FOR world leaders, the prospect of a day spent milling around a gleaming new conference centre in Hangzhou, China, at the G20 summit this week, with nothing to show for it but an anodyne communiqué, must be depressing enough. Worse is the knowledge that many of them will then head straight for the East Asia Summit, an annual jamboree hosted by the ten-member Association of South-East Asian Nations, or ASEAN, to be held this year in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Whatever skills President Xi Jinping of China may display in concealing an absence of purpose at the G20 were surely learned from South-East Asia. When it comes to elevating form over substance, and confusing a proliferation of meetings and acronyms for a deepening of ties, ASEAN is the Zen master.
Laos has what may be the world’s most closed political system after North Korea. The last ASEAN summit held there, in 2004, led to the construction of sleepy Vientiane’s first high-rise. As for the few visiting media, the communist official appointed as spokesman for the occasion responded to most questions by blinking. This time the presidents of America and Russia, the prime ministers of China,...Continue reading
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