By The Diplomat | Created at 2026-06-12 15:15:33 | Updated at 2026-06-12 21:53:12
16 hours ago
Many analysts and scholars have argued that Myanmar, with a civil war now into its sixth year, is the biggest threat to the cohesion and effectiveness of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). While important to the discussion on ASEAN’s relevance, centrality, and credibility, this analysis entirely overlooks ASEAN vulnerabilities and overemphasizes the importance of Myanmar.
The following article will advance the argument that the Cambodian-Thai border conflict is, in fact, the greatest current threat to ASEAN. The logic behind this argument is twofold and fundamental to understanding the Southeast Asian bloc. At its founding, ASEAN’s raison d’etre was to put an end to intramural conflict and to allow its members to develop according to their own national context and timelines. Last year’s Cambodia-Thailand border wars, which erupted due to a mix of contested colonial borders, transnational crime, and nationalism, pose direct threats to the bloc’s purposes.
ASEAN was established in 1967 for two primary reasons: to consolidate regional solidarity following Indonesia’s policy of konfrontasi towards newly independent Malaysia in 1963-1966, and to form a united front to confront against communism. This would allow the original five members space for national development while promoting regional security. The end to konfrontasi was essential as it cemented ASEAN’s core principle of non-interference in internal affairs, which was intended to ensure the sovereignty of Southeast Asia’s newly independent post-colonial states.
The argument that Myanmar poses a serious threat to ASEAN’s future is mistaken and ignores the region’s realities. Unlike the European Union, ASEAN was not founded on, nor is currently guided by, normative principles of governance. ASEAN’s domestic governance structures are heterogeneous. ASEAN currently includes liberal democracies, anocracies, single-party communist states, an absolute monarchy, and a military junta. While paying lip service to normative standards, the region’s leaders have no problem dealing with political heterogeneity and periodic disruptions. Case in point was the five years of military rule in Thailand after Gen. Prayut Chan-o-cha overthrew the elected government in a military coup in May 2014.
ASEAN accepted Myanmar’s membership in 1997 while it was under the rule of a military dictatorship. This showed that ASEAN’s leaders are, if nothing else, extremely pragmatic. Myanmar was “constructively engaged” and urged to reform, which it nominally did beginning in 2011. Now that junta leader Min Aung Hlaing has dipped himself in the “legitimizing” waters of electoral politics, emerging as an “elected president,” ASEAN will likely move to recognize and normalize its relations with Myanmar.
The protests of Singapore and Timor-Leste are sure to continue but are likely to soften over time. Singapore’s concern centers on legitimizing a brutal military-led government and the impact of the conflict on “ASEAN credibility.” In Timor-Leste’s case, this stems from a steadfast belief in supporting human rights as a legacy of its independence struggle
While ASEAN has not yet recognized the election result and accepted the military-backed government back into the “ASEAN family,” Thailand is trying to make the case for engagement. Bangkok, which will hold the ASEAN chairmanship in 2028, will seek to institutionalize a shift toward recognition of Naypyidaw. To secure this, Myanmar only has to demonstrate a patina of respect for and soften its stance towards the opposition. This has already begun with the release of Aung San Suu Kyi from prison to house arrest.
Whether Myanmar’s government can solidify its “transition” and bring an end to the civil war remains to be seen. However, if the civil war does not increase markedly in intensity and spill over Myanmar’s borders, this will not threaten ASEAN’s push toward normalization. As was the case with the military junta of yesteryear, ASEAN is very likely to make amends and come to grips with its Myanmar issue through unfortunate but pragmatic engagement.
The same is not true of the inter-state conflict between Thailand and Cambodia. The two nations engaged in two bouts of open conflict last year, for five days in July and nearly three weeks in December. While the blame for the war is debated, the consequences of the conflict are clear. In the run-up to the July fighting, Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen, who served as the country’s prime minister for 38 years prior to 2023, singlehandedly brought down the Thai government of Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra. This occurred after Hun Sen released a secretly recorded phone call between Paetongtarn and himself in which the Thai leader is heard referring to Hun Sen as “uncle,” putting herself in an apparently subservient position, and criticizing the Thai military.
Because of this, Paetongtarn was subsequently removed from office by Thailand’s Constitutional Court, leading to the collapse of her government. This series of incidents, including Thai military casualties from apparent Cambodian landmines, led to the first bout of conflict.
To make matters worse, after destroying the Thai government, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet reached out to U.S. President Donald Trump to intervene and help broker a ceasefire. This violated a basic tenet of ASEAN. A core regional norm is to deal with ASEAN issues within ASEAN, and not to invite external powers to intervene, which is seen to undermine regional autonomy.
Secondly, the outreach to Trump came not long after he hit ASEAN states with some of his administration’s most punitive “liberation day” tariffs. ASEAN states were in the midst of intense trade negotiations with the U.S. when Cambodia invited Trump to intervene in regional affairs. Trump gladly accepted Hun Manet’s invitation by threatening to cut off trade talks and reimpose tariffs if Cambodia and Thailand did not agree to an imposed ceasefire. Whatever the outcome, Cambodian policy broke longstanding ASEAN norms and principles.
Connected to the conflict was the realization that Cambodia had become a global hub for transnational criminal scam syndicates. The scale of scam centers became so large and public that external interference by countries as diverse as China, South Korea, Thailand, and the United States became unavoidable. In the Thai context, given the intertwining of alleged Thai political interests with scam operations, Anutin acted fast to move militarily against adjacent border scam centers. There have been less concrete, but nonetheless public, demonstrations of financial seizures against some well-known Cambodian actors.
It is estimated that scam syndicates and related transnational criminal networks were generating profits equivalent to 30-40 percent of Cambodian GDP. This is no accident. As prime minister, Hun Sen allowed or encouraged the Cambodian state to use transnational crime as a development policy. Proceeds in the tens of billions of dollars were taken from people in the region and abroad. Simultaneously, these proceeds were alleged to have helped finance Cambodian military modernization, including the elite Bodyguard Headquarters units, which proved lethal during both periods of conflict on the Thai border.
The nationalisms stoked in Cambodia and Thailand by the conflict, fed by social media and likely supported by government information operations, has led to a deep animosity on both sides of the border and a complete breakdown in bilateral relations.
Neither the Myanmar crisis nor the Thailand-Cambodia conflict poses an existential risk for ASEAN. Myanmar will deal with its internal issues as a member of ASEAN, and its conflicts will not have a significant impact on the regional bloc.
However, the Cambodia-Thailand conflict is a more problematic issue. Cambodia’s policies have impacted many ASEAN states through fraud and scammers. Thailand has taken an uncompromising position towards Cambodia on the land and maritime border. Most importantly, the dispute has resulted in open warfare between ASEAN members, contravened ASEAN norms and principles, and has in no way been settled. The festering sore of a contested colonial border has become nearly intractable due to hypernationalism and militarism on both sides.
ASEAN is not likely to play the defining role in resolving the dispute, as there is a clear divergence of first principles, with Thailand seeking bilateral talks where it utilizes the power imbalance and Cambodia seeking internationalization. But the bloc can act as a constructive facilitator to keep conflict from breaking out for a third time and spreading further through the region. This can be leveraged with strategic engagement and coordination with China and the U.S. on common intersecting issues such as scam centers and money laundering.
Going forward, Cambodia-Thailand relations, rather than the issue of Myanmar, will define the near-term credibility, centrality, and viability of ASEAN as great power politics intensifies.
