Tension in the South China Sea is at the top of the "ASEAN Plus Three" agenda

Foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries are meeting with their Chinese, Japanese, and South Korean counterparts on Thursday to discuss a number of issues, including conflicts in the South China Sea and economic cooperation.

The ASEAN member states, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, the Philippines, and Myanmar, which currently holds the chairmanship, will meet with Beijing, Tokyo, and Seoul under the framework of "ASEAN Plus Three."

China will be represented by Wang Yi, the head of the Communist Party's Foreign Affairs Committee, instead of Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who withdrew for "health reasons," according to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Similarly, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshihisa Haya and his South Korean counterpart, Park Jin, will attend the meeting.

Alexius Giamadu, a professor at Pelita Harapan University in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, believed that priority would be given to discussions related to the South China Sea, a strategic waterway over which China claims nearly full sovereignty, while other ASEAN member states have their own demands in it.

The South China Sea is an important shipping route for supply chains from Tokyo and Seoul and also contains oil and gas resources.

Western and Asian powers are concerned about Beijing's growing influence in the region, where it exerts pressure on democratic Taiwan, which has autonomy, and its ships have had incidents with vessels of other countries.

Teuku Rezasyah, an expert in international relations at Padjadjaran University in Indonesia, said that the representatives would also address the crisis in Myanmar, which has been torn by violence since the military coup that ousted the government of Aung San Suu Kyi over two years ago.

He added that the members are divided on this issue, explaining that "Japan and South Korea have a great interest in preventing Myanmar from falling into China's orbit."

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was established after the Asian financial crisis in 1997 to develop better economic relations between Southeast Asian countries and East Asian powers.

In the group's recent meetings, participants discussed ways to improve cooperation in the field of health and economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to make the Asia-Pacific region one of the main drivers of global economic growth.

 

AFP