Vietnam hosts online ASEAN summit amid pandemic

Southeast Asian leaders are holding an annual summit Friday by online video to show unity and discuss a regional emergency fund amid the immense crisis wrought by the coronavirus pandemic but the long-divisive South China Sea conflicts are also under the spotlight.

The leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations linked up online due to regional travel restrictions, which have delayed dozens of meetings and shut out the ceremonial spectacles, group handshakes and photo-ops that have been the trademark of the 10-nation bloc's annual summits. Vietnam, the current ASEAN chair, planned for face-to-face meetings, but most member states assessed it was still too risky for leaders to travel.

Southeast Asian nations have been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic differently, with hard-hit Indonesia battling over 50,000 infections and over 2,600 deaths, and the tiny socialist state of Laos reporting just 19 cases.

The diverse region of 650 million people, however, has been an Asian COVID-19 hotspot, with a combined total of more than 138,000 infections that have well surpassed that of China, where the new virus was first detected in December 2019.

The economic toll has been severe, with ASEAN's leading economies, including Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia, heading for their most severe recessions in decades.

"We recognized the significant cost and unprecedented challenges to the region and the world caused by the coronavirus disease pandemic," Vietnam says on behalf of ASEAN states in a draft communiqué to be issued after Friday's summit. "We noted with grave concern the human and socio-economic costs caused by COVID-19 and remained committed to implementing targeted policies to instill confidence that ASEAN is at the forefront of this critical battle."

A high-priority project would be the establishment of an ASEAN "COVID-19 response fund," which could be used to help member states purchase medical supplies and protective suits. Thailand has pledged to contribute $100,000 and the regional group's partners, including China, Japan and South Korea, were expected to announce contributions after the terms of the fund were recently finalized, a senior Southeast Asian diplomat told The Associated Press.

A regional stockpile of medical supplies has also been proposed and the group will undertake a study to be financed by Japan on the possibility of establishing an ASEAN center on public health emergencies, said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a lack of authority to speak publicly.

While the conservative bloc has tried to project unity, it has been split by longstanding rivalries and disputes, particularly over territorial disputes in the South China Sea that mainly involve four of its member states, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei.

China and Taiwan are also involved in the long-seething conflicts in one of the world's busiest waterways, which has been a crucial battleground for influence by Beijing and Washington.

The long-unresolved disputes, along with the plight of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar who are languishing in crowded refugee camps in neighboring Bangladesh, are among the most-thorny issues in ASEAN's agenda.

China has come under fire for what rival claimant states say were aggressive actions in the disputed waters while countries scrambled to deal with the viral outbreaks. Vietnam protested in April that a Chinese coast guard ship rammed and sank a Vietnamese fishing boat with eight fishermen off the Paracel islands in April. The Philippines backed Vietnam over the incident and protested new territorial districts announced by China in large swatches of the disputed sea.

Washington also lashed at China, which denied accusations that it was exploiting the intense preoccupation with the pandemic to advance its territorial claims as "sheer nonsense."