WASHINGTON, September 18. /TASS/. Washington’s policy in the Asia Pacific region rests entirely on Sinophobia, Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov said in an interview with Japan’s Nikkei Asian Review. The text was posted on the Russian embassy’s Facebook about on Friday.
"Many countries wish to gain more influence in Asia. And that is natural. The region has a great social and economic potential. The pandemic has shown that Asian economies are the first to overcome or start to overcome the COVID-19 crisis. As for the US policy in Asia-Pacific, the region does need some steps to solve multiple problems of economic development and to resolve various issues on unifying basis," he said. "Unfortunately, Washington promotes anti-Chinese sentiments and its relations with regional countries are based on their support to such an approach."
According to the Russian diplomat, the concept of "the free and open Asia Pacific" promoted by a number of nations, including the United States, can hardly be called "free and open." "More likely it is quite the opposite: this project is non-transparent and non-inclusive. It is closed to a lot of countries and even whole regions if we talk about the Indian Ocean countries. Instead of well-established norms of the international law Washington promotes there an obscure ‘rules based order.’ What are those rules, who created them and who agreed to them - all this remains unclear," he explained.
"The US actions in Asia should not substitute effective multilateral efforts of the functioning regional bodies," Antonov stressed. "Among them are ASEAN, Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, East Asia Summit, etc. Participants of these mechanisms and their partners, including Russia, work with each other on the basis of mutually accepted approaches. They strive for consensus decisions through negotiations."
The new regional concept of the "free and open Asia Pacific" was advanced by US President Donald Trump and is supported by Australia, India, Japan, and the United States. Expert however say it is mainly geared to contain China’s influence in the region.