Pacific leaders fail to agree on conflicts
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit held in San Francisco ended with its participants united on WTO reform, but not in Gaza or on Ukraine. The meeting of Pacific leaders in the US is most notable for the meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping, which is seen as a sign of easing tensions in Sino-US relations.
Photo: AP.
After the two-day APEC summit, Pacific leaders showed disagreements over the conflict in Ukraine and Israel's war in the Gaza Strip, while pledging support for reforming the World Trade Organization.
According to The Guardian, the 21 countries that make up the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum — among them Russia, China, the United States and Australia — did not mention a single conflict in its final joint communiqué. Instead, the chairman's accompanying statement noted that the bloc “exchanged views on the ongoing crisis in Gaza.”
Days of meetings between APEC ministers and leaders were outlined by Wednesday's summit between US President Joe Biden and the Chinese president. Xi, who aims to ease tensions between the world's two largest economies.
APEC has a strong focus on trade and includes countries such as Muslim-majority Indonesia and the United States, Israel's most important ally.
Biden used the APEC summit in San Francisco to highlight the strong U.S. economy and its ties to other Pacific nations, even as his vision of expanding regional cooperation to counter Chinese influence has run into trouble on the trade front because of his efforts to strengthen workers' rights.< /p >
International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said the meeting between Biden and Xi was a much-needed signal that the world needs to work more together and a positive sign for cooperation on global challenges, especially climate change.
Significant tensions between the US and China revolve around Taiwan, which China considers its territory. Taiwan's APEC representative, semiconductor tycoon Morris Chang, said Friday that he considered the Biden-Xi Jinping summit a “good meeting.” He said he had informal contacts with Biden and his vice president, Kamala Harris, as well as with Antony Blinken, Biden's secretary of state, but not with Xi.
On the war in Gaza, the APEC chairman's statement notes that the bloc simply “exchanged views on the ongoing crisis”. The war is Israel's response to a Hamas terror attack from Gaza into Israel on Oct. 7 that killed about 1,200 people and took 240 hostages, The Guardian reports.
“Some leaders objected to the inclusion of this language in the leaders' accompanying declaration representatives of the APEC 2023 Golden Gate on the basis that they do not believe that APEC is a forum for discussing geopolitical issues,” the chairman said in a statement. “Some leaders also shared common messages joint Arab-Islamic summit in Riyadh on November 11, 2023.”
In a joint statement, Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia said they were among APEC members to back reports from the Riyadh summit that called for an immediate end to military operations in Gaza and rejected Israel's justification for its actions against the Palestinians as self-defense. The three countries also called for an “immediate, permanent and sustainable” humanitarian ceasefire and for the uninterrupted provision of essential goods and services to civilians in Gaza.
No agreement on the conflict in Ukraine, the statement said. the negative consequences of the Ukrainian crisis, which “exacerbates the current instability in the global economy.”
The APEC leaders' declaration reaffirmed their determination to “ensure a free, open, fair, non-discriminatory, transparent, inclusive and predictable trade and investment environment.. . We are committed to the necessary reform of the WTO to improve all its functions, including discussions to create a fully functional dispute settlement system available to all members by 2024.”