WASHINGTON: The United States said on Monday (Aug 2) that Myanmar’s junta was playing for time with a two-year election timeframe as Secretary of State Antony Blinken prepared to encourage ASEAN to appoint an envoy.

Blinken is participating virtually in a week of talks involving foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the latest bid by President Joe Biden’s administration to engage a region at the frontlines of US competition with China.

Ahead of the ASEAN talks, Myanmar’s junta chief promised to hold elections and lift a state of emergency by August 2023, extending an initial timeline given when the military deposed elected leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb 1.

The announcement is “a call for ASEAN to have to step up its effort because it’s clear that the Burmese junta is just stalling for time and wants to keep prolonging the calendar to its own advantage”, said a senior US official, using Myanmar’s former name of Burma.

“All the more reason why ASEAN has to engage on this and live up and uphold the terms of the five-point consensus that Myanmar also signed up to.”

READ: Myanmar military ruler pledges elections, cooperation with ASEAN

READ: What’s happening in Myanmar, six months after the coup?

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the military’s announcement is “not taking us in the right direction”.

“It’s moving us further away from what we have been calling for, member states have been calling for, which is a return to democratic rule, a release of all … political prisoners, a halt on the violence and the crackdown,” he said.

He called the situation six months after the takeover “precarious” and worsening as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, with wider implications “threatening regional stability”.

“The protracted crisis has impacted humanitarian access to people in need, as well as education, health, and the fight against COVID-19,” Dujarric said. “It has also, of course, affected the basic rights of the people of Myanmar to express themselves and have a government that represents them.”

“For us, a unified international response remains paramount.”

Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing attended a meeting with ASEAN members on the crisis in April that led to the so-called consensus statement that called for an immediate end to violence and a regional special envoy.

But the junta leader later distanced himself from the statement, no envoy has been appointed and more than 900 people have been reported killed in the six-month crackdown on dissent.

ASEAN is not known for its collective diplomatic clout and its meetings have frequently pitted the United States and China against each other as they seek influence.

READ: Myanmar junta cancels results of 2020 polls won by Aung San Suu Kyi’s party
READ: Myanmar should return to democratically elected government, says UK

The US official said Blinken would address Beijing’s “coercion” against ASEAN nations in the dispute-rife South China Sea and also highlight human rights concerns within China.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Southeast Asia last week, where he hammered in on the South China Sea, saying Beijing’s claims had no basis in international law.

Vice President Kamala Harris plans this month to visit historic US partner Singapore as well as Vietnam, which has moved increasingly close to Washington despite war memories.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi is expected to meet Blinken in person in Washington this week, while Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman earlier visited Indonesia and Thailand as well as Cambodia – often seen as the most pro-Beijing ASEAN nation.

The first batch of 117,600 doses arrived late February and was distributed to priority groups reflective of Vietnam’s “zero COVID-19” standing. Healthcare workers, customs officers, diplomats, military personnel, police, tourist workers and teachers were given higher priority than people over 65 or those with chronic health problems at the highest risk of dying from the virus.

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DELTA VARIANT CHANGED EVERYTHING

The emergence of the Delta variant in Vietnam at the end of April 2021 changed everything. The World Health Organization estimates that Delta is 55 per cent more transmissible than Alpha, which was itself around 50 per cent more transmissible than the original virus.

Interventions that previously curbed community spread became inadequate to control outbreaks. Initially, Vietnam managed to suppress localised outbreaks of Delta in Hanoi and Bac Giang province.

READ: Commentary: Southeast Asia is buckling under a second year of COVID-19

Yet, despite escalating restrictions, cases continued to increase across the country. Between late April and late July 2021, Vietnam recorded over 120,000 cases in 61 of its 63 localities and over 800 deaths, Ho Chi Minh City being the worst affected.

This outbreak, and a shortfall in AstraZeneca supply, forced a rapid change in vaccine policy. Within weeks, Sputnik V, Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Sinopharm and Johnson & Johnson were approved for emergency use.

Through swiftly negotiated contracts, foreign aid and the global vaccine access mechanism COVAX, Vietnam has now successfully ordered 125 million doses as it strives to vaccinate 70 per cent of its population by May 2022.

Earlier reluctance to enter the global vaccine market has meant Vietnam is further back in the queue than its neighbours, and most promised doses won’t arrive until at least the last quarter of this year.

GLACIAL VACCINE ROLLOUT

While cases mount, vaccine rollout proceeds at a glacial pace. Vietnam lags behind all other ASEAN member states. By late July 2021, just 0.5 per cent of the population are fully vaccinated and 4.7 per cent have received one dose, in contrast to Cambodia with a single-dose rate of 42 per cent, and both Thailand and Indonesia at over 16 per cent.

Until recently the issue was strictly supply, but a succession of donations in July – while the health service scrambled to deal with its first major outbreak – has seen doses pile up. Vietnam has used only 5.3 million of 14.8 million doses received so far.

Once distributed, uptake appears to be good. The government earned trust from its earlier successful handling of the pandemic, and there is little of the anti-AstraZeneca sentiment which has hampered vaccine rollout in Australia.

As the health crisis escalates, vaccine priority is changing. Doses originally earmarked for tourist workers on Vietnam’s islands are being directed to older, vulnerable populations in the worst-affected locations, prioritising saving lives over rebooting the tourist sector.

In coming months, Vietnam will commence manufacturing Sputnik V and, thanks to a progressive technology transfer from the United States, construction has started on a factory that aims to produce a further 200 million vaccine doses in the first half of 2022.

Vietnam’s Nanocovax has also entered phase 3 trials, raising hope for domestic self-sufficiency in years to come.

But with the Delta variant now firmly established, the economy strangled by lockdowns, and the health system approaching capacity, Vietnam needs to prioritise import and distribution of existing vaccines above all else. Millions of lives and livelihoods depend on it.

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Barnaby Flower is a Clinical Research Fellow at the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit, Ho Chi Minh City. This commentary first appeared on East Asia Forum.