By Dr Abdul Rahman Zafrudin @ Ko Ko Gyi
ASEAN’s Myanmar peace efforts remain stalled, and only strategic leverage—like tariffs and rare earths—might ignite real movement, especially if Trump’s agenda aligns with a ceasefire push.
The recent ASEAN summit once again echoed the hollow refrain of the Five-Point Consensus, a diplomatic chant that has become a broken record. Despite repeated declarations, the junta in Myanmar remains unmoved, and the humanitarian crisis deepens. The international community—UN, US, EU—has largely retreated into rhetorical support, unwilling to invest resources where profit is uncertain. As one Myanmar teaching warns, “It is like trying to squeeze the cow’s horns, hoping to get milk.”
In physics, work is calculated as the product of force and Displacement (distance) in the direction of the force, expressed by the formula W=FXD
- W = Work done
- F = Force applied
- d = Displacement (the distance an object moves)
FOR ASEAN’s Myanmar Peace plan “W” Work done is NIL as there is NO POSITIVE RESULT (i.e.DISPLACEMENT according to the sciantific Physics formula). Because we cannot count the hundred of times repeats of “Five Point Consensus” and conferences as WORK DONE, as long as Junta refused to comply. These are just “F” without “D” displacement at all.
Let me explain the physicist’s theory: Work (W) = Force (F) × Displacement (D). ASEAN’s forceful statements and summits may seem energetic, but without displacement—without actual movement from the junta—there is no work done. The peace process is stalled in neutral gear.
ASEAN’s approach resembles a confused driver of an automatic car, fumbling for a keyhole that doesn’t exist. The junta’s leadership is the dashboard without ignition. ASEAN needs to stop searching for nonexistent mechanisms and instead apply pressure where it matters.
ASEAN should just apply on the brake pedal on CHINA and PUSH the “TRUMP” button, to ignite Myanmar CEASE FIRE and PEACE.
That pressure lies in tariffs and rare earths—two economic levers with global resonance. Rare earths, essential for electronics and defense, are a strategic asset. Tariffs, especially those negotiated with the US, can be wielded to incentivize or penalize behavior. During the summit, ASEAN leaders agreed that tariff deals with Washington should not harm member economies—but what if they could be used to help Myanmar’s peace?
Here’s where Trump’s agenda could be pivotal. Known for transactional diplomacy and economic leverage, Trump might be persuaded to link trade incentives to China with Myanmar ceasefire conditions. If ASEAN can push the “Trump button”—appealing to his strategic instincts and economic interests—there’s a chance to ignite real movement.
But fuel is needed. That fuel is coordinated economic pressure, not just from ASEAN but from global partners. Tariffs targeting junta-linked industries, restrictions on rare earth exports, and conditional trade benefits could form the petrol for peace.
In short, ASEAN must stop chanting and start driving. The car won’t start without ignition, and ignition won’t happen without pressure. Tariffs and rare earths are the tools. Trump might be the spark. But ASEAN must first decide: does it want to move, or just keep pressing the accelerator in park?
This ancient teaching from the Māgha Deva’s admonition is a brilliant satirical reflection on misguided effort—especially apt for ASEAN’s repetitive but fruitless approach to Myanmar’s crisis.
“Milking the Bull’s Horn”
“The man who wants milk ties a cow to a post and keeps squeezing her horn, believing milk will come from it.”
Commentary: This metaphor ridicules the absurdity of effort without understanding. ASEAN keeps “squeezing” the junta’s hardened stance, expecting peace to flow—without realizing they’re pressing the wrong part of the beast.
“Fire from a Firefly”
“The man who wants fire catches a glowing firefly at night, puts it in dry straw, and blows on it—hoping it will ignite.”
Commentary: ASEAN mistakes superficial glow for real heat. The junta’s occasional gestures—like ceasefire talks or prisoner releases—are mere flickers, not flames. Yet ASEAN keeps blowing, hoping for ignition.
“Rice from Chaff”
“The man who wants rice keeps pounding empty husks, thinking rice will emerge.”
Commentary: ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus is like pounding chaff. Without substance—without junta compliance—it’s just noise and dust. No rice, no results.
Final Teaching from Māgha Deva
“No matter how persistent or energetic the effort, if it lacks wisdom, it yields nothing.”
Commentary: ASEAN’s efforts are not lacking in repetition or manpower—but in insight, courage, and strategic leverage. Without wisdom, even the most vigorous diplomacy becomes vanity.
