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| Secured enough: The thigh-high strand of barbed wire at the Rim Moei Market in Mae Sot, Tak province, serves as the physical border between Thailand and Myanmar. This unusual barrier creates a unique "no-man's land" trading strip along the edge of the Moei River. (Credit: Don Pathan) |
Don Pathan
Stratsea.com
Whither Consensus?
Myanmar’s coup leader-turned-president, Min Aung Hlaing, has been touring Asia to build international recognition and legitimacy for his new government.
Despite a widely disputed election last year that brought him to power – one ASEAN refused to formally recognise – the warm reception he received in China and India gave him the confidence to resist ASEAN’s calls to honour the regional grouping’s Five-Point Consensus (5PC).
For ASEAN, access to Aung San Suu Kyi and the release of political prisoners remain the benchmarks of measurable progress. Granting the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to her just days before Min Aung Hlaing visited Thailand was a cleverly calculated political move to show transparency. ASEAN leaders welcomed the gesture, even though it fell well short of the grouping’s demands.
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| Myanmar Pres. Min Aung Hliang and PM Anutin Charnvirakul (Thai Gov.) |
Myanmar shot back, calling the push for Suu Kyi’s release “interference in Myanmar’s judicial process”. It went further, declaring the ASEAN special envoy role redundant and no longer required, arguing that the general election had successfully transitioned the post-coup junta to a civilian-led presidency and that, in its view, the 5PC had therefore expired.
By unilaterally shutting the door on the ASEAN envoy, the junta is signalling to the international community that outside oversight is no longer needed and that any domestic political transition will happen on its own terms—not those of outsiders.
Today, the 5PC’s future is defined by a bitter diplomatic deadlock and internal fracturing within ASEAN; a pivot toward alternative regional strategies looks inevitable, though no one is certain how it will play out.
Why Thailand Matters
Thailand, because of its long and porous border with Myanmar, sees itself as carrying greater responsibility than other ASEAN Member States and has agreed to act as a bridge between Myanmar and the bloc.
But for that role to work, Myanmar needs to show Thailand it is willing to make concessions. These include: 1) respecting Thailand’s territorial integrity by keeping Myanmar jet fighters and combat drones out of Thai airspace; 2) clamping down on drug trafficking by pro-Myanmar ethnic armed organisations (EAOs); 3) reining in the scam centres operating a stone’s throw from the shared border; 4) halting the flow of toxic chemicals from gold and rare-earth mines in Shan State into Thailand, and; 5) ending airstrikes on civilian targets.
Thailand secured no meaningful commitment on any of these issues during Min Aung Hlaing’s visit to Bangkok. Instead of addressing ASEAN’s demands, Myanmar turned the tables and called on Thailand to block the flow of weapons to the EAOs operating along the shared border. In some way, it was a direct challenge to Thailand’s dual-track policy.
Myanmar has quietly raised this issue before, asking Thailand to clamp down on weapons and drones smuggled to EAOs for battlefield use. This time, with Min Aung Hlaing leading the delegation, Myanmar made clear it was no longer willing to speak quietly about a subject Thailand would rather avoid.
Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul was caught off guard. Unable to articulate or defend the country’s long-standing engagement with the EAOs inside Myanmar, he quickly agreed to Min Aung Hlaing’s request and, lost for words, instructed Thai agencies to tighten border inspections to ensure no weapons reach EAO hands.
That request cuts against decades of quiet policy. Historical mistrust between Myanmar and Thailand gave rise to an unspoken buffer logic: whichever EAO is fighting Myanmar is a friend of Thailand, and whichever EAO is friendly with Myanmar is a threat to Thailand.
Thailand will now have to think hard about how to explain its relationship with the EAOs—long-standing ties between communities and people on both sides of the border that cannot be erased by one prime minister’s order, one issued while he was caught off guard.
For the bridging role to be worth the effort, Thailand needs to be clear-eyed about its own interests even where that clarity does not sit well with Naypyidaw.
Mighty China
By comparison, cross-border ties between China and the EAOs along the Sino-Myanmar border run deeper and carry more historical weight than those in the frontier shared by Thailand and Myanmar.
The bigger difference, though, is that China is willing to wield that influence to get what it wants from the Wa, Ta’ang, Kachin, Kokang and Shan groups alike—pressuring EAOs along its border to hand back hard-won territory being a case in point. In contrast, Thailand has no comparable leverage over the Shan, Karen, Karenni or Mon groups, and as Bangkok moves closer to Naypyidaw, EAOs along the Thai border increasingly feel neglected.
Thailand also wants Myanmar to press the United Wa State Army (UWSA) harder on cleaning up contamination from gold and rare-earth mining near the Thai border. Bangkok understands Myanmar’s limitations here: Myanmar soldiers cannot even enter Wa territory without being disarmed and escorted. Yet for public consumption, government statements keep framing the issue as a bilateral matter between Thailand and Myanmar, alongside other bilateral cooperation raised at the visit, such as the transfer of agricultural knowledge, something Myanmar badly needs.
Public attention has focused mostly on gold extraction some 25 kilometres from the Thai border in UWSA territory, but the Shan Human Rights Foundation reported that satellite imagery also showed rare-earth mining sites in Mong Yawn, located in southern Mong Hsat opposite Chiang Mai’s Mae Ai district.
The contamination has triggered protests in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai demanding that both the Thai and Chinese governments act against Myanmar and the Wa.
Thai NGOs, on their part, have taken their case directly to the Chinese Embassy and Consulate in Thailand since the mining companies involved are Chinese. The logic is simple: if China is willing to pressure EAOs to play nice with Myanmar, Beijing can extend Thailand the same courtesy by pushing the UWSA and Chinese firms to clean up the toxic runoff before it reaches the Kok and Sai rivers on the Thai side.
No one expects the government to pursue full-throttle microphone diplomacy to bring in the Chinese, but there is no denying the environmental NGOs are barking up the right tree.
Thailand needs to think outside the box in dealing with the UWSA. Wariness toward its drug-trafficking pedigree is warranted, but Thailand should also recognise that the UWSA will not budge on border demarcation or water contamination without getting something in return. Like any non-state actor, recognition and legitimacy matter to it.
Bangkok’s Next Move
Myanmar has been in political turmoil since well before the coup Min Aung Hlaing led five years ago, which turned an already war-torn country upside down as street protests and fighting spread into newly contested areas populated by ethnic Burmans. Nearly all EAOs, together with the newly formed People’s Defence Force, made real gains on the ground during this period, rolling up town after town.
But the resistance was never able to translate its battlefield victories into meaningful political gains. Chinese intervention – framed as mediation at first but driven by concerns over border stability and cross-border trade – turned the tables, pressuring EAOs to hand back some of the territory they had won using the trade lifelines many of them depend on as leverage.
China’s role in this has been clear, however controversial.
Thailand, by contrast, has yet to spell out in real terms – and more to the point, the consequences and measures – what it is willing to do if Myanmar refuses to meet ASEAN, or Bangkok, halfway. Critics have argued that Bangkok’s red-carpet welcome for Min Aung Hlaing was unnecessary, given that his government was never prepared to make any concessions on anything to anybody.
It is against that backdrop that Thailand’s dual-track approach to Myanmar will be tested in the months ahead.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of STRAT.O.SPHERE CONSULTING PTE LTD. This article is published under Creative Commons Licence.
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