On February 1, 2021, the Tatmadaw, Myanmar’s military, arrested members of the country’s ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party, as well as other democratically elected officials. By the next day, the Tatmadaw announced the creation of the State Administrative Council, taking over all functions of government, and named Senior General Min Aung Hlaing as Chairman. Months later, and after the shuttle diplomacy efforts of Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, the ASEAN Secretariat hosted an emergency summit with leaders and representatives of ASEAN member states and General Hlaing to address the situation in Myanmar. The summit resulted in the Five-Point Consensus, which is still awaiting implementation.

Asia Pacific Pathways to Progress Foundation, Inc., with the support of the Philippine Office of Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, organized a Track Two Observer Discussion Forum on ASEAN and the Myanmar Coup to discuss developments and progress on the Five-Point Consensus since the ASEAN Special Summit, the evolution of the situation in Myanmar, and the challenges in implementing the Five-Point Consensus and other means of affecting meaningful change in Myanmar after the coup. This policy brief follows from those discussions and will focus on the challenges facing ASEAN in dealing with the Myanmar Coup, and what these challenges mean for ASEAN and crises it may face in the future.