July marked the 10th anniversary of Burma’s admission to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. During the past decade, Burma’s prolonged political crises, the junta’s reluctance to push for democratic reform and the continued imprisonment of opposition figures-including Aung San Suu Kyi-have severely damaged the credibility of Asean in the eyes of the world community.

Asean’s struggle to solve Burma’s political deadlock has complicated its efforts to build a genuine regional community. Ten years on, the group needs to seriously reassess Burma’s membership and its own failure in pressuring the junta to implement democratic reform. Asean must ask itself how Burma can participate as a worthy member in the organization’s future development.

The reassessment should begin where Asean has failed; namely, in bringing Burma into the modern era. Burma’s ruling junta made numerous promises to the organization once it gained membership, but it has continuously defied regional and international pressure to change its political course. Instead, Burma wooed energy-hungry Asean neighbors with its abundant natural resources, while employing the group as a protective shield against an increasingly outraged international community.

The Thai-initiated “Constructive Engagement” policy, designed to convince the world that bringing the junta to the table was better than further marginalizing it, has proven to be a disastrous approach. The policy was, in reality, neither constructive nor engaging, but merely served to legitimize Burma’s brutal regime with the blessing of Asean.

A subsequent approach, called the “Flexible Engagement” policy, also failed because it was thought to have breached Asean’s fundamental principle of non-interference in a country’s internal affairs.

At the crux of Asean’s failure to introduce change in Burma lie two important factors. First, Asean naively assumed that Burma shared values and objectives that were compatible with those of the regional organization. Second, the group lacked a viable strategy, or the collective will, to make good on the promises of its policy toward Burma.

Today, many questions remain. Has Asean managed to come up with a realistic strategy on Burma? How will the regional bloc deal with the junta, and through what mechanism, if the latter continues to challenge its credibility? Failure to address these essential questions will result in the group’s further loss of influence, or worse. Asean could be dismissed as irrelevant in the eyes of the international community.

In the last decade, Asean perceived the Burma problem as largely a regional issue, which required a regional solution. While the group focused on overcoming other obstacles to its expanding influence, the Burmese political impasse remained a lesser priority.

Asean anticipated that Burma’s chairmanship of the group would provide the impetus to make the country a more responsible member. Instead, Burma blithely gave up the rotating chairmanship.

Only recently has Asean recognized the risk of being considered extraneous to international politics if it remains incapable of reining in the Burmese junta and convincing it to honor its promises of political reform.

The regional bloc’s long-term goal of establishing an Asean community by 2015, and of launching an Asean Charter, possibly by November 2007, has forced it to acknowledge the urgency of toughening its stance on Burma, which has long represented a major barrier in Asean’s external relations, particularly with Europe and the US.

Accordingly, Asean leaders recently announced that Burma would now be required to defend itself before the international community. Some members even called for a UN debate on Burma should the junta fail to expedite its “road map” to democracy.

What Asean should have done at this point was to widen the diplomatic scope of its engagement with Burma. The grouping should make Burma less of a regional problem and more of an East Asian one. This would assist greatly in building immense pressure on the Burmese regime.

Asean could begin by holding dialogues with China and India about the deteriorating situation in Burma through existing frameworks like the East Asia Summit. The two Asian giants are known to be Burma’s close allies, particularly since the implementation of intense international sanctions by Western nations.

The most difficult task for Asean will be to convince China and India of the necessity of putting human rights before strategic interests. “Asean may remind them of the danger of their selfish pursuit of strategic goals in Burma that will put them on par with an energy-driven policy of the US in the Middle East during the last few decades,” said Michael Vatikiotis, visiting research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.

Burma has come to a critical juncture. Its future in Asean appears to be bleak if it persists in following its despotic course. The next 10 years will be even more critical for Asean and Burma. The forthcoming charter, considered Asean’s mini-constitution, will undoubtedly further complicate Burma’s controversial membership by compelling Asean to decide at last whether Burma is worth protecting or whether it is simply dead weight for the organization.

Dr Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a Singapore-based Thai economist, is the author of A Plastic Nation: The Curse of Thainess in Thai-Burmese Relations.