Malaysia had earlier said that inviting Myanmar’s president, Min Aung Hlaing, did not amount to recognising his government. An official described the September invitation as a way to deal with the long-running problem of refugees and migrants from Myanmar living in Malaysia. When he landed in Kuala Lumpur last week, however, the former general received a ceremonial welcome with a full honour guard, a display that underlined how far his international standing has recovered since he seized power in 2021.
The 2021 takeover set off a civil war that has devastated the country. Following an official luncheon on Thursday, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said Myanmar was willing to take back its citizens at its own expense. The offer carries political weight in Malaysia, where hostility toward refugees is rising.
Refugee repatriation pledge and ASEAN ties
Malaysia hosts about 193,000 Myanmar nationals, most of them members of the Rohingya Muslim minority, which has faced persecution. Min Aung Hlaing said the timing was right for a return by sea. “Because the weather is favourable, I will dispatch Navy ships to repatriate them,” he said.
Anwar also committed to helping bring Myanmar back into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The bloc has 11 members and has excluded Min Aung Hlaing from its high-level meetings because he has not carried out its peace plan. Malaysia strongly backed that plan, known as the Five Point Consensus, which calls for an end to violence and “constructive dialogue” between the warring sides.
The conflict is now in its fifth year. Monitoring groups estimate it has killed as many as 100,000 people and forced at least 3.5 million from their homes. Anwar told reporters that Malaysia would do everything possible to eventually count Myanmar as part of the regional community, without prejudice, particularly within the ASEAN framework.
Malaysia is the fifth ASEAN country to host Min Aung Hlaing since he became president in April. He took office after an election held in December and January, from which major opposition parties were barred. In recent months he has also travelled to Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. After returning from Malaysia, his spokesperson said Indonesia and Brunei could be next on the list.
Wider outreach beyond Southeast Asia
Min Aung Hlaing’s diplomatic rehabilitation reaches well beyond Southeast Asia. Since April he has also visited India, China, Russia and Belarus. At each stop he has portrayed his government as stable and “on the path to democracy”, while promoting trade and infrastructure agreements.
The United States also appears to have opened a channel. According to a news agency report last week, Washington has started direct talks with his government, even though he remains under sanctions over human rights abuses. Those abuses include the 2017 military crackdown on the Rohingya, which drove more than 700,000 people into Bangladesh and which the United States has described as genocide. The latest talks reportedly focus on shutting down scam centres based in Myanmar that have cheated Americans out of billions of dollars.
Khin Zaw Win, director of the Tampadipa Institute in Yangon, said Min Aung Hlaing’s bid for international legitimacy has been helped by a coordinated effort from China, India and Thailand, all of which border Myanmar. These neighbours have felt the effects of the war, including fighting near their frontiers, disrupted trade and waves of refugees. He said the three countries “have the biggest stakes in how Myanmar pans out” and want the military-installed government recognised. “Convenience plays a part for all of them,” he said.
Critics warn legitimacy will fuel further fighting
Growing diplomatic acceptance has done little to end the fighting. Min Aung Hlaing has invited all armed groups to peace talks, yet combat continues across much of the country. His forces have pushed to retake areas lost to opposition fighters and ethnic armed groups in Rakhine, Chin, Kachin and Karen states and the Sagaing region, backed by a stronger air campaign and a recruitment drive that has added tens of thousands of troops. China has also helped by brokering ceasefires between the military and powerful ethnic armed groups along its border.
Bridget Welsh, an honorary research associate at the University of Nottingham’s Asia Research Institute in Kuala Lumpur, said Malaysia’s change of stance had “broken a dam of opposition to the junta”. She argued that regional leaders who have welcomed him, despite accusations that he has committed crimes against humanity, were putting pragmatism ahead of human rights. She said the move was a step back for ASEAN and for Myanmar, and that it offered no concrete route to resolving the crisis.
Laetitia van den Assum, a former Dutch diplomat, said the military is unlikely to regain control of the entire country. She said that would require a large occupation force, not the garrison army it has now. She also found it “quite surprising” that ASEAN nations are seeking the repatriation of Rohingya from the very man accused of orchestrating crimes against them. Myanmar has long denied the Rohingya citizenship, and much of Rakhine State, their homeland, is now held by the Arakan Army, so it is unclear where they would go.
Min Aung Hlaing has also made other gestures. Before his August trip to Thailand, he allowed the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit Aung San Suu Kyi, the civilian leader he removed in 2021. The 81-year-old Nobel laureate has been held incommunicado since the coup, and the August 3 visit produced her first photographs in years. Sai Kyi Zin Soe, a research fellow at the University of Sydney, called the move a “low-cost, high-optics gesture rather than a real political opening”, adding that it confirmed only that she is alive.
Sai Kyi Zin Soe also pointed to continuing air raids, including a September 28 strike on a market in Rakhine State that killed an estimated 50 people. He described the attacks as the “strongest evidence that soft diplomacy hasn’t produced any deterrent effect”. He warned that the legitimacy gained from foreign visits would embolden the military.
Much now rests with the Philippines and Singapore, the current and incoming chairs of ASEAN. Phil Robertson, director of Asia Human Rights and Labor Advocates, said the two countries must push back firmly against calls to bring Myanmar “fully back into the fold” and keep pressing the five-point plan. He also urged the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and the European Union to adopt targeted sanctions, such as an aviation fuel ban, instead of leaving the issue to the regional bloc.
