Hong Kong CNN —
World leaders are converging on Phnom Penh this weekend for the first of a series of international summits in Southeast Asia next week, where major-power divisions and clashes threaten to overshadow the talks.
The first stop is the Cambodian capital, where leaders from across the Indo-Pacific will meet together with an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders’ summit, followed by a meeting of Group of 20 leaders next week. (G20) in Bali and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Bangkok.
The stacked diplomatic line-up will be a test of the international appetite for coordination on issues such as climate change, global inflation and rising food prices due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic – and the first time that all three events have been held in person since the outbreak began in 2020.
Sharp geopolitical divisions of a kind not seen in decades are evident in this political calendar, as the war in Ukraine has fundamentally changed Russia’s relationship with the West, the world’s top two economies, the US and China, remain locked in intensifying competition and the the rest of the world is pressured to pick a side.
Whether Russian leader Vladimir Putin will appear during the diplomatic dates remains uncertain. Both US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping are expected to attend two of the summits in Southeast Asia – a region that has long been ground zero for influence between Beijing and Washington.
Xi is re-emerging on the world stage after years without travel during the pandemic, having secured a third term in office, while Biden is headed east from his party’s better-than-expected performance in the US midterm elections. Both are expected to present their country as a stronger partner and more responsible global player than the other.
The two will meet face-to-face on Monday on the sidelines of the G20, their first face-to-face meeting since Biden’s election, the White House announced Thursday. Beijing on Friday confirmed Xi’s travel plans to the G20 and APEC summits and said he would hold bilateral meetings with Biden and several other leaders.
Talks between the two could help avoid an escalation of tensions between the powers. But for leaders meeting during the series of summits in the coming days, forging strong agreements to tackle global issues – already a tough deal at the best of times – will be a challenge.
Even the most regional of the meetings, the ASEAN summit of Southeast Asian leaders — which began in Phnom Penh on Friday and is scheduled to address strengthening regional stability as well as global challenges — will reflect fractured global politics. , say the experts.
But unlike other major meetings, which may be more focused on the fallout from the war in Ukraine, ASEAN leaders enter the summit and related meetings this weekend under pressure to deal with a spiraling conflict within the bloc. them: as Myanmar remains in turmoil and under military rule nearly two years after a brutal coup toppled the democratically elected government.
Differences among Southeast Asian countries over how to handle this conflict, exacerbated by their intersecting commitments to major powers — and the bloc’s reluctance to appear to be taking sides between the U.S. and China — will affect how much it can the group agreed. and what it can achieve across the gamut of summits, experts say.
“Normally this season would be very exciting – you have three major global summits in Southeast Asia – Phnom Penh, Bali and Bangkok,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University’s School of Political Science. in Bangkok.
“But (ASEAN) is very divided over Russian aggression, the Myanmar coup crisis, China’s military aggression in the South China Sea and so on, and that means ASEAN is in bad shape,” he said.
In a United Nations vote last month, seven of the 10 ASEAN countries, including the representative of Myanmar, which is not backed by the ruling military, condemned Russia’s annexation of four regions of Ukraine, while Thailand, Laos and Vietnam they were away.
But ASEAN as a bloc also took a step to tighten ties with Kyiv at this week’s events, signing a friendship and cooperation treaty with Ukraine at a ceremony with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba in Phnom Penh on Thursday.
The bloc aims to use consensus among its states as its strength when bringing bigger global players to the table, for example at the neighboring East Asia summit which brings together 18 Indo-Pacific countries, including Russia, China and the United States , and also meets this weekend.
“If ASEAN cannot put its house in order, if ASEAN cannot rein in a rogue member like Myanmar’s military regime, then ASEAN loses its relevance,” Pongsudhirak said. “On the other hand, if ASEAN is united, if it can muster commitment and decide … it can have a lot of pulling power.”
Nearly two years since a military coup crushed Myanmar’s fledgling democracy, rights groups and observers say freedoms and rights in the country have deteriorated sharply. State executions have returned and the number of documented violent attacks by the ruling military junta on civilian infrastructure, including schools, has increased.
Numerous armed rebel groups have emerged against the ruling military junta, while millions of people have resisted its rule through forms of civil disobedience.
The weekend summits in Phnom Penh will bring the conflict back into the international spotlight as Southeast Asian leaders try to find a way forward after Myanmar’s ruling junta failed to implement a peace plan negotiated in April last year . The country remains part of ASEAN, despite calls by rights groups to expel him, but has been banned from sending political-level representatives to major events.
ASEAN foreign ministers made a last-ditch effort to come up with a strategy late last month, with Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn chairing the meeting, stressing in a statement afterward that the challenges stemmed from the “complexity and difficulty of Myanmar’s decades-long protracted conflict, which has been further exacerbated by the current political crisis.’
But observers have low expectations for a harder line, at least while Cambodia chairs the bloc, and are already looking ahead to next year, when Indonesia will take over in 2023.
Addressing the “ongoing crisis” will be a focus for Biden in talks with Southeast Asian leaders as he attends ASEAN summits over the weekend, the White House said on Tuesday. Since the coup, the Biden administration has launched targeted sanctions against the military regime and held meetings with the opposition Government of National Unity.
China, on the other hand, has shown support for the ruling military junta and is unlikely to back tough action, observers say. A months-long inquiry into the situation in Myanmar released by an international group of parliamentarians last month accused Russia and China of “providing weapons and legitimacy to an otherwise isolated regime”.
That, too, could have an impact on the results this weekend, according to political scientist Chong Ja Ian, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore.
“Because of Russian and (Chinese) support for the junta, any attempts at a solution from ASEAN would require some form of engagement with them, whether it’s a buyout or just non-opposition,” Chong said.
The crisis in Myanmar is not the only area where the US-China divide could arise at ASEAN summits, even as issues such as China’s aggression in the South China Sea – where Beijing asserts territorial claims that conflict with those of many Southeast Asian countries – may be less important this year.
ASEAN will hold the usual side summits with both the US and China respectively, as well as other countries, and China’s number two leader, economy-focused Premier Li Keqiang arrived earlier this week as Xi’s representative.
As Southeast Asian leaders seek to shore up their economic stability, they are likely to raise concerns about the impact of US-China competition on the region, its trade and supply chains, for example following the ban on US semiconductor exports in China, according to Chong.
“ASEAN states will try to find some way to navigate all of this and will look to both Beijing and Washington to see what kind of leeway they can offer,” he said.
