At the ASEAN summit, Russia's foreign minister repeatedly lashed out at NATO and the USA. They wanted to militarize the Asia-Pacific region to curtail Chinese and Russian interests. The fact that a joint final declaration fails is due to unacceptable demands.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has accused the US and NATO of wanting to gain supremacy in the Asia-Pacific region by militarizing it. "The United States and its allies, as well as NATO, are now trying to swallow up this region," Lavrov said on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit, according to the Russian state news agency TASS. The goal is the militarization of the region, "with the obvious focus on limiting China and Russian interests in the region," he emphasized in Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh.
US President Joe Biden took a clear stance against China at the summit. According to the White House, he rejected China's territorial claims in the South China Sea. The decision of the International Arbitration Court in The Hague, which dismissed China's claims as unlawful in 2016, was "final and legally binding". The freedom of navigation and overflights in the South and East China Seas off Japan must be respected.
Globally, the United States wants to compete vigorously with China, according to the White House. They also wanted to draw attention to human rights violations. At the same time, however, the communication links should be maintained "to prevent the competition from degenerating into a conflict".
Lavrov said a joint final statement from the summit failed due to disputes over the wording of the situation in Ukraine. "No collective decisions were made today because the US and its Western allies insisted on absolutely unacceptable language regarding the situation in and around Ukraine."
Lavrov travels on from the ASEAN meeting to the Group of Great Economic Powers (G20) summit on the Indonesian island of Bali. He is representing President Vladimir Putin there, who had canceled his participation. On the other hand, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wants to address the meeting in the holiday resort of Nusa Dua via video. At the ASEAN meeting in Cambodia, however, the ten member countries could not agree on a video speech by Zelensky.
