Ardern heads to Apec as leaders gather again

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has landed in Bangkok for the final meeting of world leaders in a week of global summits, now overshadowed by the war in Ukraine.

‘‘Everyone recognises that greater tension, greater conflict in our region is good for no-one,’’ Ardern said, before travelling to

Thailand from Vietnam yesterday.

‘‘I don’t think we can underestimate the impact and difference it makes just to see people face-to-face . . . I believe it’s making a difference.’’

The leaders of the 21 countries of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) group are meeting in Bangkok from today, the first in-person meeting for the forum since 2018.

The meeting will be the endnote on a high-stakes week of leaders’ summits in Southeast Asia. At the weekend, world leaders including Ardern assembled in Cambodia for the East Asia Summit, and in the days since leaders of the world’s most powerful economies – the G20 – met in Bali, Indonesia.

There have been moments of overt tension, as many leaders meet face-to-face for the first time after years of building tensions and global stress. But it has also yielded results.

Ardern is set to meet face-toface with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of Apec, one of a string of bilateral meetings Ardern has locked in.

Xi attended the G20 in Bali, but not the earlier East Asia Summit and has held numerous bilateral meetings with Western leaders this week.

It comes as China faces domestic difficulties and as competition between the US and China continues to ramp up.

China has this year responded angrily to a high-level US visit to

Taiwan, retaliating with show of military force that included firing missiles over the island nation.

China appeared supportive of Russia’s justification of invading Ukraine, though in recent months it has called for de-escalation of the conflict. A global inflation crisis, caused by the pandemic and worsened by the war in Ukraine, has hiked the price of food and fuel. China’s economy has slowed due to Beijing’s tough Covid-19 restrictions and a property market downturn.

Xi held face-to-face meetings with Biden and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Bali.

The bilateral meetings – in the case of Biden’s, three hours long – were reportedly blunt but productive. Biden and Xi discussed issues including the Ukraine war and human rights and the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken would travel to Beijing to continue talks.

For Australia, it amounted to the end of a diplomatic freeze with China, which lashed Australia with wine and barley tariffs in 2020 in retaliation over Australia’s call for an investigation into the origins of Covid-19.

New Zealand has raised issues publicly with China, yet has not suffered the same backlash as its trans-Tasman neighbour.

Ardern in March called a security pact signed between Beijing and the Solomon Islands ‘‘gravely concerning’’. New Zealand also joined countries in urging China to take action after a United Nations investigation found it had committed possible crimes against humanity and ‘‘serious human rights violations’’ against the Uyghur minority in its Xinjiang province.

‘‘I believe it’s making a difference.’’ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern

Speaking about the meetings