Russia, China FMs to meet as ASEAN talks get underway in Laos

ASEAN foreign ministers pose for a family photo on the day of the 57th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting at the National Convention Center in Vientiane, Laos on July 25, 2024. (Reuters)

• ASEAN ministers thrashing out a common position on the civil war raging in member state Myanmar on Thursday

VIENTIANE: The foreign ministers of Russia and China will meet on the sidelines of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers talks in Laos on Thursday, according to a schedule seen by AFP.
The three-day meeting of the 10-member ASEAN bloc started in the capital Vientiane on Thursday, with tensions in the South China Sea and the conflict in Myanmar high on the agenda.
Sergei Lavrov will meet Wang Yi at 6 p.m. local time (1100 GMT) for a 40-minute “ministerial meeting,” according to the schedule.
Both men have already arrived in Vientiane, journalists said, to attend the ASEAN talks as observers along with foreign ministers from the United Kingdom and Canada.
India’s Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar arrived in Vientiane on Thursday and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is also expected to attend.
ASEAN ministers were thrashing out a common position on the civil war raging in member state Myanmar on Thursday, a Southeast Asian diplomat at the talks said.
“Myanmar is not resolved yet but we’re almost there,” the source said, requesting anonymity in order to speak to the media.
A draft ASEAN communique seen by AFP said ministers “strongly condemned” the continued violence unleashed by the military’s coup in 2021 that has plunged the country into turmoil.
The junta is struggling to crush armed opposition to its coup and has been barred from high-level ASEAN meetings over its crackdown on dissent.
It had previously refused to send “non-political representatives” to attend high-level ASEAN meetings but two senior bureaucrats are representing Myanmar at the talks in Vientiane.
The military’s readiness to re-engage diplomatically was a sign of its “weakened position,” the diplomatic source told AFP.
An ethnic minority armed group claimed on Thursday its fighters had captured a town and a military regional command in northern Shan state, although the junta said it was still in control.
Indonesia’s foreign minister slammed on Thursday the Myanmar junta’s unwillingness to engage with a regional peace plan to resolve the crisis sparked by its coup.
Retno Marsudi made the remarks after meeting her Singaporean counterpart on the sidelines of the Vientiane meeting.
Weeks after it seized power, the junta agreed to a five-point peace plan with ASEAN that it has since ignored as it wages a crackdown on dissent and battles armed opposition to its rule.
“We shared the same view on the lack of commitment of Myanmar military junta to implement the 5PC (five point consensus),” Marsudi wrote on social media platform X.
A series of clashes between Philippine and Chinese vessels at flashpoint reefs in the South China Sea in recent months is also on the ASEAN agenda, the diplomatic source said.
Beijing claims the waterway, through which trillions of dollars of trade passes annually, almost in its entirety despite an international court ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.
A Filipino sailor lost a thumb in a June 17 confrontation when Chinese coast guard members wielding knives, sticks and an axe foiled a Philippine Navy attempt to resupply its troops on a remote outpost.
The source said the Philippines was trying to insert a mention of injuries to its people in the joint communique, expected later Thursday.
Blinken is also expected to “discuss the importance of adherence to international law in the South China Sea” when he arrives in Laos, according to the US State Department.