APEC Summit Starts in Thailand: Why is it Important?

The APEC Asia-Pacific Summit is inaugurated this Friday in Bangkok, Thailand, with the presence of 21 heads of state, in a meeting that aims to highlight growing importance of this region of the world.

Rulers of the Pacific They were already arriving this Thursday in Bangkok for a summit that will revolve around the economic recovery after the pandemic and the economic turmoil caused by the war in Ukraine.

At the meeting of the 21 members of the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) forum, there will also be special guests such as French President Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince, Mohamed bin Salman.

China and the United States

The summit follows a G20 meeting in Indonesia that ended dominated by fears that a deadly rocket attack in Poland was the start of an escalation of the war Russia versus Ukraine.

Chinese President Xi Jinping was due to arrive in Bangkok on Thursday, days after a meeting with US President Joe Biden. The two rulers tried to tone down their rivalryand declared that there is no need for a new cold war and that they want to prevent their differences from sparking the conflict.

The voltage drop It will be well received by APEC members, increasingly alarmed at the prospect of having to do so between the world’s two largest economies. The two countries disagreed over the future of Taiwan, a regional hotbed of conflict, but found common ground on Ukraineemphasizing that the use or threat to use nuclear weapons is unacceptable.

France, power in the region, according to Macron

For his part, French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Thailand on Wednesday evening seeking to revive French strategic ambitions in the Asia-Pacific region, after the humiliating Australian cancellation of a contract for the sale of submarines in 2021.

The French head of state wants to recognize the growing importance of a region that it represents 60% of the world’s population and economyimportant center of technological innovation and great biodiversity resource.

It’s the first time that a European country is invited to the APEC Forum, and Macron wants to see it as an acknowledgment of the Indo-Pacific strategy that he started in 2018: “The logic of this Indo-Pacific strategy that we carry forward, which is at the same time diplomatic, military, economic and climate, is a logic of balance. And in this highly contested region, the scene of a clash between the two main world powers, there is the idea of ​​managing the balance without confrontation,” he said.

A third way, therefore, which is not neither pro-Chinese nor pro-American and which would allow trade to develop without a hegemonic model prevailing.

According to Macron, France, thanks to its overseas territoriesit is also a power in the region: “We have a strong military presence, more than 8,000 of our military are deployed in this area, we have more and more operations, especially maritime, in the region, and we also have military associations that we want to strengthen,” he stressed.

The APEC summit concludes a busy fortnight of diplomacy in Asia, following last week’s G20 and ASEAN summits in Cambodia.

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