Burma to Host ASEAN Summit Next Year

Burma shall host to design for the ASEAN top meeting by 2014. It would be great honor for this beleaguered nation being bestowed the position of ASEAN chair. However, Burma has to gear up in addressing challenges. Designing for ASEAN top meeting is a huge honor for the nations in the Southeast Asia focused on such rotating role, on which Burma used to face both presidency of the ASEAN and chair of the ASEAN summit over time.

In the past, Burma was forced itself to distance from gaining the position in light of the Western boycott apparently. Yet, because of Burma was ruled by military regime which was being sanctioned globally.

Recently, Burma has been making the differences over the political reforms. This government was typically ruled by civil administration and Peace Nobel Prize Laureate was released to be free then she became a parliamentarian. The international communities have friendly hailed and mesmerized the new civil government which has reformed economics and was freed from huge sanctions as well.

The current presidency role of ASEAN summit Brunei will be ended this year and this role will be handed over to Burma by 2014. Over that year, Burma shall prepare many meetings of the ASEAN framework including the ASEAN summit within the participation from the super power nations in the world like Japan, United States, China and Russia. Therefore, it will be challenged for such preparation due to Burma lacks of human resources and standard setting out for internationally-structured top meetings.

Besides, the main issues in terms of position as chair of the ASEAN is the South Chinese archipelago conflict that will be a tug-of-war of facing between the United States and China. Just keep in mind that the experience of the presidency for Cambodia of the ASEAN top meeting previously had encountered the disappointment once relevant to the South Chinese sea.

Therefore, on behalf of ASEAN's head for top meeting holding in 2014 the Burmese government must reckon punctiliously between the contentious neighboring countries over the island archipelago and the China giant. It means that chairing of the ASEAN of the Burmese government, it will face disharmony between countries who have affinities to China and America basically on which they both have been influencing in Asian potentials.

On the other hands, this government has another challenge is the religious violent conflict which killed many people and caused hundreds of thousands of immigrants. This violence diagnoses the human rights violation.

Skeptically, it is very soon to hand over presidency of ASEAN to Burmese government which is not addressing the issues of human rights properly yet. However, this government has significantly reformed progressively so the bestowing the ASEAN chair is a positive signal for motivation for the Burmese leader to aim at more comprehensive reforms toward the international community's demand focused on human rights and democracy.

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