suu Kyi later dismissed the importance of the meeting and charged that reforms in Myanmar have “stalled”. She also warned the US against being “over-optimistic” about the reform process in Myanmar.

The Myanmar government has been under heavy scrutiny not only about its slow reform process but also its human rights record. Non-government organisations have alleged that its military has been involved in continuing human rights violations, including against the Rohingya Muslim minority.

The Myanmar government has also cracked down on media freedom and its military is alleged to be responsible for the recent death of a journalist who was detained while photographing clashes between government soldiers and a rebel group in Mon state. His family believes he was tortured and killed while in military detention.