diplomacy


China  / Myanmar  / Southeast Asia  / United Nations
Heyzer’s Exit Marks a Low Point for the UN’s Envoys to Myanmar
Posted On June 27, 2023
Noeleen Heyzer, the special envoy of the United Nations secretary-general to Myanmar, has departed her position after what appeared like no time at all. It appeared that way because, since her appointment in October 2021, little of substance has been accomplished. Heyzer came into the job with high-ranking credentials, having served as the executive director of UNIFEM, the predecessor to U.N. Women, and for seven years as the executive secretary of the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP).
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Cambodia  / Myanmar  / Southeast Asia
Hun Sen Has Botched Cambodia’s ASEAN Chairmanship
October 31, 2022

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s time as the ASEAN chair is running out. In a way, 2022 has been much like the previous year–particularly in the maddening context of Myanmar, where Brunei, the previous chair stumbled to the finish line after largely failed diplomacy after the February 2021 coup. In other ways, Brunei’s shepherding of the ill-fated Five-Point Consensus (FPC) and the creation of the ASEAN Special Envoy wasn’t Cambodia’s fault; Hun Sen inherited the mess. And the Security Council, already negligent on its normative duties, punted to ASEAN as early as March of 2021. Even if Hun Sen relished the international spotlight, Cambodia wasn’t exactly ready to shine. While most ASEAN states were leaning toward condemnation of the coup and essentially blocked Myanmar’s presence at the ASEAN Summit in October 2021, Hun Sen tried to bring the military junta’s leadership back into the ASEAN circle...


Cambodia  / Japan  / Myanmar  / Southeast Asia  / Thailand
Abe’s diplomacy in Southeast Asia leaves a lasting legacy
July 22, 2022

In eulogies and memorial commentaries that followed the death of former Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated by a homemade shotgun in the city of Nara in July, scholars and statesmen have stressed the importance of his Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) vision. Some have even credited him with inventing the Indo-Pacific region as a whole. Yet few have properly addressed Abe’s legacy in Southeast Asia. Abe, like many prime ministers before him, had always shown a keen interest in the region. Japan understood the significance of Southeast Asia to Japan’s post-war economic growth, as well as the political ties that would be essential to the maintenance of Japanese security.


Myanmar  / Southeast Asia  / United States
Interpreting Myanmar’s conspicuous absence from the U.S. – ASEAN Summit
May 17, 2022

The decision by ASEAN leaders and the Biden Administration to put out an empty chair to represent the ousted civilian-led government during last week’s U.S.-ASEAN Summit was conspicuous. While the Americans suggested that the topic of the Myanmar crisis⁠—which as gone unabated for more than 15 months⁠—would be a“subject of intense deliberation” throughout the course of the conference, it also stood as a symbol of American and ASEAN inability to drive home a political and diplomatic solution. Given the complexity of issues facing ASEAN leaders, given American preoccupation with a rising and aggressive China and the intricacies of regional trade, Myanmar was still an urgent topic, with the U.S. and a few ASEAN leaders instead choosing to meet with National Unity Government (NUG) Foreign Minister Zin Mar Aung. However, the decision to set out an empty chair reeks of ASEAN’s inability to form consensus.


Myanmar  / Southeast Asia
How to Dislodge Myanmar’s Generals
February 14, 2022

Just days after the first anniversary of the February 1 coup d’état that forced Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy (NLD) from power, a sharp debate has emerged among commentators and academics—whether or not Myanmar’s generals, who once held a formidable grip on power in Myanmar by constitutional design and through brute force, are now losing.


Africa  / Cambodia  / Southeast Asia  / United Nations
At 75, is the United Nations still relevant or necessary?
September 20, 2020

On September 21, the United Nations will celebrate its 75th birthday. Founded in 1945 after 50 countries met in San Francisco to draw up the UN Charter, it was conceived as an international institution that would “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”. Since then, it has evolved into an organisation of great size and complexity that confronts a wide array of challenges. However, legitimate criticism and lingering questions remain about its future. Is it still relevant? Is it still fit for purpose? Is it still necessary?


Cambodia
POW Diplomacy Won’t Ease Tensions Between Cambodia and Washington
October 14, 2018

Cambodia’s Foreign Ministry has announced that it had offered to resume cooperation in an effort to search for remains of Americans killed during the bloody Vietnam War, resuming a program that ended more than a year ago as diplomacy cooled between the two countries.


Cambodia  / Japan
Japanese Diplomacy in Cambodia Looks Well Beyond the 2018 Election
July 2, 2018

The international community has all but abandoned support for Cambodia’s national elections, scheduled for July 29. A string of events have outraged Western governments and unnerved already strained relations. Last September, the Hun Sen-led government arrested opposition leader and Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) president Kem Sokha, a tainted Supreme Court dissolved the CNRP a month later and banned 118 opposition leaders from politics for up to five years.