APEC summit to focus on North Korea's ICBM test

Shafaq News/ On Friday, the Asia-Pacific leaders gathered in Bangkok for the APEC summit to discuss economic issues and the North Korean suspected intercontinental ballistic missile test.

On the sidelines of the Summit, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris met with top leaders of Australia, Japan, South Korea, Canada, and New Zealand, focusing on the North Korean missile.

Russia is a member of APEC, but President Vladimir Putin has stayed away from the summits. So instead, first Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov will represent him at APEC.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also attends the central meeting, while French President Emmanuel Macron is a special guest.

Prime Minister of Thailand, Prayuth Chan-Ocha, called participants at the summit to "seek sustainable growth and development after economic and social challenges from COVID, climate change and geopolitical rivalries." Reuters said.

"We can no longer live as we did. We need to adjust our perspective, ways of life, and ways of doing business," he said to an audience that included Harris and China's President Xi Jinping.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters that North Korea had "repeated its provocations with unprecedented frequency."

Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai said the APEC meeting was taking place at a "pivotal juncture" with the world facing multiple risks.

"That's why APEC this year must rise above these challenges and deliver hope to the world at large," he said.

Xi, warning against Cold War tensions in a region that is a focus for competition between Beijing and Washington, said on Thursday the Asia-Pacific was no one's backyard and should not become an arena of big power rivalry,

"No attempt to wage a new cold war will ever be allowed by the people or by our times," Xi said in written remarks prepared for a business event linked to the summit.

Relations between the world's two largest economies have been strained in recent years over issues like tariffs, Taiwan, intellectual property, the removal of Hong Kong's autonomy, and disputes over the South China Sea, among others.

In a move that Beijing may see as a provocation, a senior U.S. official said Harris would visit the Philippine islands of Palawan on the edge of the disputed South China Sea on Tuesday.