US-China tensions set to dominate Southeast Asia summit
09 September, 2020
US-China rivalry is defined to dominate discussions as the foreign ministers of 10 Southeast Parts of asia start an online summit on Wednesday (Sep 9), with Washington's top diplomat ready to take aim at Beijing's "bullying" in the South China Sea.
The summit comes just days after China launched ballistic missiles in the flashpoint waters as part of live-fire exercises and as Washington and Beijing clash over a variety of issues from trade to the coronavirus.
Ministers will be joined by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi because of their first summit because the US announced sanctions on Chinese companies over Beijing's construction of artificial islands in the disputed waters.
The resource-rich South China Sea is claimed in its entirety by Beijing but can be contested by Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.
A brand new spat between China and the Philippines over Scarborough Shoal - among the region's richest fishing grounds - also hangs over the talks.
"The Chinese Communist Party is engaged in a clear and intensifying pattern of bullying its neighbours," Pompeo said ahead of the summit.
Tensions over the Korean Peninsula will also be high on the agenda. Talks between Pyongyang and Washington on North Korea's nuclear arsenal have already been stalled because the collapse of a Hanoi summit between leader Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump this past year.
The COVID-19 pandemic is set to feature heavily in discussions, after Vietnam, the existing chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), warned at a gathering in June that the fallout from the virus had swept away years of economical gains in your community.
Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said in opening remarks that "people and enterprises suffer from huge losses" and "the geopolitical environment, regional economy, including that of the East Sea (South China Sea), are experiencing several upheavals, influencing peace and stability".
The "power rivalry" between your US and China will probably steal the limelight, a senior Southeast Asian diplomat told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"AMERICA and China will probably utilize the meetings as a platform to throw everything at one another," he said.
Smaller countries will "say their usual lines" and take cover as Washington and Beijing fight, he added.
Friction between your two powers has already been high over trade, blame for the coronavirus pandemic and China's policies in Hong Kong, where Beijing has imposed a national security law.
Addititionally there is angst that the virus may have provided cover for China to create new plays in the South China Sea.
Zachary Abuza, an expert on Southeast Asian politics at the National War College in Washington, said there was unlikely to be much progress in talks over the disputed waters.
"China has effectively used COVID-19 assistance and promises of vaccines - and trials in the Philippines and Indonesia - to essentially make an effort to quash any diplomatic momentum towards a discussion of the South China Sea," he told AFP.
Source: