Prime minister sits down with world leaders at East Asia Summit; Putin a no-show
A week of high-powered global summits has begun in Cambodia, with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern sitting down with world leaders at the East Asia Summit.
Ardern landed in Phnom Penh at the weekend for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) event, sitting down with leaders and representatives of the United States, China and Russia for the East Asia Summit (EAS) yesterday afternoon (NZ time).
Heading to a gala dinner the evening before, Ardern warned of ‘‘a number of clouds’’ the summit had to deal with, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and repressive military rule in Myanmar. Russian President Vladimir Putin is not at the summit; the country instead represented by foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. As the EAS began, Ardern – who promised not to engage with Russian leadership – was a seat apart from Lavrov, sitting between the South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. A chair for Myanmar sat empty. The Asean nations had agreed not to allow representation from Myanmar’s military junta at the event for the second year in a row. Prior to the meeting, officials switched the place of China’s prime minister, Li Keqiang, with that of Myanmar’s.
Keqiang was initially designated to sit next to India and was instead placed directly opposite the United States at a square ring of tables.
As Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen gave remarks to open the event, neither US President Joe Biden nor Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were in the room. The US mid-term election for the Senate had just been won by the Democrats, Biden’s party.
Ardern said she intended to speak about the situation in Myanmar, which was ‘‘a stain on our region’’, at the EAS meeting.
Myanmar’s military deposed an elected civilian government and jailed Nobel Peace Prize winning leader Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021, and has since violently cracked down on challengers to its rule.
‘‘Of all the conflicts . . . the situation in Myanmar is possibly the most vexed for this region.’’ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern
‘‘Of all the conflicts the world is experiencing right now, the situation in Myanmar is possibly the most vexed for this region,’’ Ardern said. ‘‘It is causing huge disruption to the consensus based approach of the region, given the differing positions of some on what New Zealand views to be a significant issue . . . [a] significant human rights situation.’’
Before the meeting, Ardern stood for a photo with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Asean leaders to celebrate the signing of an upgrade to a free trade agreement between the countries. The upgraded deal would cut ‘‘red tape’’ for exports, improving technical aspects of the deal but not market access.
At the leaders’ gala dinner the night before, Ardern had a 10-minute conversation with Biden, a spokesperson for the prime minister said.
The pair discussed issues raised during their bilateral meeting in May, as well as personal matters including their families. Ardern was not seeking a bilateral meeting with Biden at the side of the EAS, due to their recent White House meeting.
However, Ardern has not ruled out possibly meeting China’s president, Xi Jinping, on the side of an Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) forum being held in Thailand later in the week. Xi and Biden are expected to meet in coming days, before a summit of G20 leaders in Bali, Indonesia, taking place after EAS and before Apec. The G20 leaders represent the world’s largest economies, and meet annually to discuss the global economy among other issues.