STRATEGIC ASSESSMENT.-Washington DC. Presidential Secretariat Chief Heru Budi Hartono on Sunday announced President Jokowi will attend a special ASEAN-U.S. summit in Washington, D.C. on May 12 to 13, the first direct meeting between ASEAN leaders and the U.S. President since 2017. Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesperson Teuku Faizasyah said ASEAN leaders and President Joe Biden would discuss various issues, including the COVID-19 pandemic, health cooperation, education, economic recovery acceleration, and regional and global geopolitical challenges.
U.S. President Joe Biden should spend more time with Southeast Asian leaders during a summit in Washington next week if his administration is serious about elevating U.S. ties with the region, where China holds significant sway, a senior Cambodian said on Friday. No individual meetings were currently planned between the region’s leaders and Biden when the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meets with him as a bloc for talks on May 12 and 13, said Kao Kim Hourn, a minister and close adviser to Cambodia’s long-serving Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Kao Kim Hourn said ASEAN leaders “should be treated with respect and equality” and given the chance to spend “useful time” with Biden. Kao Kim Hourn said he believed it was normal practice for the ASEAN chair to meet with the leader of the host country, “whether formally or informally, to have some sort of dialogue.” However, he had been told by the US ambassador to Cambodia, Patrick Murphy, that there was no scheduled bilateral meeting he was aware of as the summit would be long already and because Biden was “busy.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi on her official Twitter account said she had just spoken with the U.N. Special Envoy for Myanmar, Noeleen Heyzer on Wednesday (5/4), discussing the role of women, cooperation for peace, and security in Myanmar.
Asian countries should be cautious and resist any attempts to provoke confrontation in the region, China’s foreign minister told his Cambodian counterpart in the countdown to a Southeast Asian leaders summit in Washington this week.
Speaking with Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn via video link on Sunday, Wang Yi also urged the region to seize the “Asian moment” and take the initiative in global governance as it prepares to host several high-profile multilateral meetings.
The meetings include the BRICS summit in China, the East Asia Summit meetings in Cambodia and the G20 summit in Indonesia. Thailand is also hosting this year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings.
Southeast Asian foreign ministers will meet “unofficially” in Washington on Wednesday to discuss the Myanmar junta reneging on a consensus with ASEAN to move the country back towards democracy, Malaysia’s foreign ministry said.
At the meeting to be held on the eve of a two-day U.S.-ASEAN summit in the American capital, Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah will call for unofficial engagement by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations with Myanmar’s parallel civilian National Unity Government (NUG), the ministry said Monday. “The meeting will be held on the 11th in Washington,” Saifuddin’s press secretary told BenarNews. “It will be held face to face as most leaders will be there.”
The official also confirmed that Saifuddin had told a local newspaper, The Star, that the May 11 meeting was being held unofficially and to discuss the post-coup crisis in Myanmar.
COVID-19 recovery, the Ukraine conflict, and the new Indo-Pacific Economy Framework are likely to top the agenda during the May 12-13 meeting. While the United States government has recently been focused on Russia’s war in Ukraine, it continues to place a strong emphasis on engagement with the Asia-Pacific.
The White House has announced that President Joe Biden will host a special summit with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on May 12-13 in Washington, to demonstrate the U.S. government’s enduring commitment to the Southeast Asian bloc.
The U.S.-ASEAN Special Summit will officially commemorate 45 years of U.S.-ASEAN relations and is an opportunity for Washington to forge a closer bilateral partnership with the regional bloc and counter China’s growing influence in the region.
According to a statement from current ASEAN chair Cambodia, Biden and his Southeast Asian counterparts will discuss several key topics, such as COVID-19, global health security, climate change, and sustainable development. It is also expected that Biden and ASEAN leaders will exchange views on regional and international issues of common interest and concern.
Trade relations, regional security and the Russian invasion of Ukraine will top the agenda when U.S. President Joe Biden hosts the leaders of member countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, at a conference May 12-13.
Eight out of 10 ASEAN leaders will attend the U.S.-ASEAN Special Summit. Missing will be Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who is due to leave office in June, and Myanmar junta leader Min Aung Hlaing, whom ASEAN excluded in a rare rebuke. The military chief led a coup against Myanmar’s elected civilian government in February 2021.
The White House has not released many details about the summit, except to say it will demonstrate the United States’ “enduring commitment” to ASEAN. While the summit is not expected to yield much substance, observers say the symbolism of Biden taking two days to host these leaders while war rages in Ukraine will reaffirm that the Indo-Pacific is still Washington’s priority. Biden will follow up with a trip to Seoul and Tokyo for a Quad Summit later this month.
The White House will host this week the Association of Southeast Asian Nations for a U.S.-ASEAN Special Summit. With the Russia-Ukraine war dominating international attention, the Biden administration has said the summit demonstrates its “enduring commitment” to ASEAN and that the Indo-Pacific region is a U.S. national security priority.
China’s influence and power projection in Southeast Asia will figure prominently into the summit, but the two-day meeting also offers the opportunity to deepen economic relations with ASEAN, a bloc of 10 countries that combined make up the seventh largest economy in the world. A host of other critical issues — from COVID to climate change to the crisis in Myanmar — will also be on the table.
The US president Joe Biden will aim to restore the confidence of ASEAN nations in the US as China continues to make efforts to bring the Indo-Pacific under its sphere of influence this week during the US-ASEAN Summit.
ASEAN members Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, however, do not want to choose between the US and China. The timing of the meeting comes at a time when war on Ukraine continues while Chinese aggressiveness in the South China Sea region threatens to destabilise the region.
China’s trade with ASEAN nations was worth $685 billion in 2020 compared to trade with the US which was worth $362 billion. For Biden, the task is cut out. He has to show that the US can be a better trade partner and better security provider compared to China. The Biden administration has to present the US as a better economic alternative to China despite the pressures it faces in the western hemisphere vis-a-vis the war in Ukraine.
Ahead of this week’s U.S.-ASEAN summit, USIP’s Brian Harding says the Biden administration is “kicking off a really intense period of diplomatic engagement with Asia” with plans to draw a contrast with China and seek cooperation on issues such as climate change and supply chains.
The United States-ASEAN Special Summit on May 12, 2022 will embolden autocratic leaders unless it directly confronts the region’s worsening environment for human rights and democracy, Human Rights Watch said today in a letter to the summit’s host, US President Joseph Biden.
Leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) should also acknowledge the bloc’s failure to achieve progress in addressing the human rights and humanitarian crisis in Myanmar since the February 2021 military coup.
“The Biden administration will need to convince ASEAN’s autocrats at the summit that the alliance’s ultimate future depends on democratic reform,” said John Sifton, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “The US-ASEAN relationship needs to honestly and directly address the region’s deteriorating human rights situation and democratic backsliding.” The growth of autocratic rule in the ASEAN region is occurring amid increasing Chinese government efforts to undermine human rights protections, Human Rights Watch said.
