It’s hard work trying to have nuance in a media landscape thirsty for binaries. Anwar could have easily deflected it; Malaysia also relies on China for trade.
Earlier, Albanese met with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, who deals almost weekly with serious incidents on the water due to Chinese heavy-handedness in what Filipinos call the West Philippine Sea.
Anthony Albanese speaks with Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (left) and Singapore Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan on the sidelines of ASEAN on Tuesday.Credit: AP
“The Philippines is grateful [Australia] It always stands shoulder to shoulder with the Philippines in the face of some of the challenges, the common challenges, that we have to face in our region,” Marcos said, before the meeting was held behind closed doors.
Australia signed a lengthy statement with the 11 ASEAN members warning of “intensifying geostrategic shifts…increasing the risk of conflict,” and noting that “the peace and stability of our region is our collective responsibility.”
China has yet to fill the void created by Trump’s America First rhetoric and actions.
Aside from this heavy topic, Albanese’s press conference with host Anwar seemed genuinely warm. The couple had just announced a $1 billion investment by Monash University for a new campus in Kuala Lumpur. But Anwar was also in generally good spirits, having finally concluded his one-year stint as ASEAN’s rotating president.
Anthony Albanese, left, speaks at the annual meeting of Malaysian and Australian leaders on the sidelines of ASEAN on Tuesday.Credit: AP
He opened the ASEAN closing ceremony, shortly before meeting Albanese: “Oh, what a relief.”
The Malaysian leader and his entourage of bodyguards have been a regular sight running through the halls of the central business district’s convention center: one minute on the internal televisions welcoming US President Donald Trump at the airport, the next giving keynote speeches to any of the countless forums around the city.
ASEAN’s credibility is weakened by the reality that its structure makes it difficult to get things done. For any decision to be made, all the disparate member states must agree. Furthermore, Member States cannot be considered to be interfering in the internal affairs of another member. Therefore, big change is difficult.
The South China Sea remains an unresolved point of contention. And Myanmar’s civil war, the bloc’s biggest crisis but forgotten by the West, continues with thousands of civilians already dead and trapped, and millions displaced. The so-called ASEAN Five Point Consensus, which the military junta falsely signed up to, has been completely ineffective.
Anthony Albanese with Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul (left) and his wife, Sasithorn Chantarasomboon, on Monday.Credit: AP
The group is now splintering over preferred approaches, with nations like Thailand advocating more direct dealings with the junta, while others insist on major discussions.
Anwar can at least boast that during his presidency the accession of East Timor as the eleventh member of the bloc was achieved. This summit also provided a forum for an improved peace deal between enemies Thailand and Cambodia, even if it was set up for Trump’s campaign to win the Nobel Peace Prize next year.
Albanese’s two-plus days in Kuala Lumpur allowed for formal meetings with the leaders of Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines and Japan, whose new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, was attending her first official summit.
Charging
Albanese also appeared on Instagram with Cambodia’s Hun Manet.
“For more than 70 years, we have been working with Cambodia to make a difference. From health to education, to the promotion and protection of all human rights,” Albanese’s Instagram post read. “Today I spoke with Prime Minister Hun Manet about how we could build on this work.”
But Albanese’s words and simple meeting with Manet, Hun Sen’s son, will no doubt have upset members of Australia’s Cambodian community, some of whom fled their homeland fearing for their lives.
With a long history of enriching themselves through corruption and political violence, elites within the ruling Cambodian People’s Party have in recent years focused their attention on the extraordinarily lucrative global scam industry.
Charging
A US-funded investigative report this year noted how Cambodia’s fraudulent economy was worth more than $20 billion a year. By comparison, the country’s largest legal industry, textiles, had gross export revenues of about $14 billion in 2022, according to author Jacob Sims.
He Khmer times reported after the meeting that Albanese had “praised Cambodia’s efforts to combat cybercrime and online scams, noting that these challenges affect all countries.”
Now, with his cup full, Albanese travels to South Korea. The APEC extravaganza: Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
