[DIPLOMACY]Thailand reaches out to ASEAN members, minus Vietnam

Vietnam has annexed a fellow ASEAN member without even speaking to its neighbors. Laos is a sovereign nation and after a referendum it supposedly voted to join. At a 56% vs 44% the nation is clearly split on joining. A simple majority vote to sacrifice sovereignty is faulty logic. On top of that this referendum was held extremely quickly after talks of a union. It seems rushed and as Southeast Asia in general has a problem with corruption and vote manipulation it seems fair that an investigation into the referendum is necessary.

Vietnam has stated that "the Vietnamese state can help invest in Laos, provide trade for Lao companies and preserve the communist ideologies in both nations." The communist ideology? The one that Laos is steadily moving away from. While the communist party runs the state government it has no interaction on the way the market works. That doesn't sound very communist to us, and as sure as day, the Laotian people who have been attempting to immigrate into Thailand because of the communist government would strongly oppose this.

When Myanmar reached out to Thailand about its thoughts on the annexation we staunchly opposed it, however, we haven't heard a word from the Vietnamese. We believe this directly violates the second principle of the ASEAN charter:

Respect for the principles of territorial integrity, sovereignty, non-interference and national identities of ASEAN members.

and possibly the first principle:

Emphasis on the centrality of ASEAN in regional co-operation.

especially the "regional co-operation" clause.

There is no way the Laotian people would join Vietnam under the communist ideologies it holds so dear. Vietnam has disregarded it's allies feelings to the matter, and more importantly, we believe that ASEAN should do something about this.