New Five Point Consensus Should Give Myanmar’s Resistance a Seat at the Table

Regional governments, including key ASEAN countries such as Malaysia and the Philippines, have started to re-engage the junta in Myanmar on the basis of advancing pertinent bilateral issues. This is despite the latter’s failure to implement the Five Point Consensus (5PC), a 2021 ASEAN plan to manage the political and humanitarian crisis in Myanmar.

The junta’s 2025 battlefield gains and the 2026 elections, along with frustration over the crisis’s intractability, gave impetus to these diplomatic efforts. However, the war remains stalemated, and the Myanmar resistance continues to vigorously oppose the government in Naypyidaw, casting doubt on assumptions of an impending junta consolidation and peace. ASEAN countries and the bloc should therefore continue to press the junta to implement a reworked five-point plan to address the country’s political and humanitarian crises.

This year, Myanmar’s coup leader-turned-President Min Aung Hlaing has visited India, China, Russia and five ASEAN states: Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. The Southeast Asian visits constituted a significant breakthrough for the junta. Longtime holdout Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim hosted Min Aung Hlaing in Kuala Lumpur and pledged to work toward Myanmar’s reintegration. Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said a new approach is needed amid ASEAN’s failed bid to get Myanmar to implement the 5PC.

The logic behind ASEAN’s engagement reflects considerations around border security, transnational crime and other interests. In the author’s discussions with regional interlocutors, there is also a sense that the war’s trajectory has shifted in Min Aung Hlaing’s favour since the junta’s battlefield progress of 2025 and his win in the widely disputed election. Indeed, to some observers, Naypyidaw, with China’s backing, seems likely to consolidate control in Myanmar’s heartland and reach ceasefires with its ethnic minority periphery.

Yet, in engaging with the junta so soon after its recovery, regional governments risk mistaking junta momentum for victory. In recent months, resistance forces have inflicted significant battlefield reverses, while the regime’s terror bombing of civilians exposes the human costs of ASEAN’s failure to hold the junta accountable. ASEAN engagement cannot ignore the resistance coalition, nor should it abandon efforts to pressure the regime to reduce violence and expand humanitarian access. Instead, it should elevate both issues as explicit demands in a reworked 5PC required for any further diplomatic progress.

In August and September, the junta’s effort to relieve the long-besieged city of Bhamo in Kachin State suffered serious setbacks when the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and its allies beat back a junta counteroffensive. A riverine junta convoy lost roughly half its number to drones and heavy weapons, with the KIA attacking “nearly 20 vessels“. Tatmadaw assaults on land were also beaten back. The junta is sending additional columns but has thus far failed to break the siege. In October, the KIA again rejected a junta overture for peace talks.

ASEAN engagement cannot ignore the resistance coalition, nor should it abandon efforts to pressure the regime to reduce violence and expand humanitarian access. Instead, it should elevate both issues as explicit demands in a reworked 5PC required for any further diplomatic progress.

Similar dynamics are visible in Rakhine State. The state capital Sittwe and the China-sponsored deep-water port of Kyaukphyu are the last bastions of Tatmadaw control in Rakhine. Echoing the resistance’s lauded Operation 1027, (launched 27 October 2023), junta supporters declared Operation 4926 (which was initiated on 4September 2026) in hopes of driving back the strongest active anti-junta armed group, the Arakan Army (AA). It quickly petered out. Although massing troops, the Tatmadaw offensive failed to gain ground or capture strategic points. Sensing an opportunity, the AA launched its own counterstrikes soon after Operation 4926 floundered.

These developments demonstrate that the Tatmadaw’s longstanding weaknesses remain unresolved and exploitable. Badly overstretched junta troops suffer the same systemic issues that allowed the resistance to first gain momentum in the 2022–24 period. Underequipped and low-morale conscripts make up a growing share of frontline forces, and the military regime has failed to win over the populace. In total, the regime’s 2025–26 “recovery” has recaptured only 9 per cent of territory lost since 2021.

Underscoring its frustration, the junta responded to defeat with devastating air strikes on civilian targets. Coming amid ASEAN states’ engagement with the junta, these air strikes expose the regime’s unwillingness to moderate its behaviour despite the Five Point Consensus and recent engagements. Yet, ASEAN’s diplomatic outreach continues apace.

Policy Implications

Min Aung Hlaing has improved his international position, but recent battlefield losses highlight that he has not yet decisively defeated the resistance. The conflict’s trajectory remains uncertain. Moreover, Naypyidaw’s unabated air strikes expose that diplomatic engagement has failed to produce improvements in civilian protection or the release of political prisoners like Aung San Suu Kyi. In addition, the regime has shown no sign of relenting on its open rejection of the 5PC. For ASEAN policymakers, the lesson is that engagement with Naypyidaw should not rest on the assumption that the regime is the inevitable victor in the civil conflict. Nor should ASEAN abandon its humanitarian interests, given their pertinence in Myanmar’s context.

The 2021 5PC is outdated, and a reworked Consensus must explicitly mandate the inclusion of the resistance coalition. This was not in the 5PC when it was released in 2021. The resistance now has leverage, governing roughly 40 per cent of the country’s territory. Its mosaic of actors — such as the Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union (SCEF) and the Arakan Army — needs to be at the table in any peace process on an equal footing with the junta. Behind-the-scenes engagement by ASEAN states should come into the open and accelerate in a reciprocal fashion with outreach to Naypyidaw. Further diplomatic progress for the junta must also be contingent on humanitarian access, releasing political prisoners, reducing violence against civilians and good-faith negotiations with the resistance coalition. Without that stipulation, the resistance will continue to see ASEAN as neglecting its needs and biased towards the junta.

The junta will not accede to these demands without ASEAN applying its leverage. The bloc should continue to bar Min Aung Hlaing’s attendance at regional fora until there is measurable progress on humanitarian concerns and a change of heart in the regime’s unwillingness to engage with actors like SCEF. While states like Singapore might support a reworked 5PC, others, notably Thailand, would likely not. However, any states in favour of such a move should make clear that the protracted nature of Myanmar’s civil war and recent resistance battlefield victories show that assuming the junta is the inevitable victor would be a strategic error for the bloc.

When ASEAN engages Myanmar, it should treat all belligerents on equal footing and demand that Naypyidaw demonstrates progress on key humanitarian asks.

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