APEC flags. File photoCHIANG MAI (Thailand), Aug 30Russia continues and will continue to play an important role in the structure of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, despite the current geopolitical conflict, the representative of the Thai chairmanship, the director general of the international economic cooperation department of the Thai Foreign Ministry and Thailand's senior official in APEC Chetchai told RIA Novosti Chaiwaiwit.Thailand in 2022 will carry out the transitional chairmanship of APEC and host all the events of the forum, including the main event of the year — the APEC Economic Leaders Summit, which will be held in November in Bangkok. From August 26 to 31, the Third Meeting of Senior Officials of APEC Economies (countries) is being held in the «northern capital» of Thailand, Chiang Mai.Ambassador to Thailand spoke about attempts to impose Ukraine on APEC ministers held under the slogan «Openness, interconnectedness, balance,» a Thai representative told RIA Novosti. «If we talk about openness and freedom of trade, Russia is actively involved in cross-border movement of individuals, in the field of balance, it supports our initiative to promote a biocircular green economic model,» Chaivaivit specified. He stressed that Russia has always supported and supports the discussion of the APEC agenda, and this year actively supports the Thai chairmanship and its initiatives. «In terms of possible As an APEC member economy, Russia has huge potential, and because of all this, Russia is a good asset of the forum and the APEC structure,» said a Thai diplomat who has been working in the field of international economic relations and in the APEC structure for several decades.
Thailand is interested in Russian tourists, the ambassador in Bangkok said Geopolitical problems are not eternal «As for the current situation, if you look at the long term, not limited to the period that began on February 24, 2022, you need to understand that the geopolitical situation is not fixed at one point, it tends to change,» he continued. According to Thailand's senior official in ASEAN, there are always tensions here and there in the Asia-Pacific region and in the world, although not always it is a conflict brought to a physical collision: there are trade conflicts, there are conflicts related to the environment, there are contradictions dictated by the existence of sectors in which trade protectionism is manifested. «Contradictions arise not only between such powers as Russia and the United States or China and the United States, or China and Canada. Even Thailand does not with all countries of the Asia-Pacific region, the issues of exclusion of protectionism have been resolved but also the provision of mutual trade preferences,» he explained.A delegation from Thailand will take part in the WEF, the ambassador said, “At the first stage of the existence of APEC, in the early 1990s, we practically did not see such problems, contradictions, conflicts. The Cold War had just ended, the whole world was striving for liberalization, including the liberalization of international trade,” said Chaivayvit. “And in the last 10 years, we have seen that contradictions have arisen more and more often and without events like the conflict in Ukraine. If you ask me how smoothly everything went in APEC, I will answer on The experience of the last few years is that there are many contradictions that we still need to resolve, and in some cases, even without a situation like the one that arose in connection with Ukraine, we fail to find a solution that suits everyone, to which everyone can agree, — said the representative of the Thai APEC chairmanship.Unanimity broken by the «vaccine policy»According to him, only the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in 2020, somewhat changed the situation towards a general consent, since all APEC member economies faced the same problem: it was a time when survival became the main and common task for all. «Also, the fact that during the pandemic the forum and other APEC events could not take place in a face-to-face format, and we could not physically sit at the same table, also contributed to the fact that the contradictions between the economies have largely weakened,» Chaivayvit said. jpg» />Sasivat Wongsinsawat: Thailand is looking forward to Putin at the APEC summit were associated with APEC, for example, the problems associated with the use of different coronavirus vaccines in different countries.There was, so to speak, «vaccine policy,» he said, adding that this policy took shape as a problem when a gradual transition to a post-COVID world began , primarily with mass vaccination and the resumption of international travel, cross-border movement of people. «It was a rather unexpected series of disagreements, and it arose, it seems to me, from the spirit of contradiction that manifested itself in individual countries,» Chaivayvit believes. «Omicron, sanctions and Taiwan»Now fast forward to 2022. At the beginning of the year, we were all encouraged that we were finally coming out of the pandemic and its associated restrictions. But then the Omicron strain appeared, followed by the situation in Ukraine, and immediately after — sanctions against Russia of such a magnitude that they had a negative impact on the entire world economy and created problems in the field of food security. Before we all had time to understand the situation a bit and find some initial answers to the emerging economic problems, a new large-scale controversy arose, this time around Taiwan,» he recalled. «In my personal opinion, as a result of all this, APEC ended up in a bad situation, and the whole world is in a bad situation, as very strong tensions have arisen in several places at once,» the Thai diplomat noted.Thailand is interested in buying Russian energy resources, the ambassador said of «Consensus Crisis» «Therefore, to the question of whether the current situation has a negative impact on the fate of Russian initiatives in APEC and programs in which Russia participates, my answer is yes, of course it does. I am not so naive, to say that there is no such influence. There is such a negative impact, and it affects not only Russia and those processes in which Russia is actively involved within the framework of APEC, but also the entire work of APEC as a whole,» he said. is due to the fact that consensus acts as a decision-making principle in APEC. «Consensus at the forum, in the structure of APEC and in all APEC programs was chosen as the main method of decision-making at the time of the creation of the forum and its structure in 1989, when all participants, so to speak, looked in one direction. There was already a consensus between them in the perception of the world and the path that the world would take with the end of the Cold War, «he said, adding that in those days and everyone looked to the future with optimism. Then it seemed quite natural that decisions in APEC would be made only by general consensus, because the forum participants and its structures were already in agreement on all issues, recalled the head of the international economic cooperation department of the Thai Foreign Ministry.
For Russians, holidays in Thailand will not rise in price, the expert said. «In addition to all this, the consensus by that time had long been part of the Charter (charter) of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the structure of which served as a model for creating the structure of APEC,» he added «Today the situation is completely different, in many respects different from the one in which the APEC forum was created, and at the same time its guiding principles, and above all consensus, complete unanimity, have been preserved and remain in force,» Chaivayvit said. me and the entire team of the Thai chairmanship is the practical impossibility of reaching a consensus of all APEC economies in adopting key documents and decisions of the 2022 forum in the current conditions,» he said, noting that the current situation affects not only Russian initiatives in APEC, but also all initiatives in general — and the initiatives of Thailand, and the initiatives of the United States, and the initiatives of all other APEC member economies, because consensus is necessary to make decisions on all issues dew discussed at the forum. Kick the elephant out of the room» However, I am sure that APEC will survive the current crisis of consensus, because this is not the first time in the history of the forum, although, of course, this time the notorious «elephant in the room», then there is a conflict not directly related to APEC, which, by its mere presence, affects all processes, much more and more seriously than in previous cases,» the head of the Thai delegation said at a meeting of senior APEC officials. He recalled that during the existence of the forum and its political conflicts in a particular economy, and, after September 11, 2001, issues of combating terrorism, and in 2018 the trade war between the United States and China, have already acted as such an «elephant».
Ambassador: Thailand expects creation of free trade zone with EAEU «I am confident in the future of the forum, its structure and the entire APEC process because all economies are included in the forum on an equal footing and have the same rights, whether they are the largest economies in the Asia-Pacific region or the smallest of them,» he said. Of course , the diplomat continued, it is difficult for APEC to work in conditions where processes that are very far from both the forum itself and the economy in general have a direct negative impact on the work of the forum. «But the forum is necessary for all its participants, and sooner or later for the largest economies entering into conflict among themselves outside the scope of APEC, will have to, as APEC members, adapt their actions in the forum and within its structure and programs. m to the urgent tasks facing the forum, and these tasks require agreements and unanimity in their solution,» Chaivayvit concluded. resort fee
