Leaders from South-East Asia nations attend a dinner hosted by Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at Akasaka Palace state guest house in Tokyo, Saturday Dec. 16, 2023. Asean and Japan celebrate its 50th anniversary of their friendship and cooperation in Tokyo through December 18. - AP
MOSCOW (Agencies): Tokyo will host a three-day commemorative Asean-Japan summit from Saturday to mark 50 years of friendship and cooperation between Japan and the union of 10 South-East Asian nations, Bernama-Sputnik reported.
Asean Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn of Cambodia will lead a delegation from the Asean Secretariat to the December 16-18 summit at the invitation of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.
The summit will take stock of the achievements made in Asean-Japan relations over the past decades and chart the future direction of a mutually beneficial comprehensive strategic partnership.
Kishida will co-chair the summit together with President Joko Widodo of Indonesia, which holds the rotating chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. He will also host a gala dinner on Sunday and hold bilateral meetings with other Asian leaders.
Meanwhile, the South-East Asian and Japanese leaders will also agree to boost "maritime security cooperation", according to a draft statement seen by AFP from a summit that kicked off Saturday against the backdrop of growing tensions in the South China Sea.
China claims almost the entire waterway, a vital trade corridor, and its increasingly aggressive behaviour in disputed areas has riled nations across the region as well as Washington.
Close US ally Japan, which also has competing territorial claims with China, is upping its military spending and has already boosted security cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region, including with South Korea and Australia.
According to the draft of the weekend summit's final statement, Japan and the Association of South-East Asian Nations (Asean) will commit to "(strengthen) security cooperation, including maritime security cooperation".
Japan on Wednesday expressed "serious concern" about "dangerous actions" after the latest tense confrontation between Philippine and Chinese vessels at flashpoint reefs that included a collision and Chinese ships shooting water cannon.
Tokyo added that it "concurs with the Philippines' long-standing objections to unlawful maritime claims, militarization, coercive activities and threat or use of force in the South China Sea".
Japan last month agreed to help the Philippines -- whose President Ferdinand Marcos was due in Tokyo -- buy coastguard vessels and to supply a radar system, and the two are discussing allowing troop deployments on each other's soil. - Agencies
