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Geopolitical rivalries on show as ASEAN hosts annual security gathering
Top diplomats from China, the United States and Russia were among those set to join Friday's ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), where broad-based agendas are typically hijacked by the week's geopolitical flare-ups, offering a theatre for fierce rebukes, superpower squabbles and occasional walk-outs.
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President Joko Widodo greets Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov during the Courtesy Call at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Jakarta, July 14, 2023.
(Reuters/Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana)
F
oreign ministers of two dozen countries meet in Jakarta on Friday with US-China rivalry, the war in Ukraine and North Korean missiles set to dominate roundtable talks in Southeast Asia's annual security gathering.
Top diplomats from China, the United States and Russia were among those set to join Friday's ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), where broad-based agendas are typically hijacked by the week's geopolitical flare-ups, offering a theatre for fierce rebukes, superpower squabbles and occasional walk-outs.
In opening remarks to foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said the gathering aimed to seek solutions rather than exacerbate regional and global problems.
"We, the ASEAN members that are developing, need the understanding, wisdom, support from developed countries, from our neighbouring countries, to leave the zero sum approach and take a win-win solution approach," he said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held "candid and constructive" talks with top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi on Thursday in Jakarta, according to the State Department, the latest in a series of interactions it said are aimed at managing differences between the two superpowers.
US-China sparring dominated last year's ARF, which came a few days after then US house speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan, enraging Beijing, which launched live-fire drills around Taiwan and halted numerous channels of dialogue with Washington.
Thursday's meeting was part of ongoing efforts to keep channels of communication open and "responsibly manage competition by reducing the risk of misperception and miscalculation," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement.
