Global powers converge on Manila as ASEAN summit kicks off

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Global powers converge on Manila as ASEAN summit kicks off

A key regional summit opens on Sunday in Manila, with Southeast Asian heads of state facing questions on trade, security and an ongoing energy crisis while playing host to a who's who of global leaders.

US President Donald Trump is scheduled to arrive on Tuesday near the summit's conclusion, a visit expected to include a sideline meeting with fellow Quad countries India, Japan and Australia the first of his second term.

The meeting of the Quad a grouping broadly aimed at counterbalancing China's regional influence would come days before a historic sit-down with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Russia's Vladimir Putin in Shenzhen.

Brazil's recently re-elected Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, meanwhile, is set to attend a plenary session of the 11-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations on Sunday, while Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will sign a new defence pact with host country the Philippines.

Nearly 20,000 police officers have been deployed around Metro Manila for the summit, with progressive groups predicting a turnout of thousands on Tuesday for an anti-Trump march on the summit site.

Much of the uproar targets the US Pax Silica programme a supply-chain initiative designed to counter China's dominance in semiconductors and rare earths whose flagship Philippine project, a 1,620-hectare AI manufacturing hub north of Manila, threatens to displace Indigenous families.

US Ambassador to the Philippines Lee Lipton said last week that a widely rumoured November target date for a deal signing timed to Trump's visit was never in the works.

A day of early meetings kicked off on Saturday with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announcing a Philippine trade deal, and ASEAN leaders huddling on key issues including haze from Indonesia and potential fuel-sharing schemes as members struggle with Iran war-driven shortages.

But two issues that have vexed ASEAN leaders for years a languishing South China Sea "Code of Conduct" and their relationship with war-torn Myanmar look to…

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