Vann Bunna*
Cambodia
is expected to assume the annually rotating chair of the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2022 for the third time since it joined the
regional bloc in 1999. The political crisis in Myanmar will pose great
challenges for Cambodia as an ASEAN chair in 2022 if the issue cannot be solved
timely under Brunei’s ASEAN chairmanship this year.
Myanmar military staged a coup and seized power from the democratically elected government on February 1, 2021. It detained the country’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other senior members of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD).