So far so good, but...

THE Malaysia-brokered ceasefire on the Thai-Cambodian border began with all the right signals, following deadly clashes for all the wrong reasons.

Both sides showed maturity in accepting Malaysia’s role and acknowledging the Asean Chair’s peacemaking obligations. With more maturity and wisdom, they would have avoided the clashes altogether.

Thailand and Cambodia have also recognised the important stabilising roles of the US and China as privileged observers in the talks. The series of closed meetings in Kuala Lumpur in recent days has seen participation by the five countries exclusively.

To Malaysia, the warring neighbours readily agreed to its key role because of its stability. There are other reasons, besides Malaysia being Asean Chair.

It would have been clear to Bangkok and Phnom Penh that their bloody clashes served no purpose other than causing mutual harm. Regardless of the circumstances in their latest conflict, neither side could score any win over the other.

If there had been any prospect of a perceived gain in continuing the fighting, agreement to the talks would not have been swift or clear. Obviously there was none.

Both sides are commendably abiding by the “immediate and unconditional ceasefire” of July 28, but reality forces any success to be limited. Even the best outcome from last Thursday’s General Border Committee meeting can address only a cessation of the current round of conflict, not the long-entrenched border dispute that produced it.

This dispute has flared repeatedly, in military or diplomatic form, such as in 2011, 2008 and 1962, stretching back to the European colonial era in South-East Asia. No set of talks in recent memory has been conceived or equipped to settle the dispute that continues to erupt sporadically in open conflict.

Cambodia under French influence had the border with Siam delineated, misdelineated or undelineated until today. This was coupled with Siam’s weak relations with Britain that failed to offer a countervailing influence to France at the time.

The colonial missteps of the past remain to haunt Thailand, Cambodia and the relations between them. Both countries learnt too late not to trust any imperial power to safeguard their sovereign national interest or future.

The agreements reached this time include an investigation into the causes of the latest conflict. But so long as the border dispute over how much of which land belongs to whom and where remains unresolved, it is not clear if any probe result would be useful or even mutually acceptable.

Cambodia and Thailand can agree to stop fighting this time. After all, to continue a no-win battle and lose in every conceivable way makes no sense to either country.

That may be important enough in saving lives, as the ceasefire is said to do. However, nobody can prevent, predict or pre-empt another round of conflict in future.

Operationally, the ceasefire requires both countries to observe five basic conditions: ceasing use of all classes of weapons, no forward troop deployments, no troop reinforcements, no military provocations or spread of misinformation, and adherence to international humanitarian law covering prisoners of war and war dead.

The governments of both countries should have little problem observing these conditions, but the military situation on the ground tends to be edgier. Much depends on the political leadership, and this is where the asymmetries between Thailand and Cambodia may present challenges.

There is no physical or kinetic contest between Thailand and Cambodia, such is Bangkok’s hulking presence and Phnom Penh’s military weakness. It is Goliath and David where slingshots no longer count.

Thai military personnel outnumber Cambodia’s three to one, its mechanised armour overwhelms its neighbour’s, and the difference in air power is almost all to nothing. Thai forces may be tempted to regard a war with Cambodia as little more than a provincial skirmish.

On the political front, however, the imbalance is reversed. Cambodian strongman Hun Sen and his son Prime Minister Hun Manet remain firmly in control.

In Thailand, a suspended Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and her political clan appear to be on the ropes – again. Nobody outside the Shinawatra camp seems keen to bet on its future, not even to serve out its full term.

The intrigue in the relations between the two families, once very close, may not be unrelated to the rupture in relations between their countries. But divining their national futures from these personal journeys may be a fool’s errand.

For Asean at least, it may be enough that a deadly border conflict tipped to escalate exponentially has now been averted. The US and China have also shown that with the Asean Chair, they can come together productively and speedily for peace.

For conflicts elsewhere, this can be a working formula with the regional leadership that justifies the status of being superpowers. But would Washington and Beijing embark on this journey?

Bunn Nagara is Director and Senior Fellow at the Renaissance Strategic Research Institute, and Honorary Fellow at the Perak Academy. The views expressed here are solely his own.