Imperious and Divisive Role of U.S. at East Asia Summit
The East Asia Summit (EAS) took place on November 13 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, as part of this year's ASEAN summit. Participants included the ASEAN member countries plus Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea (ROK), the United States and the Russian Federation. This year's EAS included the EU as a guest, with Ukraine also participating for the first time.
ASEAN describes the EAS as "a premier Leaders-led forum for dialogue and cooperation on broad strategic, political, and economic issues of common interest and concern with the aim of promoting peace, stability, and economic prosperity in East Asia." It has six priority areas of cooperation: environment and energy, education, finance, global health issues and pandemic diseases, natural disaster management, and ASEAN Connectivity.
Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen, in his openings remarks to the EAS, called for unity, respect and multilateralism, saying current global tensions have created hardships for everyone. He said he hoped leaders would embrace a "spirit of togetherness in upholding open and inclusive multilateralism, pragmatism and mutual respect in addressing the existential and strategic challenges we all face."
Despite Cambodia setting the tone for the summit, the EAS ended without a joint statement due to disagreements between Russia and the United States because of the latter's imposition of its anti-Russia agenda on the proceedings.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the press at the end of the working sessions that the U.S. and its allies insisted in using language about the situation in Ukraine that he called "totally unacceptable." He referred to the intervention of the U.S. and NATO in the Asia-Pacific region as promoting formats that go against the inclusive structures under the umbrella of ASEAN, and that this interference leads to militarization of this region in order to check China and Russia's interests. He noted that other countries like New Zealand, Canada, Japan, Australia and the UK are becoming embroiled in these activities.
Some notable meetings took place on the sidelines of the EAS, in which the narrow and divisive agenda of the U.S. was made evident.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and U.S. President Joe Biden had a closed-door bilateral meeting. The White House reported, in its usual imperious manner, that Biden lectured China about "the need to respect freedom of navigation and overflight in the East China and South China seas," as well as saying that the U.S. would "compete vigorously" with China and "speak out regarding the PRC's human rights abuses, while also keeping lines of communication open and ensuring competition does not veer into conflict." In practice, the supposed distinction that the U.S. makes between competition and conflict takes the form of breaching its agreement with China to respect the One-China principle, naval brinkmanship in the Taiwan Strait, in which Canada is now taking part, and aggressive economic measures against China. None of these activities conform to established norms of diplomacy, through which peace is maintained and differences resolved through negotiations. Nor do they have the aim of avoiding conflict or ensuring security and stability in the region.
The U.S. and its military allies Japan and the ROK also met during the EAS. Recent meetings of these three countries have the aim of establishing an aggressive Asian war alliance akin to NATO, and stepping up war preparations against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).
Following their meeting, they issued a statement that hailed "the unprecedented level of trilateral coordination" they had achieved, vowing to forge even closer ties, especially in the military sphere. This is all part of spreading disinformation about the DPRK to deny the fact that its development of its nuclear deterrent and self-defensive weaponry is due to relentless U.S. aggression and sabotage of peace negotiations since the end of the Korean War.
On the basis of such disinformation the statement goes on to justify the unacceptable presence of U.S. nuclear arms in Asia and more generally the necessity for Japan, the ROK and the U.S. to form a military bloc in Asia. The U.S. is responsible for introducing nuclear arms into the Korean Peninsula, which the ROK has hosted for decades, while the late Shinzo Abe, a leading proponent of the remilitarization of Japan, earlier this year called for Japan to also consider hosting U.S. nuclear weapons.
The statement says, "President Biden reiterated that the U.S. commitment to defend Japan and the ROK is ironclad and backed by the full range of capabilities, including nuclear. As the regional security environment grows more challenging, President Biden reaffirms that the U.S. commitment to reinforce extended deterrence to Japan and the ROK will only strengthen. Our recent joint exercises demonstrate our resolve to maintain peace and stability and defend the rules-based international order." The rest of the statement continues in a similar self-serving vein.
On the previous day, Biden stated that ASEAN is at the heart of the U.S. Asia policy "and promised closer collaboration on major regional challenges" including the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, where the U.S. has no claim yet gives itself the right to intervene as world gendarme.
Indonesia takes over as ASEAN chair in 2023 and Indonesian President Joko Widodo told the EAS that in taking up the chair, Indonesia would not let Southeast Asia become the front lines of a new cold war and would not let ASEAN become "a proxy to any powers."
(With files from news agencies, ASEAN, White House.)
This article was published in
Volume 52 Number 8 - November 2022
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2022/Articles/MS520814.HTM
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