Burma’s expected return to the international fold will see it play a crucial role smoothing diplomatic relations in the region as Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) chair in 2014—especially concerning maritime boundary disputes in the South China Sea, according to experts. “China has already succeeded in getting [current Asean chair] Cambodia to keep the South China Sea off the formal [Asean] agenda,” said Carl Thayer, a politics professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia. “But that will not prevent concerned states such as the Philippines from raising maritime security issues.”
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