U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is set to visit Vientiane, Laos, later this week for meetings with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, where he is expected to engage directly with newly elected leaders from the Indo-Pacific.
Blinken will represent President Joe Biden at this year’s ASEAN-U.S. Summit and participate in the East Asia Summit, where leaders and senior officials from India, Japan, South Korea, and the People’s Republic of China are also expected to attend.
The State Department said Blinken will discuss geopolitical issues during his talks in Vientiane, including the ongoing crisis in Myanmar, which is also called Burma, and the importance of upholding international law in the South China Sea, and Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
As the Burmese junta prepares for an election next year amid widespread conflict across much of the country, a senior State Department official told VOA that elections should not take place prior to genuine peace and reconciliation.
“We remain deeply concerned by the regime's stated plans to hold elections, because any elections under current conditions would stand no chance of expressing the will of the people of Burma,” Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told VOA during a phone briefing on Tuesday.
He added, the U.S. fears that “premature elections” under current conditions “would likely only generate more violence and prolong the ongoing crisis” in Myanmar.
This week's ASEAN summits will feature the debut of Paetongtarn Shinawatra, 38, who became Thailand’s prime minister in mid-August. She will make her first bilateral visit to Laos on Tuesday and will be the youngest Southeast Asian leader at the summit.
Singapore has also seen a generational shift with Lawrence Wong succeeding longtime Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in May.
Japan's new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba took office on October 1. He has pledged to strengthen his country’s alliance with the U.S. during a call with President Biden last Wednesday.
“I am grateful for the prime minister’s commitment to the U.S.-Japan Alliance and look forward to working with his government to reinforce the enduring partnership between our two nations,” Blinken said in a statement last week.
Ishiba is also in discussions with South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol about holding a meeting on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit.
Regional security, development and trade — including the creation of resilient semiconductor supply chains — are expected to be top priorities on the U.S. agenda.
In 2023, total two-way merchandise trade between the United States and ASEAN reached $395.9 billion, making the U.S. the second-largest trading partner after China. Additionally, the U.S. is ASEAN’s largest source of foreign direct investment, which amounted to $74.3 billion last year.
Susannah Patton, director of the Southeast Asia Program at the Sydney-based think tank Lowy Institute, said that this year’s East Asia Summit must address contentious global issues such as the conflict in the Middle East and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The East Asia Summit comprises ASEAN’s 10 member countries and eight major dialogue partners, including the United States, China typically represented by Premier Li Qiang, and Russia represented by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
In a recent analysis published by the Lowy Institute, Patton noted that it is likely that the “ASEAN show will come to Laos and then roll on again,” adding that “concrete progress on pressing issues will be sorely lacking.”
“While the EAS is still likely to issue at least one jointly negotiated statement in 2024,” Patton wrote, “it is a reflection of global political polarization that ASEAN’s dialogue partners are no longer able to propose their own dueling statements to advance their preferred language on international issues.”
