JAKARTA: Indonesia warned leaders including US Vice President Kamala Harris, Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov against sharpening rivalries as they wrapped up an East Asia summit in Jakarta on Thursday.

Interactions between the officials from the world’s top two economies are being closely watched as they seek to control tensions that risk flaring anew over issues ranging from Taiwan to ties with Moscow and the competition for influence in the Pacific.

Asean leaders’ statement omits any mention of South China Sea, war in Ukraine

“Every leader has an equal responsibility to not create new conflicts, to not create new tensions, and at the same time we also have a responsibility to lower heated tensions,” Indone­sian President Joko Wid­odo, chair of the Asean, said in closing remarks.

“I can guarantee you that if we are not able to manage differences, we will be destroyed.” Harris spoke about “Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine”, maritime challenges in the South and East China Seas and the growing threat of North Korean missile programmes, Dan­iel Kriten­brink, US assistant secretary for East Asia and Paci­fic affairs, told a briefing.

But a leaders’ statement omitted any mention of the waterway or the Ukraine war.

A Southeast Asian diplomat, who declined to be identified, said a draft paragraph in the leaders’ statement referring to the South China Sea was rejected.

“China objects of course and this is a negotiated text. This is also why there is no Ukraine paragraph because Russia objects,” the diplomat said.

Thursday’s 18-nation sum­mit was the first time top US and Russian officials have sat around the same table in almost two months, after US and Eur­opean officials condemned Lavrov at a July ministerial meeting over Rus­sia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Published in Dawn, September 8th, 2023