BANGKOK (AP) — Southeast Asian leaders will commit to conclude a long-delayed regional trade pact this year despite lingering odds to fend off risks from a protracted U.S.-China trade war when they gather for a weekend summit in Thailand.
The Chinese sinking of a Philippine boat, which endangered 22 Filipino fishermen , is also expected to put the South China Sea territorial conflicts under the spotlight in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations meetings. The two-day summit gets underway Saturday in the Thai capital of Bangkok, where ASEAN was founded in 1967.
Other key issues include the planned repatriation of more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees, who have fled a military crackdown in Buddhist-majority Myanmar since August 2017 to neighboring Bangladesh in a crisis that has tested ASEAN.
