• Expectation Biden will meet with Xi Jinping next Monday in Bali before the G-20

Whetting an appetite for the main course, which will be the

G-20 meeting

that the Indonesian city of Bali is hosting next week, the Asian summit marathon has kicked off in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where the annual meeting between the leaders of the

Association of Southeast Asian Nations

(ASEAN).

There have been guests such as the American president, Joe Biden, the Chinese prime minister,

Li Keqiang

, the South Korean

Yoon Suk-yeol

, and the Japanese

Fumio Kishida

.

Although the most anticipated visits, which were not crossed, have been those of the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kuleba, and the Russian Sergey Lavrov.

"(Lavrov) has not requested a meeting with me during the summit, as would be the norm in international diplomacy. If he does, we will thoroughly consider his request. But

there is not a single indicator that Russia is sincerely seeking negotiations in good faith.

" Kuleba said.

It is unusual that, even for a few days, the epicenter of global politics has shifted to Southeast Asia.

The region, in full economic growth, has

60% of the world's population

.

And there is the peculiarity that most of the countries are not aligned in the world of blocs formed after the Russian invasion of Ukraine or by the new Cold War between the United States and China.

A 'neutral' region

Phnom Penh and Bali are, as one would say in diplomatic jargon, neutral ground to discuss the key points of global governance and reduce tensions.

The reunited ASEAN countries (Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) try to play the neutral role between all sides, starting with

an ambiguous position in the war in Ukraine

.

They first opened their arms on Thursday to Kiev signing with Kuleba the so-called Instrument of Accession to the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, simplified with the acronym TAC, which is a peace treaty established in 1976 by the founding members of the regional group that It enshrines fundamental principles such as

mutual respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the signatories

.

"Conflicts will only bring more suffering to innocent people, and that is not something we want to see," said

Kung Phoak

, State Secretary at the Cambodian Foreign Ministry, after meeting with the Ukrainian representative.

Russia is also a signatory to this treaty.

"We have discussed during meetings with the leaders of Southeast Asia the ways in which they can support Ukraine, because expressing neutrality and not condemning Russia is against our interests.

The worst thing a country can do is to do nothing

," he said. Kuleba on Saturday, who urged his hosts to take all possible measures to prevent Russia from participating in the

"hunger games"

over a grain export deal through the Black Sea, which could expire next week.

This agreement, negotiated by the UN and Turkey on July 22, allowed the

export of food and fertilizers from several Ukrainian Black Sea ports until November 19

.

This could end soon if Russia opposes its extension.

Kuleba called on Asian countries to make a common front to prevent Moscow from stopping the movement of Ukrainian agricultural products.

Since the war began, of all ASEAN members, only Singapore has imposed

sanctions against Moscow

.

Others have timidly criticized the attack on Ukraine, but they continue to forge ties with Russia and depend on the weapons the Kremlin sends them.

Vietnam, Thailand and Laos abstained from voting at the UN General Assembly in October to condemn Russia's attempts to annex regions of Ukraine.

'Cold War' between the US and China

The other geopolitical game that is cooking this weekend in ASEAN is the position of the region in the new Cold War between Washington and Beijing.

President Biden has long been trying to make up ground lost under Trump to China in

a key region of world trade

.

Redirecting the old alliances in Southeast Asia has been a priority in Washington's foreign policy, although the countries of the region maintain a certain distance in the fight between the two leading world powers because they depend on Chinese trade and investment, their main trading partner, while that US economic incentives are very limited by comparison.

Biden's first step was to invite ASEAN leaders to Washington in May, offering them a $150 million package for various initiatives ranging from

maritime cooperation

to

clean energy

.

A few months earlier, China also promised its neighbors a strong stimulus to support economic recovery after the pandemic: 1.5 billion dollars.

Biden ratified this Saturday that the largest distribution of his aid package would be 60 million dollars to "promote a free and open Indo-Pacific", a recurring phrase of US politicians and their allies, which the newspapers that serve as loudspeakers to the Chinese Communist Party are usually translated as the attempts to create

a "NATO in the Indo-Pacific against China"

.

For the first time since he arrived at the White House, the US president will meet face-to-face with China's Xi Jinping on Monday.

Before, this Sunday, also in Cambodia, another East Asian summit awaits him with the leaders of Japan, South Korea, the Chinese prime minister and the Russian Lavrov, who will be Putin's representative at the G-20 summit that begins on Tuesday.

Returning to ASEAN, the meetings of the countries of the group have been dominated by the biggest current regional problem: the escalation of violence and the political stalemate in the only partner that has not been invited to the summit,

Burma

, which has already been in almost two years under the yoke of a military dictatorship that overthrew former de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi in a coup.

The leaders of Southeast Asia have isolated the Burmese military in most meetings until they implement the promised peace plan -with

democratic

reforms- to stabilize a country in which, since the military coup,

2,300 civilians have been killed

at the hands of security forces, there are more than 15,000 arrested and almost a million displaced.

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