Rivalries on display as Southeast Asia hosts annual security talks

JAKARTA, July 14 (Reuters) – Foreign ministers from two dozen countries met in Indonesia on Friday with the US-China rivalry, the war in Ukraine and North Korean missiles dominating talks at the annual security meeting. from Southeast Asia.

Top diplomats from China, the United States and Russia were among those joining Friday’s ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), where broad-based agendas are often hijacked by geopolitical outbursts, offering a stage for fierce rebukes, disputes between superpowers and occasional strikes. .

In opening remarks, host Retno Marsudi, Indonesia’s foreign minister and president of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), said the forum should “move to the next stage of preventive diplomacy.”

“The escalating rivalry continues to divide the region. Our region is also home to numerous potential hotspots. This challenge is getting more complicated,” he said.

“This complexity requires us to better manage potential conflicts. We have to use the ARF as a vehicle to aggressively achieve peace, preventing any potential conflicts from arising in the region.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with ASEAN and, in subsequent remarks, called for peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific, Taiwan Straits, and Ukraine. He also chastised North Korea for this week’s release of its latest intercontinental ballistic missile Hwasong-18.

“We need to work together to end North Korea’s illegal weapons of mass destruction program and ballistic missile launches, yet another this week, that threaten the region and the global non-proliferation regime,” he said.

Blinken held what the State Department called “frank and constructive” talks with senior Chinese diplomat Wang Yi on Thursday, the latest in a series of interactions it said were aimed at managing differences between the two great powers.

Wang had told Blinken that “a rational and pragmatic attitude” was key to getting their relations on the right track.

US-China combat tarnished FRA last yearwhich came a few days after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, angering Beijing, which launched live-fire drills around the self-governing island and cut off several channels of dialogue with washington.

On Thursday, Chinese warplanes monitored a US Navy patrol plane flying through the sensitive Taiwan Strait as China conducted military exercises south of the island, it says.

NO PLAN FOR LAVROV TO CONTACT US

The closed-door ARF brings together the foreign ministers of Australia, Japan, Britain, India, South Korea, China, the United States and more.

Among them was Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who confirmed that he had no plans to contact US officials in Jakarta, according to his spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova.

China’s Wang met with Lavrov, saying the two sides will “strengthen strategic communication and coordination.”

Lavrov gave a interview this week saying the war in Ukraine would not end until the West “gives up its plans to preserve its dominance,” including its “obsessive desire” to strategically defeat Russia.

On Friday, Blinken called for a “just and lasting peace for Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine.”

Western nations at the forum are expected to condemn Myanmar’s ruling army for its alleged atrocities against civilians, while the junta cracks down on its opponents and deploys fighter jets and heavy artillery to drive out pro-democracy fighters.

ASEAN member Myanmar has been barred from the bloc’s meetings over the junta’s failure to honor a two-year agreement with the group to end hostilities and start dialogue, testing unity. of ASEAN.

The bloc late on Thursday “strongly condemned the continued acts of violence, including airstrikes, artillery shelling and destruction of public facilities” in a statement issued more than 30 hours after the foreign ministers wrapped up their meeting, a delay that in previous years has indicated discord.

Written by Martin Petty; edited by Michael Perry, Robert Birsel

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