မာဃဒေဝ ဆုံးမစာထဲက လူ့ဗာလတွေဖြစ်နေတယ်။
“နွားမနို့ရည်၊ ချို၌တည်ဟု၊ ကြိုးရှည်များလျား၊ တိုင်ချည်ထား၍၊ ရိရှားပန်းလျ၊ ညှစ်လှည့်ထသို့ –
(နွားနို့လိုသောယောက်ကျားသည် နွားမ၏ဦးချို၌ နွားနို့ရှိမည်ဟုယူဆလျက် နွားမကိုတိုင်တွင် ကြိုးနှင့်ချည်ကာ နွားမဦးချိုကို မနားမနေညှစ်သကဲ့သို့)
ရောင်ဝါထွန်းမြူး ပိုးစုန်းကြူးကို မူးတူးမင်ထင်၊ ကယ်ကောင်းထင်၍၊ တောက်ရှင်နိုးနိုး၊ မှိုက်ကောက်ရိုးဖြင့်၊ မှုတ်ကြိုးသံပ၊ လက်မချသို့ –
(မီးလိုသောယောကျ်ားသည် ညအခါ အလင်းရောက်မှိတ်တုတ် မှိတ်တုတ်ဖြင့် ပျံသန်းနေသော ပိုးစုန်းကြူးကိုဖမ်းပြီး ကောက်ရိုးခြောက်ထဲထည့်ကာ မီးမှုတ်သကဲ့သို့)
ဗာလအစစ်၊ သူမိုက်ညစ်လျှင်၊ ဆန်ဖြစ်စေကြောင်း၊ ဖွဲကိုထောင်းသော်၊ ပန်းညောင်းကာမျှ၊ ဆန်မရသို့ –
(ဆန်လိုသောယောက်ျားသည် ဆန်ရမည်ထင်ပြီး စပါးခွံဖွဲကို အကြိမ်ကြိမ် ထောင်းနေသကဲ့သို့)
မာဃဒေဝ
အလုပ်လုပ်ရာတွင် မည်မျှပင် ဇွဲ လုံလ ဝိရိယကြီးမားပြီး အကြိမ်ကြိမ် ကြိုးပမ်းစေကာမူ ညဏ်ပညာမပါသောကြိုးစားမှုသည် အချည်းနှီးသာဖြစ်၏။
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ASEAN’s Failure on Myanmar Is Not Just Inaction—It’s Enabling a Tragedy
by This week, nearly two dozen world leaders are gathering in Kuala Lumpur for the 47th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit, taking place from Oct. 26 to 28. The annual East Asia Summit and multiple high-level meetings will also be held on the sidelines.
This year’s gathering carries particular weight. ASEAN will officially welcome East Timor as its 11th member—a symbolic moment for a young democracy that gained independence in 2002 and is home to around 1.4 million people. Leaders from all ASEAN countries are attending, with one absence: Myanmar’s junta chief, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing.
The summit is also drawing an exceptionally wide circle of global leaders. The presidents, prime ministers and senior representatives of major powers and other key players in the broader Asian region—including the US, China, India, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand—will be present. In addition, leaders from Brazil, Canada and South Africa are in Kuala Lumpur, joined by the heads of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the International Labor Organization and FIFA.
This gathering represents a rare moment when ASEAN stands at the center of global diplomatic attention. It could have been a moment to mobilize international political weight behind a meaningful effort to address the worsening crisis in Myanmar.
Instead, ASEAN and its current chair, Malaysia, have effectively excluded Myanmar from the conversation with world leaders, allowing this extraordinary diplomatic opportunity to slip away.
A pattern of self-congratulation
The recently released ASEAN Leaders’ Review and Decision on the Implementation of the Five-Point Consensus reveals a troubling reality. It is not a plan of action but a document of self-praise. While the war in Myanmar escalates and the crisis deepens, ASEAN is congratulating itself for “implementing” a policy that, in reality, has achieved nothing over five years.
The junta’s campaign of terror against its own population continues to intensify, while ASEAN’s efforts have failed to produce even the smallest sign of de-escalation or humanitarian relief.
Escalating terror campaign
The ASEAN statement expresses “deep concern” over the “lack of substantive progress.” But the situation goes far beyond a lack of progress—it is deteriorating rapidly.
The military junta has escalated its use of aerial attacks on defenseless civilians, relying on weapons and drones supplied by China, Russia and Belarus. Indiscriminate bombardment, scorched-earth tactics, mass repression and systematic atrocities have become part of its daily operations. For the junta, war itself has become its current election strategy—a brutal campaign aimed at regaining some of the lost territories and cities, followed by an electoral farce on limited territory in an attempt to claim legitimacy and maintain power through terror.
