Russia was not quite happy with what the United States just did, when it unveiled a new roadmap in the Indo-Pacific theater that Moscow claims was intended to exclude China.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in his remarks during a conference in India to tackle pressing issues on the global economy, said that the Asia-Pacific partnership up to this day was focused primarily on Southeast Asia.
Lavrov said that the new idea being raised by the US and its allies in Southeast Asia was meant to change the region's existing framework. For Lavrov, calling Asia-Pacific as Indo-Pacific is clearly a move to take China out of the picture. The terminology, he said, should unify -- and not divide.
The United States says the framework for Indo-Pacific engagement promotes, among other things, autonomy, accountability, good governance, and a rule-based order.
The US also needs to spread the perception that it is a region that stretches far beyond the borders of China and East Asia's tiger economies, including the Indian Ocean, through the Indo-Pacific channel.
Meanwhile, China's assertive territorial claims in the South China Sea, through which 70 percent of global shipping passes, have drawn condemnation from the United States and become a flashpoint for an area where Southeast Asian nations Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei all have competing claims.
On Wednesday, Lavrov said that Western countries were not strictly adhering to the United Nations Charter for talks focused on sovereign state equality, non-interference in internal affairs, territorial integrity, and peaceful dispute resolution.
The Russian official said his country was very concerned about the situation in the Persian Gulf region and proposed that Gulf countries start to think about a collective security system as a way to build confidence.
Lavrov remarked that Iran had given other Gulf states a non-aggression pact. Russia recently conducted military exercises in the area with China and Iran to see how secure shipping could be ensured, he said.
Moscow said that it is optimistic that the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus the European Union and Organization of Islamic Cooperation would participate in the collective security mechanism.
The Asia-Pacific cooperation, formally Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, is an inter-governmental partnership comprised of 21 member nations in the Pacific Rim.
It promotes free trade throughout the Asia-Pacific region and was formed in 1989, in response to the growing inter-reliance of Asia-Pacific economies and the emergence of regional trade organizations in other parts of the world.
