Academia
Five years of catastrophic failure make it undeniably clear: ASEAN must finally abandon its toothless "Five-Point Consensus" and expel Myanmar’s junta to save its own collapsing institutional credibility.
This undated handout photo from the Myanmar Military Information Team released on April 30 shows Aung San Suu Kyi (center) talking in an undisclosed location. Myanmar's deposed leader is under house arrest in the capital Naypyidaw, according to her captors, but experts say the city is purpose built to guard secrets of the country's closed-ranks rulers. (AFP/Myanmar Military Information Team/handout)
Five years after generals in Naypyidaw tore up an election result and jailed the government the Myanmar people had chosen, ASEAN foreign ministers sat down again this month with the junta's representative in Bangkok and did what they have done at every juncture since 2021: reaffirmed the Five-Point Consensus.No benchmarks. No timeline. No consequence for the fact that almost none of it has been implemented. It is time to say plainly what many diplomats already believe in private: The Consensus was dead on arrival, and ASEAN's Myanmar policy has become a liability the bloc can no longer afford.
