The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit, the latest glimpse of a busy diplomatic succession in the region, opened in Bangkok on Friday, November 18, amid the war in Ukraine and North Korean missiles.
It is the first face-to-face meeting since 2018 for the leaders of the 21 member states, who are due to exchange by Saturday. Their agenda is dominated by the economic consequences of the conflict in Ukraine, which countries in the South regret by not condemning the Russian invasion, and questions of regional stability between North Korea and recurring disputes in the South China Sea.
Just before the summit began, Pyongyang fired a new missile that Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said appeared to have landed in the sea in Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The latter had a discussion with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday “serious concerns” About the situation in the East China Sea, where Tokyo regularly complains about Beijing’s activity around the Senkaku Islands.
“No Man’s Garden”
The Chinese leader, in turn, claimed that the Asia-Pacific “It was nobody’s garden.” In a written speech at an economic summit on the sidelines of Apec, a veiled allusion to its American rival, also based in the region. In Bangkok, where he continues his diplomatic marathon that began at the G20, Xi Jinping leads in the absence of his American counterpart Joe Biden, who is in Washington for the wedding of his granddaughter and represented by the vice president. President Kamala Harris. The guests of the summit are Emmanuel Macron and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, the French president called on the Asia-Pacific countries to join it on Friday “growing consensus” against the Ukrainian war, emphasizing that this war was also “their problem”. “France’s number one priority is to promote peace in Ukraine and try to have a global dynamic to put pressure on Russia.”, he announced at the APEC Economic Leaders Summit. He counts “To work very closely with China, India, the whole region, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America to build a growing consensus; “This war is also your problem.”
Opening the dialogues, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-O-Cha spoke about the climate. “We must cooperate in order to reduce the consequences (from climate change, editor’s note) and protect our world. We can’t live like we lived in the past.”, he announced. The Apec summit closes ten days of intense diplomatic engagement in Southeast Asia, following the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Phnom Penh and the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia.
Source: Le Figaro
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