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ASEAN ministerial meeting should focus on substance, not formality
Ensuring that the SDG Summit is going to be a real success story could be on the top list of the items to be discussed by the foreign ministers gathering these days in Jakarta.
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Get-together: Participants attend the plenary session of the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM) in Jakarta on July 11, 2023. Foreign ministers of the regional grouping discussed current issues, including food and energy security and climate change mitigation. (Antara/Aditya Pradana Putra)
T
he ASEAN Secretariat and the Foreign Ministry are busy right now due to the 56th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM) and related events. The meeting is basically a gathering of the foreign ministers of ASEAN and its dialogue partners, including India, China, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Canada, the United States and the European Union.
This complex mechanism offers the rare opportunity to have almost all the major players (after all Latin America and Africa are not represented) sitting at the same table or in a nearby room.
Will the deliberations bring about some tangible achievements for humanity and for the planet?
Possibly it is high time for a détente among the US, China and the EU.
Even though China suddenly canceled a meeting with Josep Borrell, the EU high representative for foreign affairs and vice president of the European Commission, relationships among these centers of power seem to be destined to be, once again, “normalized”.
The recent visits of high level US officials to Beijing, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and the tour to Europe by the new Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang do offer some hope that the existing tensions, while they are impossible to completely set aside, can give some space for dialogue.
From climate change and biodiversity loss to the rise of artificial intelligence, there are plenty of issues that world powers can focus on.
