By Kate Lamb and Stanley Widianto
JAKARTA (Reuters) -Top Chinese diplomat Wang Yi held bilateral meetings with the foreign ministers of Russia and the United States on Thursday on the sidelines of a Southeast Asian-led summit in Indonesia.
Wang is representing China at this week’s summits hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and attended by envoys from its major partners including the United States, Russia, Australia, Japan and India.
In the latest in a series of interactions between the rival superpowers, Wang shook hands with Blinken before entering a meeting room in a hotel in central Jakarta, where the two were seen seated across from each other.
They did not speak to the press at the start of their meeting, which comes less than a month after Blinken’s visit to Beijing when China and the United States agreed to stabilise their rivalry so it does not veer into conflict, but failed to produce any major breakthrough.
The two sides at the time appeared entrenched in their positions over everything from Taiwan to trade, including U.S. actions toward China’s chip industry, human rights and Russia’s war against Ukraine.
But analysts see the recent meetings as part of efforts to clear the way for a summit between President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping later in the year.
Wang also met separately with Russia’s Sergei Lavrov.
“The two sides should follow the important consensus reached by the heads of state, maintain high-level exchanges, strengthen strategic communication and coordination,” the Chinese foreign ministry said on the meeting with Russia, quoting Wang.
MYANMAR ENGAGEMENT
The summits follow a meeting of Southeast Asian foreign ministers who were expected on Thursday to agree on a communique that would include a reference to the ongoing crisis in Myanmar.
But there was no sign of the statement as of late Thursday. Reasons for the delay were unclear but an ASEAN official said a communique was being finalised and would be released soon.
ASEAN chair Indonesia on Wednesday urged the group’s foreign ministers to remain united in tackling the escalating violence in Myanmar and push its military leaders to implement a five-point peace plan agreed shortly after they mounted a coup in early 2021.
Malaysia, a vocal critic of the junta, urged ASEAN to strongly condemn the junta’s actions, including violence.
“I pressed for a stronger statement on this issue to be included in the joint communique of the ASEAN ministerial meeting,” Foreign Minister Zambry Abdul Kadir said in a statement late on Wednesday.
Junta officials have been barred from high-level ASEAN meetings due to the lack of progress on the plan, which calls for a halt to violence and inclusive dialogue.
REGIONAL RIFTS APPARENT
Rifts within ASEAN over Myanmar were highlighted when Thailand invited Myanmar military officials to a meeting last month aimed at “re-engaging” with the junta.
Most ASEAN members shunned the meeting, which Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai defended, saying his country was suffering in terms of its border, trade and refugee problems.
Don said on Wednesday he had recently met Myanmar’s jailed former leader Aung San Suu Kyi, the first foreign official to be granted access to the Nobel laureate since her detention by the military more than two years ago.
Myanmar’s shadow National Unity Government, made up of loyalists to Suu Kyi’s ousted administration, has discouraged ASEAN from engaging with the junta unless it releases all political prisoners.
(Additional reporting by Gayatri Suroyo; Writing by Kanupriya Kapoor, A. Ananthalakshmi, Devjyot Ghoshal; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Raju Gopalakrishan and Nick Macfie)
