Malaysia’s prime minister Anwar Ibrahim has pledged to help reintegrate Myanmar into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, after hosting Myanmar’s president Min Aung Hlaing in Kuala Lumpur last week with a red carpet welcome and an honour guard. Malaysia, which once championed ASEAN’s peace plan for Myanmar, said the visit did not amount to recognition and was aimed at the longstanding issue of refugees and migrants; Malaysia hosts about 193,000 Myanmar nationals, most of them Rohingya.
The bargain on the table is repatriation. Min Aung Hlaing said Myanmar was prepared to take its nationals back at its own cost and to dispatch navy ships for the purpose, an offer with strong appeal in a country where anti refugee sentiment is growing. Whether Rohingya would be accepted as nationals, and where they would go with much of Rakhine State held by the Arakan Army, is unresolved.
Malaysia is the fifth ASEAN nation to host Min Aung Hlaing since he became president in April, after an election in December and January from which major opposition parties were barred. Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos came first, his spokesperson has named Indonesia and Brunei as possible next stops, and since April he has also visited India, China, Russia and Belarus, pitching trade and infrastructure deals at each stop. Reuters reported last week that even the United States has begun direct talks with his government, focused on shutting down scam centres that have defrauded Americans.
Nothing in the welcome tour has slowed the war. The civil war is in its fifth year, has killed as many as 100,000 people and displaced at least 3.5 million by monitoring group estimates, and the military has intensified its air campaign and recruitment while holding only garrison control of much of the country. Analysts quoted in the reporting call the re engagement pragmatism ahead of human rights, and warn that legitimacy without deterrence gives the military every incentive to keep escalating. Much now depends on the Philippines and Singapore, ASEAN’s current and incoming chairs, and whether they hold the line on the bloc’s five point peace plan.