Despite diplomatic efforts to engage Myanmar, ASEAN leaders remain unable to successfully implement the Five-Point Consensus unveiled in April 2021, only a few months after the coup. Since then, the international community has continued to call on ASEAN to facilitate an end to the conflict, but the bloc is stalled on what steps to take next. The junta’s announcement of general elections in 2025, along with changing leadership among multiple ASEAN member states in the last year, raises questions about the role ASEAN might play going forward as priorities in its member states change. Joining us for a conversation about ASEAN and Myanmar’s complex relationship is Moe Thuzar, an expert on ASEAN and Myanmar’s external relations, who is Senior Fellow and Coordinator for the Myanmar Studies Programme at the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute.
Moe Thuzar, Senior Fellow and Coordinator, Myanmar Studies Programme, ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute
Moe Thuzar joined ISEAS in 2008 as lead researcher in the ASEAN Studies Centre up to August 2019. She previously was with the ASEAN Secretariat, where she headed the Human Development Unit from 2004 to 2007. A former diplomat, she researched Burma’s foreign policy implementation for her PhD at the National University of Singapore. She is an expert on Myanmar’s foreign policy and ASEAN integration issues, and she has written extensively on ASEAN and Myanmar.
Sydney Tucker, Research Associate, East Asia Program