Cambodia's Hun Sen accused of undermining Asean with 'cowboy diplomacy' on Myanmar trip

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's trip to Myanmar begins Friday amid criticism that his visit will undo efforts by Asean to defuse the deepening political and security crisis that has been worsened by the pandemic.

Indonesia's President Joko Widodo, who usually posts on Twitter in Indonesian, tweeted in English on Wednesday that he had spoken to Hun Sen about Myanmar.

While he extended his support for Cambodia's rotating chairmanship of the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) bloc, the leader of Southeast Asia's largest economy reiterated that Myanmar coup leader Min Aung Hlaing should comply with the "five-point consensus" peace plan that he had agreed to last April.

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Asean had in an unprecedented move decided not to invite Min Aung Hlaing to a November leaders' summit - extending an invite to a Myanmar foreign ministry official instead - as an indirect rebuke for his failure to stick to the consensus, which is also supported by the United States and China.

Under the plan, the junta is required to allow for a regional envoy to hold talks with all sides, including the currently detained ruling party chief Aung San Suu Kyi.

Said Widodo, who is popularly known as Jokowi: "Should there be no significant progress on the implementation of [the five-point consensus], Myanmar should only be represented at the non-political level at Asean meetings".

The Asean Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR), a regional network of current and former lawmakers, voiced its opposition to Hun Sen's trip a day earlier with a photo on its Twitter account captioned "No Cowboy Diplomacy", tagging it #HunSenStayHome.

APHR chairman Charles Santiago said Hun Sen was acting in direct opposition to Asean by "unilaterally" visiting Myanmar, even after the junta had escalated violence in the country of 54 million.

Santiago pointed out that in the last month alone, tens of thousands of people had been displaced by military air strikes near the border with Thailand. Over 30 people, including two aid workers in Kayah state, were killed on Christmas Eve.

"[Hun Sen's visit] is exactly the kind of political recognition that Asean agreed to withhold until the junta begins to cooperate," Santiago said.

"No one is fooled by the junta's so-called plans to return to democracy. This horrific situation is not good for the region or the world," added Santiago, a Malaysian member of parliament for Klang.

On Thursday, Amnesty International called on Hun Sen to cancel the trip and to prioritise human rights action over "empty gestures". Its deputy regional director for research Emerlynne Gil said "Hun Sen's rogue diplomacy" might end up "sending mixed messages" to Myanmar's coup leader.

Cambodia's foreign ministry said on Tuesday that Hun Sen would discuss and exchange views with Min Aung Hlaing on bilateral and multilateral cooperation and recent developments in Asean. The Cambodian prime minister had earlier said that he might delay his return if the trip yielded results.

Hunter Marston, an Asean watcher and WSD-Handa fellow with the Pacific Forum think tank, said Hun Sen could have mitigated criticism of his trip by securing meetings with the National Unity Government comprising elected lawmakers ousted during the coup.

"Min Aung Hlaing will listen to him to the extent he finds a useful partner for his political agenda," Marston said, adding that while Hun Sen may urge restraint on the part of the Myanmar military, it was "unlikely to be his priority or in their shared interest."

Bunna Vann, a research fellow at the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace, said that given Cambodia's limited leverage on Myanmar, Hun Sen's visit would not greatly change the junta's course of action.

Phnom Penh felt an obligation to address the Myanmar issue and seek possible solutions, he said, adding that a major success for Cambodia as Asean chair would be to bring different parties in Myanmar together.

The junta, however, has described the NUG as a "terrorist group" and besides Suu Kyi, has detained senior members of the National League for Democracy and slapped charges on them that rights groups say are trumped up.

But Sovinda Po, also a research fellow at the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace, cautioned against "exaggerations" that Hun Sen's trip would help confer legitimacy on Min Aung Hlaing.

"It is just a one-time show and we should not blame Hun Sen for his attempt to solve the problem," Po said, adding Cambodia was unlikely to jeopardise Asean's existing agreements on Myanmar.

"As much as Hun Sen wants to help Myanmar, the military junta does not seem to take genuine external perspectives seriously. This closed-minded ruling of the junta only harms Myanmar," added Po, who is also a doctoral student in international affairs at Australia's Griffith University.

With China being Cambodia's largest investor, ally and patron, questions have also arisen as to how Beijing views Hun Sen's visit.

China, which shares a 2,200km (1,370 mile) border with Myanmar, has not publicly condemned the coup unlike the US and other Western powers, which have also sought to pressure the junta by instituting sanctions on military-linked businesses and military officers.

Instead, Beijing has urged all parties to seek a political settlement through dialogue and voiced support for Asean's role in resolving the crisis. Myanmar's junta has taken this as an opportunity to call for the resumption of joint projects with China such as railways and ports. Last month, it said it would accept renminbi as an official settlement currency for trade with China from this year.

Political scientist Sophal Ear, associate dean in the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University, said that China clearly would like to see Naypyidaw normalise relations with Asean.

But he echoed the cynicism towards Hun Sen's trip by pointing out that the leader was not an "honest broker" given his crackdown on political opponents and Cambodia's dependence on Beijing.

"Cambodia is already 'married' to China ... and maybe [Hun Sen] wants to curry favour for when Cambodia faces a similar situation and Myanmar's generals can back up Hun Sen and his regime."

However, Po said that even though Hun Sen's trip appeared to be in line with China's position, it should not be understood as Chinese influence on Cambodia.

Po said the Cambodian leader saw Myanmar as a troubled Asean family member in need of assistance.

"In this context, the family always sticks together regardless of how bad a member is. This is Cambodian thinking and may reveal a bit about how Hun Sen intends to solve the Myanmar issue," Po said.

Vann said Cambodia planned to include Myanmar in this year's Asean summit to ensure the 10 member format was intact, to reach consensus on the code of conduct for disputes in the South China Sea. But this could also spark a boycott of Asean-led meetings by the US and its allies, he added.

Pacific Forum's Marston said stronger China-Myanmar ties had already emerged as a result of Naypyidaw's international isolation, economic crisis, and the dire need for infrastructure investment especially since the coup.

"All of [these] have forced pragmatism on the junta's part to accept a degree of reliance on China [that] it had resisted since 2010," Marston said, adding that even though foreign policy was not a priority for the junta, it had to ensure control by averting a total economic collapse.

"If the junta continues to drive the economy into reverse, expect more defections and perhaps a rupture within the junta leadership," Marston added.

APHR's Santiago believed Beijing was well aware that Myanmar's current instability was "solely and wholly caused by the military junta".

"[The junta] are not the wisest long term bet, given the mood of the people. They do not want the military in government, and show this every day with their determined actions, even sacrificing their lives," Santiago said.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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