Min Aung Hlaing's Seven Trips in Half a Year to Break Isolation; Western Sanctions and Asian Normalization Highlight Power Asymmetry

According to Deutsche Welle, Myanmar junta leader Min Aung Hlaing wrapped up a three-day state visit to Vietnam last Sunday, with both sides pledging to deepen defense and security cooperation. It was Min Aung Hlaing's sixth official overseas trip since he became president in April. In just five months, the former general has traveled to India, China, Laos, Thailand, Russia and Vietnam, and is due in Cambodia this Friday, pushing the tally of countries visited to seven.

Min Aung Hlaing took the presidency in April this year after being voted in by a parliament packed with loyalists following a military-organized December-to-January election. That vote was widely viewed as a sham. Hunter Marston, director of the Southeast Asia program at the Sydney-based Lowy Institute, told DW that since that election and Min Aung Hlaing's move from commander-in-chief of the armed forces to the presidency, he has "truly refocused on diplomatic partnerships, working to consolidate the government's allies within the region." Marston added that Naypyidaw is accelerating a strategic adjustment to "diversify partnerships and normalize bilateral relations," and that "even relatively short visits by regional partners signal that Naypyidaw is picking up the pace of partnership diversification."

The diplomatic offensive cannot mask Myanmar's worsening humanitarian catastrophe. Since the military ousted Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi's elected government in 2021, the civil war has killed roughly 100,000 people and displaced more than three million. The United Nations said last month that Myanmar's human rights situation has sunk to a new low, with the military continuing forced conscription, arson, and airstrikes against resistance-held areas. That record has made Myanmar one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world, while it faces lawsuits over genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in The Hague and elsewhere.

Scot Marciel, former U.S. ambassador to Myanmar and now a senior advisor at BowerGroupAsia, told DW: "The junta is in some ways emerging from isolation, but its engagement still largely remains confined to countries that were cooperating with it before the election." He noted that the military clearly hopes to use intensified engagement to secure legitimacy and shore up its position, "but in the eyes of the Myanmar public it has not gained any legitimacy."

The divisions within ASEAN are the most visible. Since the coup, the 11-nation bloc has barred Min Aung Hlaing and his foreign minister from its highest-level meetings. Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, the current rotating chair, insist on substantive progress on the five-point peace consensus reached in 2021 before that posture changes. Yet the Myanmar junta has made little headway to date, repeatedly refusing to allow the ASEAN envoy to meet Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been detained since the day of the coup. Last month, the newly established Myanmar parliament passed a motion explicitly rejecting the peace plan, and Myanmar's foreign ministry declared the ASEAN envoy "no longer needed."

Pinitbhand Paribatra, associate professor of international relations at Thailand's Chulalongkorn University, believes that Min Aung Hlaing and his ministers are "unlikely in the short term" to attend the ASEAN leaders' summit. But both Marston and Marciel note that once Thailand takes over the ASEAN rotating chair in 2028, Myanmar is likely to be fully readmitted. Thailand shares more than 2,400 kilometers of border with Myanmar, has major commercial and security interests there, and has consistently advocated "measured engagement" with Myanmar while pushing ASEAN to follow suit.

The Western camp's posture is no less calculating. Marciel said bluntly: "I have not seen any of the Western countries maintaining sanctions show any movement toward relaxing them; they all view the recent election as a sham, and Myanmar is simply not a priority in their foreign policy." Marston acknowledged that if Min Aung Hlaing released Aung San Suu Kyi and advanced reforms, it could not be ruled out that Washington would, as the Obama administration did after Aung San Suu Kyi's release in 2010, pursue "measured re-engagement." But under the Trump administration, U.S. attention to Myanmar is extremely low and human rights issues do not make the White House agenda. Marciel added that the Trump administration could "warm up" toward the junta for commercial or economic reasons.

The former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court once requested an arrest warrant against Min Aung Hlaing on crimes against humanity charges, and a decision remains pending. Pinitbhand believes that once a warrant is issued, the space for Western countries to further engage Myanmar will narrow significantly. Among democracies, Japan is viewed by Pinitbhand as "ready" to restore normal relations with Myanmar, while Marciel points out that both Japan and South Korea could begin normalization in the next year or two.

With Thailand assuming the ASEAN rotating chair in 2028, the Western "Myanmar is a low priority" pattern Marciel identified likely to continue, and U.S. allies such as Japan and South Korea potentially kicking off normalization, the junta's isolation is being peeled away layer by layer through pragmatic multilateral diplomacy. The pending arrest warrant request at The Hague, alongside ongoing forced conscription and airstrikes inside Myanmar, constitute humanitarian variables that cannot be sidestepped in this contest—one that will test how much political cost the West is willing to bear on human rights, and how much more ground ASEAN can give between internal unity and substantive accountability.