World leaders head to Asia for back-to-back diplomatic summits

详细摘要

Tussle for influence as trade, tech and regional security to take centre stage in China, Philippines and Cambodia meetingsThe global political centre of gravity will be firmly in…

Tussle for influence as trade, tech and regional security to take centre stage in China, Philippines and Cambodia meetings

The global political centre of gravity will be firmly in Asia this week as world leaders fly in for back-to-back high-level summits against the backdrop of the tussle for influence between the superpowers China and the US.

Beijing will have the home advantage when it welcomes Donald Trump to its southern technology hub of Shenzhen for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) leaders’ meeting. It starts two weeks after the US leader lost midterm elections.

The summit also comes after an awkward-at-best revelation that the head of Nvidia, the US chipmaker that for a long time was the world’s most valuable company, was having an affair with a woman US intelligence suspects was a Chinese spy.

Apec represents more than 60% of global GDP and has primarily promoted free trade and multilateralism. This year’s meeting could be defined, however, by the confirmed trilateral meeting between Trump, the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and Vladimir Putin of Russia.

The three-way meeting has been likened to a modern-day Yalta, when in 1945 then US president, Franklin D Roosevelt, Britain’s Winston Churchill and the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin met in Crimea to carve up Europe after the second world war. However, analysts say a “Yalta 2.0” that issues edicts on Ukraine and Taiwan without their involvement is unlikely.

Xiaoyu Pu, an associate professor at the University of Nevada’s department of political science, said a three-way meeting “might be more symbolic than substantive, although symbolism itself matters in great-power diplomacy.

“Trump appears interested in nuclear arms control and denuclearisation. Xi’s priority is likely to maintain a stable relationship with Washington while preserving China’s strategic partnership with Russia. Putin, meanwhile, wants to maintain his bargaining leverage over Ukraine.”

Apec begins on Wednesday and follows a flurry of other…

文章开头，摘自The Guardian Business。如需阅读全文，请前往媒体网站。