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Japan seeks to dilute ASEAN's central role in Asia-Pacific affairs — Foreign Ministry

Director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Third Asian Department Nikolay Nozdrev also noted that in recent years the US has taken a policy of abandoning the existing architecture of equal interaction in favor of expanded bloc formats

MOSCOW, May 20. /TASS/. All Tokyo's efforts are now being thrown at blurring the central role of ASEAN (The Association of Southeast Asian Nations) in Asia-Pacific affairs, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Third Asian Department Nikolay Nozdrev told the Japanese news agency Kyodo in an interview published on the Russian Foreign MInistry’s website.

"We do not see any real steps from the Japanese side aimed at supporting region-wide interaction processes. Unfortunately, at present all Tokyo's efforts are thrown at alternative bloc tracks designed to blur the central role of ASEAN in regional affairs," he pointed out.

As Nozdrev noted, Tokyo is taking deliberate steps to reduce the effectiveness of multilateral mechanisms of interaction in the ASEAN Plus system. "On its platforms, any completely non-politicized proposals for developing practical cooperation that could help de-escalate accumulated tensions in the Asia-Pacific region are rejected. Japan is among those trying to torpedo specific region-wide projects," he said.

According to Nozdrin, for decades, "a multilateral system of cooperation has been formed in the Asia-Pacific region, focused on strengthening regional stability and security, a key element of which are the mechanisms established by ASEAN, including the ASEAN Regional Forum on security, the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting and the East Asia Summit. "Unfortunately, in recent years the US, with its allies’ support, primarily Japan and Australia, has taken a policy of abandoning the existing architecture of equal interaction in favor of expanded bloc formats focused not on cooperation, but on ensuring its own sole dominance through building up the military and force component and aggressive containment of the development of any poles of the emerging polycentric world. Such structures as Quad and AUKUS were created exactly for these purposes," he explained.

Nozdrev explained that the pulling of the Euro-Atlantic factor, represented by NATO, in the Asia-Pacific region seriously complicates the situation. "This line was reinforced at the recent meeting of the NATO foreign ministers, in which Japan, the Republic of Korea, Australia and New Zealand participated," he concluded.