The statement is silent on the growing interference of China and Russia in Myanmar’s internal affairs and on their unscrupulous efforts to strengthen the junta’s military capacity. This silence is not accidental; it reflects ASEAN’s own passivity, ineffectiveness and lack of urgency. The vacuum left by ASEAN’s failure has been filled by others.
Scam centers: A spreading regional threat
Since the previous ASEAN summit, scam centers operating inside Myanmar have expanded to an industrial scale. Initially targeting Chinese citizens, these criminal networks—run by organized crime syndicates working hand in hand with pro-junta militias—have now shifted their focus to other Asian countries and even the US. The junta harbors and profits from this criminal economy.
Yet despite the fact that citizens of ASEAN member states are now being targeted, the issue received no mention at all in ASEAN’s statement or deliberations. This silence is another reflection of how far ASEAN has drifted from confronting the reality of the crisis.
Sham election
The paragraphs on the junta’s planned election are deliberately ambiguous. The international community has effectively delegated responsibility for responding to the Myanmar crisis to ASEAN, and many are looking to its leadership for guidance. Yet ASEAN’s approach remains vague and non-committal.
ASEAN “underscores” the importance of free, fair, transparent and inclusive elections, and “emphasizes that the cessation of violence and inclusive political dialogue must precede elections,” but it fails to clearly reject the junta’s electoral farce.
There is no doubt about what these elections will be: a total fabrication. All genuine parties have been banned, silenced or imprisoned. Manipulated electronic voting will deliver a predetermined result. The outcome will not bring peace but will instead intensify repression and violence.
Yet ASEAN leaders’ statement and discussions remain silent on how they intend to respond to this electoral scam. ASEAN could—and should—clearly reject this farce, urge all countries not to send observers, not to provide any assistance to the junta, and not to recognize any fake “civilian government” that merely dresses the junta in civilian clothing.
Instead of sending a clear message, ASEAN has merely “noted” that the junta plans to hold elections. By refusing to take a firm stance, it risks giving tacit legitimacy to this farce—while leaving the door open for China, Russia, India and even some ASEAN states to support and recognize the junta’s manufactured “civilian” government.
A historic missed opportunity
This summit brings together some of the most powerful political figures and institutions in the world. It represents a rare diplomatic moment—one with the potential to build a real international coalition to address the crisis in Myanmar.
Instead of using this platform to rally support and demonstrate leadership, ASEAN has chosen to keep Myanmar off the agenda. This decision is not neutral; it is a deliberate choice to step back at the very moment when stepping forward is most needed.
This only underscores that ASEAN has no real policy on the Myanmar crisis. It clings to its already failed Five-Point Consensus—a policy that collapsed on the very day it was agreed, when Min Aung Hlaing returned to Naypyitaw and openly declared his disagreement with the “consensus” he had just accepted.
Yet ASEAN leaders’ statement confirms the bloc’s commitment to preserving this five-year-old, moribund approach and, even more troublingly, to removing the Myanmar issue from ASEAN’s engagement with world leaders.
This reflects a familiar pattern in ASEAN’s political culture. Rather than confronting serious and deepening crises with bold decisions, the bloc delays, avoids and circles around the problem. Meetings are held, statements are issued and then more meetings follow—but no decisive action is taken.
In the case of post-coup Myanmar, ASEAN has essentially waited for the crisis to burn itself out, like containing a forest fire without ever trying to extinguish it. But the Myanmar crisis is not fading into the background. It is a raging fire, constantly fueled by a ruthless, uncompromising, criminal—and yes, genocidal—military junta. This is not a situation that will simply burn itself out. On the contrary, it threatens to consume the very fabric of Myanmar’s already exhausted society.
Moral and political failure
The tragedy is not only that ASEAN is failing to act. By clinging to the illusion of a functioning policy and prioritizing its image of “ASEAN centrality” over meaningful engagement, ASEAN has become an enabler of Myanmar’s tragedy.
Its passivity, lack of responsibility and refusal to confront uncomfortable truths are creating the conditions for Myanmar’s further disintegration and potential collapse.
For years, the world has deferred to ASEAN to lead on this crisis. This summit was a chance to do so. Instead, ASEAN has chosen empty phrases and copy-pasted, recycled statements from previous summits on Myanmar. This passivity and failure will not be remembered as neutrality or as respect for the principle of non-interference.
It will be remembered as complicity in a mass-scale crime and a tragedy that could—and should—have been prevented.
Igor Blazevic is a senior adviser at the Prague Civil Society Centre. Between 2011 and 2016 he worked in Myanmar as the head lecturer of the Educational Initiatives Program.
