The last of the summits in Asia over the past few days was also shaped by the system issue: at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference in Bangkok, China's President Xi Jinping and US Vice President Kamala Harris fought for attention.

In the absence of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, both promised more attention to the Pacific Rim.

French President Emmanuel Macron, on the other hand, provoked Americans and Australians.

Christopher Hein

Business correspondent for South Asia/Pacific based in Singapore.

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"There is no better economic partner for the region than America," Harris promised on the sidelines of the summit.

America's commitment is "measured not in years, but in decades and across generations," she said.

The Asians have reason to doubt this after President Barack Obama first pushed for trans-Pacific free trade, his successor Donald Trump then backed out of the agreement, and current President Joe Biden is offering a different, more fragmented set of agreements with the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF). , which avoids tariff cuts and, among other things, relies heavily on the private sector.

After Washington's withdrawal, eleven countries still belong to the original TPP free trade agreement and it operates under the name Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).

Meanwhile, Beijing has applied to join the CPTPP in America's absence.

At the same time, Beijing has managed to agree a rival trade agreement with numerous countries.

In Bangkok on Friday, Harris once again promised the "rules-based order" that all Western leaders are currently advocating: "With all our strength, we will continue to uphold and strengthen the international economic rules and norms that protect a free market and create stability and predictability ", she said.

Macron throws down the gauntlet

However, this is exactly what the French President undermined in Bangkok.

Macron once again threw down the gauntlet to Australia: the previous Australian government had canceled a contract worth around $ 60 billion for the construction of conventional submarines by the French state shipyard Naval overnight.

Instead, Canberra founded the military community Aukus with Americans and British, which is heading towards the construction of nuclear submarines.

Macron has now declared that this will not work.

At the same time, Aukus is driving the danger of a nuclear war with China.

In any case, the deal could undermine military supply chains in Canberra.

Australia must define its "Indo-Pacific Strategy" - which the Europeans did two years ago.

The agreement with Naval would have secured Australian independence for the Australian people and industry.

The resignation surprised many because the new Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who for his part had sought a first approach to Xi in Bali, had apparently also spoken to Macron.

The disputes between the democracies are registered in detail in Beijing.

After the martial party conference there, Xi tried to find a compromise with the rival West, both at the G20 summit of the leading industrialized and emerging countries in Bali, Indonesia, and at Apec.

After his partner Australia, working closely with America, prevented the Chinese from gaining a stronger foothold in the Solomon Islands at the last minute and Biden warned the Cambodians not to allow a Chinese naval base on their coast, Xi then declared in Bangkok: "Asia Pacific is nobody's backyard and should not be the scene of a great power contest.”

Singapore between the chairs

In doing so, the Chinese took up the formula that the city-state of Singapore, for example, has long advocated: It wants the influence of the Americans and Chinese to be more or less equal, needs both governments and is making every effort to get along with both.

The Asians do notice how China is building up military power on the one hand, and driving countries into its dependency on the other;

but to join with the Americans in opposing the most important trade and, in many cases, investment partners seems too risky to the governments.

Like Indonesia during the G20, the Kingdom of Thailand's military government, clad in civilian clothes, attaches greater importance to getting infrastructure and climate protection financed as much as possible by the rich countries.

Indonesia seems to have succeeded in doing this in Bali: President Joko Widodo said on Friday that Southeast Asia's largest economy had concluded contracts and programs from multilateral sources and the private sector totaling around 71 billion dollars during its G-20 presidency.