Asean should rethink its principle of non-interference so that the long-held policy does not become “an excuse” for non-action, Thailand’s Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow has said.
The minister, a career diplomat who served in a range of leadership positions before his latest appointment in September, said the 11-member bloc had to embrace a fresh approach to consensus-building amid intensifying rivalry between China and the United States.
“We have to be agile. We have to draw on the strength that we have … First of all, we’re not taking sides for sure,” Sihasak said, on balancing his country’s relations between Beijing and Washington. “We have to be strategically important to both superpowers.”
In an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with This Week in Asia, Sihasak also said Thailand was ready to mediate in the Myanmar crisis if called upon, and that demining was top of the agenda for Bangkok in the unravelling peace deal with its neighbour, Cambodia.
While the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ members had long adhered to non-interference as a cardinal principle, greater urgency was now needed, Sihasak said.
“If we’ve come this far, we have integrated, we are interdependent … Maybe we can be a bit flexible with non-interference, like in the case of Myanmar’s internal affairs, [which] has repercussions on the region,” he warned.
