Rising tensions in the South China Sea and the fallout from US-China trade war are set to dominate talks this week as top diplomats converge in Bangkok for a key Southeast Asia summit.
The meetings in Bangkok are hosted by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, chaired this year by Thailand. Thai officials say there will be 27 meetings in all through Saturday, and 31 countries and alliances will participate.
The core Asean Foreign Ministers Meeting brings together the group's top diplomats, but they are likely to be overshadowed by the big power players attending the adjunct meetings, such as the Asean Regional Forum and the East Asia Foreign Ministers' Meeting.
The heavy-hitters in Bangkok this week include US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Other Asean dialogue partners include Australia, India, the European Union, Japan and South Korea.
Most attention will be on these side meetings, in which Asean will play a supporting role, if any.
US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo will be joined at the Asean Foreign Ministers’ Meeting by his Chinese counterpart, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, on the heels of trade negotiations between the two countries in Shanghai on Tuesday.
North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho will not be attending, Yonhap News reported last week, dashing any chance of a meeting with US officials. It would have been the first encounter between the two sides since US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un shook hands in the Demilitarized Zone last month.
“We hope that we can have working-level discussions starting again very soon so that we can unlock the Rubik’s Cube,” Pompeo told the Economic Club of Washington on Monday, adding nothing was in the works for a third, formal summit.
Despite agreeing at their first meeting in June 2018 to “work toward complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula,” the two sides have been divided over the scale of disarmament steps offered by Kim and the pace of sanctions relief proposed by the Americans.
While North Korea may not be in the cards, Pompeo will seek to soothe trade tensions between two American allies -- South Korea and Japan -- according to a US official discussing Pompeo’s trip who asked not to be identified. A dispute between the two escalated this month when Japan slapped curbs on the export to South Korea of three materials vital to semiconductor and display manufacturing.
The dispute also draws on long-standing bitterness over Japan's actions toward Korea during World War II and threatens to poison relations at a time when Washington would prefer to see a united front in dealing with North Korea.
Pompeo, who is on a six-day trip through Thailand, Micronesia and Australia, will also give speech on US economic engagement in the region as part of the Trump administration’s vision of a “free and open” Indo-Pacific.
Asean's own most pressing concern arguably involves Beijing's expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea, which pits it against the claims of Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.
The meetings come amid accusations from Vietnam and the Philippines that China has become more aggressive in asserting its claim to vast swathes of the South China Sea -- a move the US last week termed “bullying behaviour”.
The dispute is long-running, but flared up again earlier this month when Vietnam accused China of violating its sovereignty by interfering with offshore oil and gas activities in disputed waters.
Vietnam can count on having some allies at this week's meetings but may have to operate outside the conventional Asean framework by forming a de facto maritime bloc with Indonesia, which has aggressively dealt with Chinese poachers in its waters, and the Philippines, still smarting over a June incident in which a Chinese fishing vessel hit a Philippine fishing boat and fled the scene as 22 Filipinos escaped their sinking vessel.
“The South China Sea will be an important agenda item -- [China] will be seeking to curb any further hardening of stance by the Philippines,” said Alexander Neill, an expert on Chinese military affairs at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
“They will likely reiterate their sovereignty over the island and reefs and criticise external interference.”
It's unlikely Asean will agree on any major statement against China since it operates by consensus, which in practice means a single member can exercise veto over the group's decisions and declarations. Beijing can count on the support of allies such as Cambodia and Laos, and reluctance by others to defy Asia's superpower.
Beijing also is disinclined to flout legal norms that might restrain its actions, say critics, citing as an example the Permanent Court of Arbitration's ruling on the South China Sea case brought by the Philippines.China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday stressed the situation in the South China Sea “has been stabilised in general, with growing momentum for cooperation and increasing positive factors.”
Meanwhile, Indonesian Foreign Ministry’s director general for Asean affairs, Jose Tavares, said while there’s no timeline for negotiations, China and Asean recently finished a preliminary draft on a maritime code of conduct.
“We are envisaging the continuation of the negotiation between Asean and China on the single draft negotiating text of the code of conduct moving to the next stage,” Tavares said.
The negotiations follow the adoption of an Asean Indo-Pacific Concept last month that analysts say is a nod to the US’s concerns. Still, the US State Department has argued that China is mounting pressure on Asean to adopt unfavourable terms in the code of conduct. The dispute underscores the region’s difficulty in handling growing tensions between the world’s two superpowers.
Trade will also feature heavily at the summit given the ongoing US-China trade conflict, said Harsh Pant, professor of international relations at King’s College London, adding it will be tough for the bloc to maintain a balance between the two economic super-powers.
“Asean is under unusual stress as a result of growing contestation between the US and China,” Pant said. “The traditional comfort of having China as an economic partner and the US as security partner is no longer very valid.”