ASEAN needs to get back its old hardheaded realism

Bloc's handling of Myanmar and East Timor betrays erosion in strategic thinking

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An empty chair for the Myanmar delegation at the 2022 ASEAN summit in Phnom Penh: It was a mistake for the bloc to bar the junta from meetings. © Reuters

Bilahari Kausikan is former permanent secretary and ambassador-at-large in the Singaporean Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In the face of the U.S.-China rivalry, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations must regain the clear-eyed realism that characterized its approach to Vietnam's occupation of Cambodia during the 1980s.

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