“Who is he to confront me?”
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Monday’s diplomatic dustup between the US and the Philippines was over nearly before it began, after newly elected Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte quickly apologized for calling President Barack Obama a “son of a b***h”.
Modi will be attending the annual India-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) annual summit on September 7 and the East Asia summit on September 8.
In Hangzhou this week, Obama’s first stop in Asia, he heaped praise on Chinese President Xi Jinping for hosting the Group of 20 economic summit in his country, an authoritarian state long accused of human rights violations.
“Multifaceted security challenges have occurred in many parts of the world, such as terrorism and extremism, natural disasters, climate change, migration crisis, trafficking in people, territorial disputes and armed conflicts”, Bounnhang said. “So we have to be very vigilant in terms of enforcement and we have to maintain the sense of urgency among the global community”, Rhodes said.
The 10-nation ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
The East Asia summit will be attended by the leaders of the 10 Asean nations and those of India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Russian Federation.
Obama also spent about 90 minutes Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, another leader whose fate seems intertwined with Obama’s in all the wrong ways.
The de facto apology came one day after Duterte warned Obama not to question him about his country’s extrajudicial killings in a war on drugs. I do not have any master except the Filipino people, nobody but nobody. The White House said President Obama would be raising the extrajudicial killings with Duterte at their planned meeting, but Duterte reacted strongly, saying: “You must be respectful”. Do not just throw questions.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday expressed regret for referring to President Obama as a “son of a bitch” and said his nation seeks closer ties with the United States.
Instead of the Duterte meeting, Obama plans to hold talks with South Korean President Park Geun-hye, said Ned Price, spokesman for the White House National Security Council – a meeting where the response to North Korea’s latest missile tests is expected to be on the agenda. “He’s the most powerful president of any country on the planet”, Duterte said. The ruling by the Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration answers a complaint brought by the Philippines in 2013 that accused Beijing of violating the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) with its aggressive actions on the Scarborough Shoal, a reef located about 225 kilometers off the Philippine coast.
Although ASEAN has the power of the ruling behind it, its summit is unlikely to mention it in its final declaration, a reflection of Beijing’s diplomatic clout. “There’s a protocol for that”, Duterte said.
It is also the first visit by a sitting U.S. president to Laos, which the United States secretly carpet bombed for almost a decade in the Vietnam War, killing tens of thousands of people.
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He has also taken a more conciliatory position with US rival China. The U.S. has been a major financial supporter of the Philippine military effort.
