Xi pitches ‘competing development’ vision for Asia at Apec meeting
CHINESE President Xi Jinping has warned against making Asia an “arena for a big-power contest” as he pushed back against US influence at the start of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) meetings in Thailand.
He made the comments in a written speech distributed at the Apec CEO Summit in Bangkok on Thursday. The Chinese leader is among almost a dozen world leaders to descend on Bangkok, for the last of the three major summits, to discuss topics ranging from climate change to the war in Ukraine and food inflation.
Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha opened the Apec meetings with a speech Thursday morning, kicking off three days of talks focused on boosting economic prosperity and environmental sustainability. Xi is expected to continue face-to-face meetings with several leaders, including Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern.
There will be at least one notable absence from the Bangkok meetings. US President Joe Biden is heading back to the White House for his granddaughter’s wedding on Saturday and will be represented by Vice President Kamala Harris at Apec. Harris was expected to arrive late Thursday.
In his written speech, Xi said that the Asia-Pacific region, especially its small and medium-sized economies, have been able to take the fast track toward modernisation and create a miracle after being freed from the shadow of the Cold War.
“The Asia-Pacific is no one’s backyard, and should not become an arena for a big-power contest,” he said. “No attempt to wage a new Cold War will ever be allowed by the people or by our times.”
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Any attempt to disrupt or even dismantle the industrial and supply chains formed in the Asia-Pacific over the years will only lead Apec to a dead end, he said.
Japan
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi used comments at an Apec ministerial session Thursday to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The war has undermined stable supplies of food and energy, and severely affected the development of the Asian region, he said. He expressed his opposition to what he said was a false Russian narrative that the current weakening of the global economy was due to sanctions being imposed on Russia.
Protesters
A small crowd of protesters gathered in the Asok area, near the convention center where the Apec Leaders’ Meeting was scheduled to take place. Some dressed up in dinosaur costumes, in a symbolic dig at what they view as Thailand’s outdated and calcified government.
Vietnam
Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc said at a session on trade and investment that the world is changing in a “complex and unpredictable way” and technologies that target net-zero emissions will be the “strongest driver of FDI (foreign direct investments) in the future”.
Many Vietnamese factories have reduced production or even shut down as a result of supply-chain problems from the pandemic and Ukraine war, he said. The Covid-19 pandemic showed the “importance and indispensability of digital-based business and production”, he said.
The Philippines
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr called for stronger action on climate change, which he described as the “most pressing existential” issue of all time. He told the Apec CEO Summit meeting that “not enough” progress has actually been made to lower emissions.
He also urged nations to prioritise food security and to invest in pandemic preparedness. He also said “the geopolitical currents that we must live with are something that we still need to be concerned about”.
Thailand
Tourism will be the “engine to drive” Thailand’s economy in 2023 and beyond, Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul, chairperson of Kasikornbank, the nation’s second-biggest bank by assets, said in a Bloomberg TV interview on the sidelines of the summit.
The bank expects hotel operators and other tourism-related business customers to recover strongly as Thailand’s travel industry rebounds from the Covid-19 pandemic. Thailand, where tourism accounts for 12 per cent of gross domestic product and a fifth of jobs, needs to diversify its foreign tourist market beyond China to maintain the industry’s long-term growth, he said.
Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha said the world was facing unprecedented environmental challenges, and sustainability would be the single most important agenda for the Apec leaders summit this week.
He also called upon the public and private sectors to cooperate on supporting sustainability initiatives, and added that “we must ensure that we leave no one behind on the path of development and growth”.
Prayuth urged Apec leaders to sign a Bangkok Goals declaration on the “bio-circular-green” economic model at the end of the summit. “No country can achieve its objectives alone,” Prayuth said. “We inhabit the same earth.” BLOOMBERG
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