Myanmar yesterday began its biggest gathering of world leaders since shedding junta rule, but concerns over the pace of democratic reforms are expected to surface at the two-day event featuring US President Barack Obama.
The ASEAN and East Asia summits, held in the remote capital of Naypyidaw, are the culmination of a year of diplomatic limelight for Myanmar after having long been shunted to the sidelines under its former military rulers.
Other key issues are set to include the festering row between several ASEAN members and China over territory in the South China Sea and greater economic integration ahead of a Southeast Asian trade union mooted for next year.
Photo: EPA
The rise of the self-proclaimed Islamic State and countering the Ebola epidemic are also expected to be discussed by the world leaders.
At the end of the ASEAN summit yesterday, the leaders released a statement expressing “concerns over recent developments in the South China Sea, which have increased tensions in the area.”
Tensions in the seas have soared this year with Vietnam and the Philippines enraged by a series of maneuvers by regional superpower China in waters claimed by them.
China has said most of the seas are its territory — including areas close to its neighbor’s coast.
Beijing is reluctant to sign a binding, multilateral code of conduct covering the disputed and resource-rich waters and experts say there is little prospect of it changing its stance.
In the statement, Southeast Asian leaders, including those from Muslim-majority Indonesia and Malaysia, also committed to “all necessary measures to prevent fighters traveling from ASEAN member states to join terrorist groups.”
ASEAN leaders are due to meet with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) today during the East Asia Summit, which groups the Southeast Asian bloc with the US, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Russia and New Zealand.
In remarks made during the opening of the ASEAN summit, reform-minded Burmese President Thein Sein hailed progress on integrating the region’s markets, and the reduction of trade barriers and tariffs with the goal of an economic union by the end of next year fast approaching.
Yesterday, the ASEAN bloc also held meetings with India, Japan and the UN before Obama landed in the evening fresh from the APEC summit in Beijing.
Obama is set to meet Thein Sein and opposition leader — and fellow Nobel laureate — Aung San Suu Kyi during his two-night stay in the nation, as he looks to show his support for landmark elections slated for late next year.
Myanmar has been welcomed back into the international fold after enacting sweeping reforms, including the release of most political prisoners and the promise of free and fair polls next year.
The reforms have seen most sanctions lifted, while foreign investment has poured into the almost virgin market of about 60 million people.
Obama two years ago became the first sitting US president to visit Myanmar, in an initial effort to propel the reforms. However, in comments just days before Obama’s arrival, Aung San Suu Kyi sought to temper US “over-optimism” over Myanmar’s reform process.
Wrangles over the constitution, the cramping of media freedom as well as tinderbox issues, such as burgeoning Buddhist extremism and anti-Muslim violence, have taken the sheen off its emergence from isolation after decades of iron-fisted army rule and raised fears its reforms are slipping.
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