Myanmar and Timor-Leste quarrel

The conventional account of why Timor-Leste’s membership of ASEAN is good for regional security goes something like this: Timor-Leste is a young, post-conflict, least-developed country. Membership of the region’s premier regional grouping will give it access to economic opportunities, including trade and international assistance which flows to ASEAN as a group. It will also prevent Timor-Leste from being an orphan country – closer to Pacific Island countries in its level of development, but with a strong Southeast Asian identity. While Southeast Asian countries are highly diverse, ASEAN membership requires them to think not only of national interest, but of a wider regional interest.

A new falling out between Myanmar and Timor-Leste calls this conventional wisdom into question. Because while much analysis at the time of Dili’s accession to ASEAN in late 2025 focused on the development divide between Timor-Leste and other ASEAN members, what might have been overlooked is that the group’s new member has a very different international personality from the other ASEANs.

This early stoush sends one clear message: Timor-Leste may be in ASEAN, but its leadership will not quickly assimilate the political culture of the group.

This different personality has been on show in recent weeks when Timor-Leste appointed a prosecutor to investigate crimes committed by the Myanmar junta against Myanmar’s ethnic Chin minority. This act has led Myanmar to expel Timor-Leste’s senior most diplomat.

This expulsion has a precedent. In 2023, Myanmar expelled Timor-Leste’s top diplomat because of Dili’s engagement with the National Unity Government (the NUG, Myanmar’s government in exile) which went further than that of other ASEAN members who engaged only more quietly. Resenting Dili’s approach, Myanmar tried to block the country from joining ASEAN, but was ultimately outweighed by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, the group’s energetic chair in 2025.

The ISEAS State of Southeast Asia Survey in 2025 showed that respondents from Timor-Leste placed a much higher priority on the Myanmar crisis than any other ASEAN country (except Myanmar itself). Respondents also supported independent dialogue with all sides rather than non-interference as the primary response to the conflict, and in responding to other survey questions, respondents from Timor-Leste were less concerned about the principle of non-interference than those from other ASEAN countries.

It’s not hard to guess why: a country that suffered occupation and that owes its subsequent independence to international intervention and a UN peacekeeping mission will have a different outlook than, for example, Vietnam, whose national narrative emphasises sovereignty and self-reliance in liberating itself from historical occupiers.

This early stoush sends one clear message: Timor-Leste may be in ASEAN, but its leadership will not quickly assimilate the political culture of the group. Smaller ASEAN countries – and it’s worth recapping just how small Timor-Leste is, with a population of just 1.4 million – have tended to align themselves with consensus positions in the group. But not so Timor-Leste.

It’s hard to predict how these clashing political cultures will play out, but it’s unlikely to permeate most issues on the ASEAN agenda. According to reports, Timor-Leste has not participated in South China Sea Code of Conduct talks in 2026, suggesting it is likely only on issues prioritised by Dili’s political leadership that the country will take a prominent role. In practical terms, Timor-Leste is expected to struggle to service the volume of ASEAN meetings and processes, meaning that its foreign ministry will need to be selective about the issues it chooses to take on.

On the other hand, observers who would like ASEAN to change – to be more forthright, more supportive of democracy and human rights, and less deferential to process and diplomatic customs – might hope that Dili’s accession will shake the group up.

The article appeared in the lowyinstitute