ASEAN Summit concludes with fruitful result despite US interference

Global Times Headline

Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Wednesday took a test ride on the Jakarta-Bandung High-Speed Railway—a BRI project. Photo: Xinhua

Stranded in transit with a broken jet in Denver awaiting a new plane allows me to update the ASEAN outcome, which seems positive despite the attempts to destabilize it. Here’s part of the article having the above headline:

Despite rising uncertainties globally and external interference, the 43rd ASEAN Summit concluded on Thursday with a series of outcomes in Jakarta, Indonesia. Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Thursday called for unity and promoting cooperation in East Asia, and expressed hope that countries outside the region fully respect the efforts made by regional countries to negotiate the rules of the South China Sea and maintain peace and stability in the region. 

"Within three days, 12 summits have been held, resulting in 90 outcome documents and a number of concrete agreements with partners," Indonesian President Joko Widodo said while addressing the closing ceremony of the summit.

"We must hand in hand navigate the challenges to be opportunities, navigate the rivalries to be collaborations, navigate exclusivity to be inclusivity and navigate differences to be unity," Widodo said.

Numerous documents were adopted at the summit, including the ASEAN Concord IV and ASEAN Leaders' Declaration on ASEAN as Epicentrum of Growth.

Against the backdrop of the US seeking to create divisions and tensions in the Asia Pacific region through the South China Sea issue, Premier Li Qiang on Thursday urged the East Asia Summit, a multilateral gathering during the ASEAN Summit, to stick to its own role and play a greater part in helping achieve long-term stability and lasting prosperity in the region in the face of the new situation and challenges.

With more geopolitical issues under the spotlight, the 18-nation gathering is hosted by ASEAN as part of the leaders' meetings on East Asia cooperation. Besides the ASEAN members, it brought together leaders from eight dialogue partners: China, US, Russia, Japan, India, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand.  

Analysts said that the US, as a country outside the region, is trying to undermine the unity and integration of the Asia Pacific and create more turbulence. As a close neighbor of ASEAN countries, China has long been the engine of development, stability and smooth cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region. Regional countries need to stay on high alert against US hegemony and prevent the US from creating new crises in the Asia-Pacific.

Further analysis followed the above intro. There was just a short media note issued earlier today by Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs about Lavrov’s participation. Perhaps more will be provided tomorrow. Global Times also issued a critical editorial denouncing Outlaw US Empire media:

Despite US President Joe Biden's well-calculated absence from the 43rd ASEAN Summit and related meetings held in Jakarta, Indonesia, some US media outlets wasted no chance to push for US agendas in the region.

On Thursday, VOA Chinese published an article entitled "China showing off its map before ASEAN Summit forces ASEAN and India to get closer." The article cited so-called observers and claimed that China's deliberate issue of a controversial new edition of the national map would enhance security and economic ties between India and ASEAN. 

Some Chinese analysts reached by the Global Times believe that the US media intentionally stirred up tensions by exploiting the ASEAN Summit and China's launch of the new map. On August 28, China's Ministry of Natural Resources released the 2023 edition of the standard national map. China's claims haven't changed, and its stance on the South China Sea issue with certain ASEAN member states has been consistent, which is "putting aside disputes and seeking joint development." It makes no sense to claim that China's new map is a timed move to provoke ASEAN or other South China Sea claimants.

Nonetheless, the US media took it as a chance to link the issue with the ASEAN Summit, in a bid to stir up the currently peaceful South China Sea situation and incite regional countries to provoke and take a tough stance against China. This was done with the intention of pulling ASEAN into the orbit of the US Indo-Pacific Strategy to contain China. 

Reissue an old map and the sleeping media thinks it’s new and controversial, although some of the sources cited are USG publications. The editorial also voices some other well-grounded complaints. Meanwhile, a curious op/ed appeared in RT by Kanwal Sibal, former Indian foreign secretary and India’s ambassador to Russia, “Globalization destroyed: G20 meeting in India signals the death of Western multilateralism: The West is violating the logic of multilateralism by pushing unilateral sanctions to achieve political objectives against adversaries.” If the West decides to withdraw into a shell, does multilateralism die? Well, over 150 nations remain if the West decides to jump ship, which it’s doing. Jumping out of the boat of nations will actually allow those remaining to rekindle many principles the West has killed since 1945. The author argues globalization is being reversed, but clearly that’s not the case as the recent spat of Summits proves. What’s disappearing—too slowly to be sure—are the Globalists and their cabal who were all about domination not multilateralism.

TASS has a short item citing Lavrov who confirms China’s view that the West tried to undermine the series of ASEAN Summits:

"As for the attempts to Ukrainianize anything and everything, which are being made by our Western colleagues, these attempts are increasingly tiring for countries that want to engage in concrete affairs rather than support propaganda in favor of the Kiev regime," Sergey Lavrov stressed….

"The 'Western collective' with the participation of some of their partners from the Asian part of this summit tried every possible way to undermine the constructive work, using various pretexts to raise the Ukrainian issue at one angle or another," he said….

The minister also stated that attempts to undermine the work of the summit were stopped and it was made reaffirmed that "the East Asia summits will continue to pursue their previously agreed agenda, which does not include problems of geopolitical scale <...> and does not deal with the settlement of any crisis and conflict situations."

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