It was finally released after a long time of urgency. Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Organization (APEC) finally held an offline meeting after 3 years. At this moment, the two-day meeting has been halfway through, and these 5 details are intriguing.
Detail 1, this is the third time that leaders of many countries have met in just two weeks.
The APEC meeting was held in Bangkok, Thailand. It was immediately after the ASEAN summit and G20 summits, and it can be said to be the well-deserved "finale". Three summits were held in Southeast Asia one after another, and created opportunities for close communication for many countries , which is a very rare phenomenon in the context of the pandemic.
For many people, this is the third face-to-face meeting for everyone in two weeks. This will of course help countries to enhance trust, strengthen understanding, and deepen cooperation with .
From another perspective, if any country is qualified to participate in these three summits in a row, then the country's is likely to have the potential to become a pole of the multipolar forces in , and at least have a certain influence in Asia-Pacific .
Detail 2: The US Vice President’s itinerary is not simple, and the Biden administration is ambitious.
Since US President Biden is going to return to the White House to attend his granddaughter's wedding, the person who led the US delegation to Bangkok, Thailand to attend the APEC meeting was Vice President Harris , who also planned to go to the Philippines after the meeting.
According to the White House, Harris will "historically" visit Palawan Island on the southwestern tip of the Philippines, and she will become the highest-level American official to visit the island in history. As for the importance of this island, it is mainly reflected in two aspects: one is to be adjacent to South China Sea , and the other is to look at Nansha Islands from afar.
In view of the Philippines’ Ministry of Defense just issued a statement recently saying that the United States will spend US$65 million to build training and warehouses and other facilities in three military bases in the Philippines based on the "Agreement for Strengthening Defense Cooperation" signed with the Philippines, which shows that Washington may have the intention to deliberately aggravate tensions in the South China Sea.
Detail 3, whether it is the "Indo-Pacific" or the "Asia-Pacific", the United States has its own persistence.
Before the meeting officially opened, Harris first met with some business leaders. She emphasized that "the United States has a lasting economic commitment to Indo-Pacific region" and that "the United States is a proud Pacific power", and that the United States claims that its security alliance is that Asia can prosper.
It is not difficult to see that Washington's "pride" is engraved in its bones. In order to promote its so-called "Indo-Pacific strategy", the Biden administration insisted on using the term "Indo-Pacific" during the APEC meeting, and was unwilling to mention the geopolitical concept that people are very familiar with and often use - "Asia-Pacific".
Why do we deliberately emphasize the "Indo-Pacific"?
The reason is simple. The United States hopes to highlight this new concept that only covers some regions in the Asia-Pacific region to achieve the goal of excluding some countries and achieving the United States' dominance of . In other words, the United States is just under the guise of being a beautiful person, and its idea is that maintains hegemony and suppresses its competitor through small circles.
Don’t forget that the Biden administration just launched the so-called “ Indo-Pacific Economic Framework ” at the beginning of this year. Harris bluntly stated that the organization is to counter the growing influence of some countries in the Asia-Pacific region. It can be said that “the picture is clear” .
Detail 4, the more the United States promises, the more it exposes Washington's guilt.
Harris also emphasized some things, such as she said "The United States will stay" and intends to deepen economic participation in the Asia-Pacific region, which has no better economic partner than the United States, and the United States will strengthen the protection of free markets and safeguard international economic rules.
Having said so much, exposed the guilt of the Biden administration , otherwise why should we emphasize that the United States will not leave the Asia-Pacific? It is precisely because of the decline of the U.S. influence in the Asia-Pacific region, which makes other countries doubt.
The key is that the United States continues to promise to strengthen investment in the region. This is a means of winning over . is not only to gain economic benefits and maintain U.S. influence, but also to force the United States to "select side stations" to increase chips .
Interestingly, Harris even claimed that the United States wants to protect the free market and maintain international economic rules. Doesn’t she know that the biggest driving force of “anti-globalization” is the US government? Biden inherited many measures from the Trump era, which just undermined international fairness and damaged the market environment.
Details 5, there are still many uncertainties in this meeting, especially the final joint statement.
As we all know, like the G20 summit that just ended before, Russian President Putin did not attend the APEC meeting in person. There is no doubt that this is affected by the war situation between Russia and Ukraine, and the Russian-Ukraine conflict also affected the G20 summit and APEC meeting.
The biggest impact is that brought a lot of uncertainty to the final joint statement of the summit . Although the G20 summit reached a joint statement, the content about the Russian-Ukrainian conflict was written as "clouds and mountains and mists". The interpretation of the joint statement by various countries can be said to be for a matter of opinion.
. It is still difficult to say whether this APEC meeting can reach a joint statement. The difficulty of lies in whether it is necessary to mention the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in the statement . Earlier this year, there was no consensus on this APEC meeting.
But the US attitude is very interesting. Although the US Secretary of State Blinken claimed that he did not want to make a judgment before the end of the meeting, he also said "As I said, on one issue after another, we see convergence among the major countries in the world".
It is obvious that the US side wants to use this to emphasize: The United States and its allies' attitude towards the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is consistent , and Washington also believes that this attitude can represent the attitude of most countries in the world. In essence, this is still the habitual style of , the world's largest hegemony country, , it is nothing more than trying to confirm that the West has successfully isolated Russia .
But as the Director General of Thailand's Ministry of International Economic Affairs said, any wording about Ukraine in the statement of will be "the most challenging factor in our negotiations" , and we can only be cautiously optimistic about reaching a consensus.
and wait and see.
