Myanmar's bloody political crisis and China's growing aggression overshadowed the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit that opened Tuesday in the Indonesian capital Jakarta.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo told partners in the 10-member regional bloc that ASEAN has "agreed not to represent any power" and must "be the captain of our ship to achieve peace."
ASEAN has blocked efforts to resolve the crisis in Myanmar, which has been plunged into chaos since the army overthrew the democratically elected government of de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi on February 1, 2021. After the coup, ASEAN agreed to a "consensus" that called for an immediate end to violence, peace talks between the junta and its opponents and humanitarian aid.
But Myanmar's junta has failed to implement the ASEAN plan, with a bloody crackdown on anti-coup protests and deadly airstrikes against armed resistance forces backed by various rural rebel groups that have fought for greater autonomy for decades.
The conflict has reinforced ASEAN's image in some diplomatic circles as an irrelevant entity and further deepened divisions among members over its strategy. The junta is banned from holding high-level meetings, but Thai officials held talks with junta leaders in July.
But on Tuesday, leaders agreed to strip Myanmar of the ASEAN chairmanship in 2026 and hand it to the Philippines.
Tuesday's summit comes days after China released a new nautical chart outlining its claims to much of the South China Sea, ratcheting up tensions with its Southeast Asian neighbors, including competing territorial claims.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will represent President Joe Biden at the ASEAN summit this week as well as a broader regional forum that includes China, Russia, India and Japan.
Reuters, Agence France-Presse provided some information for this report.
