Asia-Pacific leaders seek unity on war, economic ills, virus
BANGKOK — Pacific Rim leaders were striving to find common ground on the war in Ukraine and other dire threats to humankind in an annual meeting that began Friday at a heavily guarded venue in Thailand’s capital.
The annual summit of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum is the last of three back-to-back meetings of world leaders in the region.
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On Thursday, foreign and commerce ministers were completing their yearlong effort to form a consensus on an array of often-divisive issues.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he saw signs of a “convergence” in views about how to move forward in solving the world’s problems.
Whether that might enable Thailand as host of the meetings to produce a final joint statement remained to be seen: consensus generally is required among the 21 APEC members, including Russia. None of the earlier APEC preparatory meetings this year issued statements due to disagreements over whether to mention the conflict. But leaders of the Group of 20 did manage a show of unity when China and India, after months of refusing to condemn Russia’s war in Ukraine, did not stand in the way of the release of a statement by the world’s leading economies that harshly criticized Moscow.
“At G-20, we really welcomed that we could have a joint statement,” said Yasuhiro Tsukamoto, a Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesperson. Asked about the prospects for a show of unity, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he did not want to “get ahead” of the talks.
But, “on issue after issue we’re seeing, as I said, a growing convergence among the major countries in the world,” he told reporters after Thursday’s meetings.
The APEC meetings and earlier summits of the Group of 20 major economies on the Indonesian island resort of Bali and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Cambodia have brought together leaders who have had little opportunity to meet face-to-face since the pandemic began in 2020.
“It is such a relief for us to be able to go back to the conduct of business in the way that we know is most efficient and most productive,” Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, told a business conference held ahead of the APEC summit meetings. But he noted, “Dark clouds loom large if we are not to be prepared.”
The war in Ukraine has pushed food and energy prices sharply higher, disrupting supply chains and hindering the world’s recovery from the pandemic.
“The global economy faces mounting downward pressure and growing risks of recession,” Chinese President Xi Jinping said in written remarks distributed to the business conference.
The Chinese economy has slowed sharply under restrictions meant to quash COVID-19 outbreaks. Xi warned against a “new Cold War” and attempts to dismantle supply chains built over decades, and called for strengthened cooperation and progress in achieving APEC’s vision of an open Asia-Pacific economy.The threat of a coronavirus resurgence remains, with China reporting 23,276 new COVID-19 cases across the country on Thursday despite its costly and stringent “zero-COVID” policy. The southern metropolis of Guangzhou plans to build quarantine facilities with almost 250,000 beds to cope with outbreaks.
Xi stayed close to home throughout the pandemic, making his first trip outside China since it began only in September. But he has had a busy roster of meetings both in Bali and Bangkok, where much of the activity is on the sidelines of the summits.
