Todd Bishop
The 35th ASEAN Summit and related summits were held in Bangkok, Thailand from October 31st to November 4th. The South China Sea Issues and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) became one of the focus topics.
In addition to the leaders of the 10 ASEAN countries, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Wen Zaiyu attended the meeting, while the United States sent White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien.
ASEAN’s series of summit activities as an agency’s dialogue with other regional partners or international agencies began on the 3rd. Li Keqiang attended the ASEAN and China Summit on the morning of the 3rd and the ASEAN 10+3 (ASEAN 10 and China, Japan, and Korea) summits and the East Asia Summit held on the 4th.
Another highlight of the series is the ASEAN and US summits, which will be held on the morning of the 4th and O’Brien will be present. The APEC summit to be held in Chile was cancelled due to the social unrest in the country. It is intended to believe that the United States sent a lower-level delegation in response to the ASEAN series of summits, highlighting its “absence” in the Asia-Pacific region. This has also caused the countries in the region to worry that they can no longer rely on the United States as a counterweight to China’s growing strength in the region.
