ASEAN summit a worthwhile investment of Australia’s soft power
But the optics of forging stronger links with the nations of South-East Asia were undercut by the unprecedented and unedifying intervention by Paul Keating.
It is disappointing that the final communique of the ASEAN special summit in Melbourne failed to back the stronger language on China’s regional belligerence pushed by countries such as the Philippines, which is on the front line of its maritime bullying in the South China Sea.
The sanitised communique with its talk of “exercising self-restraint” to help maintain peace, stability and freedom of navigation was an unavoidable compromise needed to get consensus from ASEAN’s members as Anthony Albanese says.
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