Paris attacks, South China Sea draw focus at APEC talks

As reported in 'The Japan News': Reuters A military service member walks past an APEC logo with his dog at the media center of the APEC summit in Manila on Tuesday.

The Associated Press MANILA (AP) — Asia-Pacific leaders are voicing outrage over the attacks in Paris as security and geopolitical concerns overshadowed talks on trade and the economy at an annual regional summit being held under ultra-tight security in the Philippines. Leaders of the 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum plan to condemn the Paris attacks in a joint statement to be released on the last day of meetings, according to a draft of their declaration seen Tuesday by AP. “We strongly condemn these atrocities that demand a united voice from the global community. We, therefore, reaffirm our strong collective resolve to counter terrorism,” the draft statement says. The attacks by suspected Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant extremists killed 129 people and wounded 350 others. Victims were from at least 19 nations, according to French President Francois Hollande. Friction over territorial disputes also was not on the official APEC agenda, whose mission is promoting trade and development. But the rifts were inevitably bursting through APEC’s facade of handshakes and unity photo ops. China’s territorial ambitions in disputed waters of the South China Sea were weighing on the minds of foreign ministers who met in Manila ahead of the leaders’ summit, which begins Wednesday, officials said. Five APEC countries including the Philippines are at odds with Beijing over conflicting claims to islands in those resource-rich waters. The United States showed solidarity with the Philippines by conducting military maneuvers recently near contested islands where China has reclaimed land and built settlements to shore up its own claims. The U.S. military maneuvers in the past month involving ships and B-52 bombers were intended to underline that the United States will not allow freedom of navigation to be compromised by China’s vast claim to the disputed waters. The U.S. actions were met with a rebuke from Beijing but were welcomed by American allies such as the Philippines, Japan and Australia, which are all APEC founding members. China sent its top envoy, Wang Yi, to Manila last week to ask Philippine officials not to include the long-simmering disputes in the APEC agenda, paving the way for Xi’s attendance in the summit. But U.S. officials plan to further highlight the territorial disputes during Obama’s stop in Manila and later on in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where he is to attend the East Asia Summit, an 18-nation bloc that also includes China and U.S. allies Japan and the Philippines. Before APEC leaders began arriving, officials were divided over whether to issue a statement on the Paris attacks or let each leader speak on his or her own. After debating behind closed doors over the weekend, they initially forged a compromise: a paragraph on terrorism to be added to the statement released at the end of the summit Thursday.Speech