Dhaka Bureau: World leaders are now rushing to Phnom Penh, Cambodia to attend the first of several international conferences to be held in Southeast Asia in the next few days. World leaders will make their first stop at the summit of ASEAN, an alliance of Southeast Asian nations, to meet leaders of various countries in the Indo-Pacific region. Then the G20 and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum in Bali and Bangkok, Indonesia. However, many fear that differences and conflicts between the superpowers may overshadow these discussions. CNN
After the start of the Covid pandemic in 2020, this is the first time that the governments and heads of state of different countries are going to participate in these 3 important conferences. It will also be a test for the large number of diplomats attending these conferences whether it is possible to overcome the shock of the Covid pandemic, rising food prices in the wake of Russia’s operations in Ukraine, and strengthen international coordination on various issues including global inflation and climate change.
In the political calendar of the past few decades, the world has not seen such sharp geopolitical divisions. The war in Ukraine has dramatically changed the West’s relationship with Russia. Competition for market share between the top two economies has intensified. Amid all this, pressure is mounting on the rest of the world to choose sides.
It is not known whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will participate in any of these conferences, but US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will participate in at least two of these conferences in Southeast Asia.
Xi, who did not leave the country for more than a couple of years during the pandemic, is now visiting different countries again, in which he has also confirmed his third term in power. Meanwhile, Biden also heads to the East in a buoyant mood, with his party doing better than expected in the midterm elections.
Both leaders will want to present their respective countries at the summits as stronger partners and more responsible than others on the world stage. The White House said on Thursday that they will also hold a face-to-face meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit. This is going to be his first face-to-face meeting with Xi since Biden became president.
On Friday, Beijing also confirmed that Xi is going to the G20 and APEC summits. They also said that they will meet with Chinese President Biden and several world leaders. The Xi-Biden meeting played a role in preventing further escalation of tensions between the two superpowers, but the chances of an agreement between them on various global issues in the conferences to be held in a few days are very unlikely.
Many analysts believe that these conferences, even the relatively more regional ASEAN summits, reflect the fragmentation of world politics. However, the impact of the Ukraine war on the other two summits may not be as important as ASEAN; A growing conflict within one of the alliance’s member states has distracted them. Two years after the military overthrew the democratically elected government, the turmoil in Myanmar has not ended. The division between the Southeast Asian countries over the measures to deal with the conflict there, the different relations of each member of the alliance with each superpower and the reluctance of the alliance to choose any side between China and the United States – all these are what the alliance can achieve in this conference and on what issues. Analysts believe it will affect how much can be agreed.
