Veteran Thai diplomat Asda Jayanama was recently interviewed by The
Question: To date, how would you assess Asean’s “constructive engagement” policy regarding
Answer: The idea of “constructive engagement” was born in the Thai foreign ministry, and when we had this idea it was not to engage just government-to-government but to engage comprehensively on levels of business and culture—people-to-people. But what happened was that the Burmese wanted only to engage government-to-government, and we followed the Burmese desire, and Asean followed the Burmese desire. It became rather a rigid kind of thing and that’s how it basically failed because we can only engage on topics that the Burmese government agrees to engage on, which are mainly economic… So it [constructive engagement] failed because of the Burmese interpretation.
Q: Asean has maintained a policy of non-interference in member states for 38 years. Regarding
A: There are several examples where we have interfered in the internal policy of other countries, such as
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