News
China Announces New ASEAN Belt & Road Initiative Projects Centered Around Cambodia
The Phnom Penh-Bavet Highway which will ultimately link the Cambodian and Vietnamese capital cities The 2022 ASEAN summit took place at the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, this past weekend, with China as an official guest. At the event, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced Beijing’s approval of Chinese investment ...
Chris Devonshire-Ellis
Xi-Asean summit boosts China’s plan to upgrade Southeast Asia ties to comprehensive strategic partnership
China’s long-held plan to upgrade ties with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to a higher tier of diplomatic recognition could come to fruition during next month’s special summit between President Xi Jinping and the bloc’s leaders, observers have said. The prime ministers of Malaysia and Singapore signalled their readiness to participate ...
Bhavan Jaipragas
Myanmar Summit A Test For ASEAN's Credibility
A weekend summit on the Myanmar coup crisis will be a test for ASEAN’s credibility and unity, a senior Thai official said Thursday, amid an escalating death toll and violence across its western border. Security forces in Myanmar have killed at least 739 people since a ...
Myanmar military ruler to attend ASEAN summit in 1st foreign trip
Thailand has announced that the head of Myanmar’s military government, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing, will attend an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Indonesia next week – his first known foreign trip since he seized power in a coup on February 1. Myanmar ...
Al Jazeera
ASEAN focuses on priorities, initiatives in 2020
The 36th ASEAN Summit, the first official top-level meeting of the regional bloc in 2020 when Vietnam serves as the ASEAN Chair, will take place online on June 26 under the chair of Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc. During the meeting, ASEAN leaders are scheduled to ...
ASEAN+3 urged to show solidarity to overcome COVID-19 challenges
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc urged ASEAN and its three partner countries show solidarity to overcome this difficult time while chairing the ASEAN+3 Special Summit on COVID-19 Response on April 14, with the the participation of China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea (RoK), alongside ...
VOV
Human Rights Talks Absent from ASEAN Summit
Much of the recent ASEAN summit was focused on political snubbing between Donald Trump and the region, an Asian trade agreement, and the South China Sea dispute, but one topic was not a priority: human rights. So says the ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights organization, (APHR) ...
Ha Nguyen
RCEP ministers fail to reach agreement
Ministers from 16 Asia-Pacific nations failed to reach an agreement on creating the world’s largest free trade area at their meeting on Friday, a Thai negotiator suggested, but some are optimistic about the chances of a deal by year-end. A senior Japanese government official told reporters ...
Kyodo News
Mekong River Strikes Another Record Low
In recent weeks, the Mekong River, one of the world’s longest and largest rivers, which has been under peril due to a confluence of development, demographic, and geopolitical pressures, has been at its lowest levels in a century. Dams upstream are holding back much needed water ...
Luke Hunt
ASEAN forges cooperation in agriculture, forestry
The Special Senior Officials Meeting of the 40th Meeting of the ASEAN Ministers on Agriculture and Forestry (Special SOM-AMAF) opened in Vietnam’s central province of Thua Thien-Hue on August 5. The event brought together 130 delegates from 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian ...