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Asia-Pacific becoming focus of strategic rivalry between superpowers — Vietnam’s minister

Vietnamese Defense Minister Phan Van Giang noted that the Asia-Pacific region had always been considered a dynamic region with great development potential

PATRIOT PARK /Moscow Region/, August 15. /TASS/. The Asia-Pacific region is turning into a center of strategic competition between superpowers, Vietnamese Defense Minister Phan Van Giang said at the 11th Moscow Conference on International Security.

"The Asia-Pacific region has always been considered a dynamic region with great development potential. According to some estimates, the 21st century will be the century of Asia-Pacific, which is becoming the center of strategic competition between superpowers," the minister said.

He said that several factors contribute to this. First, the region is home to almost two-thirds of the world's population, or about 4.8 billion people, and its GDP makes up 57% of the world’s total. Second, the region is rapidly developing, with increasingly more of the world's production capacity tending to move to this part of the globe. Third, the increasing attention to the region from countries outside of it, on the one hand, provides opportunities for cooperation and development, but on the other hand, increases geopolitical competition, risks, confrontation and friction in the region, the minister said. He also said that "there are problems and disagreements between countries in the region, which can be a pretext for increased outside interference."

The 11th Moscow Conference on International Security is taking place at the Patriot Exhibition and Conference Center on Tuesday. Representatives of defense agencies and international organizations, military experts and diplomats from several dozen countries are discussing shared threats to global and regional stability as well as various aspects of security in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Latin America. The central theme of the event, which is organized by the Russian Defense Ministry, is promoting engagement in the new reality that is emerging in the course of building a multipolar world order.

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