Asean is out of ideas on Myanmar. The UN’s Julie Bishop won’t find it easy either

If anything at all on Myanmar emerged from

last week’s Asean meetings

in the Laotian capital of Vientiane, it was the complete lack of fresh ideas amid what can only be described as an attritional stalemate in the strategically placed country that straddles Asia’s twin tectonic plates, China and India.

While senior Asean officials and foreign ministers met, the Northeastern Command headquarters at Lashio in Shan state, near the China border, was overrun on July 25 – the first junta command hub to fall to anti-regime forces since the 2021 coup. Another key loss in the same week was Mogoke, a ruby mining town that is critical to the Myanmar economy. Meanwhile, the Northwestern Command that covers the Sagaing, Magway and Chin regions is tottering.