Lima: In an awkward moment, United States President Joe Biden was relegated to the back right corner of the annual family photo at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Peru, while Chinese President Xi Jinping enjoyed a front-and-centre spot next to the host country President Dina Boluarte.
The five-minute awkward moment dazed Biden when he found himself taking his place in the far back corner, between Thailand’s 38-year-old Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and Vietnam President Luong Cuong. The US President briefly reached for Shinawatra’s hand to steady himself.
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum wrapped up on Saturday with a spirit of detente that many fear the summit may not see again for four years.
The 21 leaders from economies bordering the Pacific, including President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping, had descended on Peru for the annual gathering at a time when America’s President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to withdraw the United States from its leadership of a global free trade agenda.
Few could help noting that Biden’s late entrance on Saturday for the traditional APEC family photo lent itself to a political metaphor, as the rest of the leaders prepared to pose onstage before looking around to find Biden missing.
Chinese President Xi scored the best spot in the house, front and center beside the host, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte.
Xi had draped himself in the banner of globalization this week, inaugurating a massive $1.3 billion megaport in Peru that promises to become South America’s biggest shipping hub and using his speeches to reject protectionism.
In Xi’s summit address, delivered by one of his ministers, the Chinese leader urged APEC members to “tear down the walls impeding the flow of trade,” and criticized tariffs — which Trump threatens to levy on Chinese imports — as “going back in history.”
For the annual photo-op, leaders all wore bark-hued wool scarves from Peru — in the APEC tradition of posing in some garb representative of the host country. While conference organizers typically position leaders in alphabetical order for the family photo, arrangements have varied over the years.
Reporters shouted questions as Biden left the stage Friday, asking how he felt about this being his last APEC summit — and one of his last major global events as president.
Biden had hoped that APEC — along with the Group of 20 summit in Rio de Janeiro, where he heads Sunday — would have capped his decades-long political career with a flurry of productive diplomacy and swaggering proclamations of America’s force on the world stage.
But with his party’s stinging defeat in the U.S. election and the future of the U.S.-China rivalry uncertain, there was little he could accomplish in Lima.
Biden sought to cement alliances that could be upended by a Trump administration. He expressed concern to the leaders of South Korea and Japan about what he called “dangerous and destabilizing cooperation” between North Korea and Russia.
After nearly four years of record stability in the Japan-U.S. alliance — a partnership crucial for regional security — Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is now struggling to arrange a high-stakes meeting with Trump.
(Inputs from AP)
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