Laos in the limelight as PM Wong, world leaders converge for Asean Summit amid a series of firsts
Joe Biden and Joko Widodo will not be in Vientiane, but new Japanese and Thai premiers will make their international summit debut
[VIENTIANE] The leaders of some of the world’s largest economies are gathering in the capital of one of South-east Asia’s smallest countries – Laos, this year’s Asean chair – for the regional bloc’s apex policy-making forum from Wednesday (Oct 9) to Friday.
Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong will head to Vientiane to meet other South-east Asian and global leaders for the 44th and 45th Asean Summits and related meetings, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement on Tuesday.
These will be the first bloc summits attended by PM Wong in his current capacity since he was sworn in as the Republic’s fourth prime minister in May.
After the summits, PM Wong – who last visited Laos in April to attend a meeting of Asean finance ministers and central bank governors – will remain in the city for a bilateral meeting with Lao Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone on Friday.
PM Wong and the Singapore delegation will be hosted to an official dinner on Friday, and call on Lao President Thongloun Sisoulith on Saturday.
While in Vientiane, PM Wong will be accompanied by his wife and Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan. In his absence, Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong will be the acting prime minister.
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In July this year, Sonexay made his first official visit to Singapore to commemorate 50 years of diplomatic ties between the two countries.
During that one-day visit, Singapore and Laos pledged to deepen cooperation in carbon credits and work towards a legally binding implementation agreement that the city-state has so far inked only with Papua New Guinea and Ghana.
Busy agenda
The summit in Vientiane will kick off with Asean-only meetings, and discussions are expected to centre around the bloc’s community-building efforts and ways to create opportunities for people and businesses, especially in new growth areas such as the digital and green economies.
South-east Asian leaders will also discuss strengthening Asean’s role in forging an open, inclusive and stable regional architecture.
Other longstanding topics include the ongoing South China Sea dispute, Timor-Leste’s membership status and the prolonged Myanmar crisis, which Laos has admitted is unlikely to be resolved during its year-long chairmanship.
Myanmar will be sending a representative to the Asean Summit for the first time since its junta leaders were barred in the wake of their failure to implement a peace plan that they had agreed upon with fellow member states in 2021. The military, in protest, refused to send representatives following the ban.
Aung Kyaw Moe, permanent secretary of Myanmar’s foreign ministry, was spotted at a meeting of foreign ministers on Tuesday held in preparation for the main summit.
Following the conclusion of the Asean Summits, the bloc’s leaders will hold separate talks with Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan, South Korea, the US and the United Nations.
This year is a special one for South Korea and Asean, for both sides are marking 35 years of dialogue relations.
The summit with Japan, meanwhile, will be the first under Singapore’s three-year country coordinatorship of Asean relations with the island country.
Summit no-shows
China has typically sent its premier to the Asean Summit instead of the president, and this year is no different with Premier Li Qiang in attendance.
Li will also pay an official visit to Laos before heading to Vietnam for a formal visit from Oct 12 to 14, said China’s foreign ministry on its website on Tuesday.
With the US just weeks away from its presidential election in early November, President Joe Biden will again skip the Asean Summit. His top diplomat, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, will lead the US delegation in Laos.
New Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who was sworn in last week, is expected to make his first appearance at the Asean Summit. Media reports said he will meet South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol on the sidelines.
As for Yoon, he will arrive in Vientiane on Wednesday for the third leg of his overseas tour, after stops in Manila and Singapore.
Yoon’s trip to the Philippines – the first by a South Korean president since 2011 – was marked by an upgrade of bilateral ties to a strategic partnership on Monday, along with the signing of agreements to boost defence cooperation.
The South Korean leader then headed to Singapore, where PM Wong on Tuesday announced that the two countries’ bilateral ties will be elevated to a strategic partnership by 2025. The year also marks the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two nations.
A key foreign policy aide of his revealed days ago that South Korea also intends to form with Asean at the summit a comprehensive strategic partnership – broadly understood as the highest level of relationship between the alliance and its dialogue partners.
The regional bloc currently has such a partnership with Australia, China, India, Japan and the US.
Indonesia has said that outgoing President Joko Widodo, who will hand over the role to Prabowo Subianto on Oct 20, will not be in Laos. Vice-President Ma’ruf Amin will head the Indonesian delegation.
Thailand has confirmed the attendance of Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, the 38-year-old daughter of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
She and her Cabinet were sworn into office last month, after her predecessor Srettha Thavisin was dismissed for his appointment of a minister who had been jailed for a bribery attempt.
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and Brunei Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah will all be attending.
Singapore-Laos relations
This year is the third time that landlocked Laos is chairing Asean. Since it formally joined the 10-member bloc in 1997, the mountainous country has helmed the role twice, in 2004 and 2016.
To support Laos’ chairmanship this year, Singapore rolled out a package that includes capacity-building programmes for its officials, such as report writing and public presentation skills.
Under a power integration project, Singapore in 2022 also began importing up to 100 megawatts of renewable hydropower from Laos, via Thailand and Malaysia using existing interconnectors.
Last month, Singapore doubled the power import capacity, with additional supply coming from Malaysia – which is next year’s Asean chair.
At the close of the summits on Friday, Laos will pass on the chairmanship to Malaysia by handing over a gavel. Malaysia will officially assume the bloc chairmanship on Jan 1, 2025.
Anwar, who was in Russia last month, has already invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend next year’s summit.
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