When Are State-owned Companies Not Interfering in the Affairs of Another Country?

The Diplomat

a day ago

There's a darkly waggish 'Family Guy' cutaway called 'Horton Hears Domestic Violence in the Next Apartment and Doesn't Call 911.' (For non-English readers, 'Horton Hears A Who' is a popular children's book by Dr. Seuss.) In the gag, there's clearly a case of wife-beating going on next door, but the eponymous, big-eared elephant sits unmoved, quietly reading a book. As the violence crescendos, he sardonically reflects, 'I'm sure there's two sides to this.'
At its worst, this is how the principle of non-interference works. Yes, the regime in the country next door is brutalizing its citizens, but we're just not going to mention it. For all the reports of human rights violations and genocide, there are probably 'two sides' to what's happening. Of course, that's an extreme case, but not an uncommon one.
Non-interference is pretty much the only norm that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) can agree on these days, and even then, it has been considerably eroded in recent months. The prime example came earlier this month, when Cambodia's ruling duopoly of Prime Minister Hun Manet and ex-Prime Minister Hun Sen quite explicitly called for regime change in Bangkok. 'I hope there will be a new prime minister in Thailand,' was just one of the regime-changist comments Hun Sen has made in the past weeks. Hun Manet followed this up by stating that 'We are waiting for someone with real power [in Bangkok], someone with the legitimate authority to open or close border checkpoints.' Thai Vice Foreign Minister Ras Chaleechan was only being slightly hyperbolic when he retorted, 'In nearly six decades since ASEAN's founding, there has never been an instance of one member state so openly aiming to destabilize the government of another member state.'
Perhaps it has been done privately, but I haven't seen ASEAN or any other Southeast Asian government publicly rebuke Phnom Penh for violating the region's cardinal principle. Worse, Hun Sen's intervention worked: Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra was suspended on July 1. At the same time, Myanmar's junta is now trying to derail Timor-Leste's accession to ASEAN with claims that Dili has interfered in its affairs by allowing the anti-junta, shadow National Unity Government (NUG) to set up a representative office in Timor-Leste. But consider another example: In April, the state-run Myanma Oil and Gas Enterprise (MOGE), one of the main financiers of Myanmar's military junta, signed an agreement with Thailand's state-run energy group PTT to expand production of an offshore gas field. Thanks to this deal, MOGE will presumably increase its revenue, and the resulting profits will flow to the military junta and its war efforts. I would genuinely like to hear someone disprove how a Thai state-run company doing business with a state-run company run by one side in a civil war is not Thailand interfering in Myanmar's domestic politics.
I have long thought that ASEAN making non-interference a higher-level principle was a mistake, as it's not only wildly imprecise but also mostly impossible to adhere to. There's an obvious violation when Cambodian leaders call for regime change in a neighboring country. But is allowing residence to an exiled politician from another country a form of intervention? (Interestingly, Hun Sen has recently accused Bangkok of doing that, despite Hun Sen having done the same with Thaksin Shinawatra years ago.) Most Southeast Asian states have claimed neutrality in the Myanmar civil war, yet almost all have sent ministers to discuss economic and trade relations with the junta's ministers.
Subtly, Bangkok has intimated that the Cambodian government and the Myanmar junta's failures to tackle their vast scam industries (one of the root causes of the ongoing Thai-Cambodia border crisis) is a form of intervention in its affairs, given their inaction has resulted in a rise of transnational crimes (most human trafficking and fraud) within Thailand related to their scam industries. And this, Bangkok says, permits Thailand also to intervene, such as by cutting internet access to Myanmar border towns or closing off crossings on the Cambodia border.
One could get even 'deeper' and question whether non-interference is even possible. On most occasions, inaction or neutrality supports the status quo, and thus, not intervening is an indirect form of intervention. If I were to walk down the street and see a 6-foot-4 man punching a 5-foot man, would I be maintaining societal peace by ignoring it and allowing the bigger man to continue delivering a beating? Or would I be passively intervening on the side of the bigger man by not trying to stop the attack? Perhaps it depends on whether I could alter the course of events, but that's only apparent after the fact, and the probable outcome should not influence the ethics.
Yet we live in a world in which accepting the impossibility would be chaotic, for there would be too many things to intervene in. Instead, it requires some discrimination of importance and values. My point, then, is that one must be prepared to redefine definitions and perceptions of non-interference. If the Thai government were to give money to Myanmar's junta, that would be obvious interference. But wrap it up in a business transaction between two state-run companies, and suddenly it becomes perfectly acceptable.
Moreover, tangible interference, such as financial benefits from state-run companies, appears less interventionist than abstract forms, but it shouldn't be the case. Imagine that an ASEAN state came out in direct support of the NUG but merely offered words of encouragement and solidarity. Realistically, that would change nothing on the ground in Myanmar, yet this might be seen as a clear example of interference (as the junta is now alleging against Timor-Leste). Yet Southeast Asia's state-run companies can boost the profits of the junta's businesses, thereby providing hard cash to the junta for its war machine, and nobody bats an eyelid (as in the case of Thailand's state-run firm).
As the norm of non-intervention is being eroded, maybe now's a good time for a rethink about whether ASEAN sticks with the lowest-resolution definition, which has become: Don't criticize the sitting government of another country. It cannot merely be the bubble wrap slogan: if you haven't something nice to say, don't say anything at all.