Global powers head to Asia with trade, AI, security in focus

People pose for pictures next to signage for the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) China 2026 summit is seen in Shenzhen, southern China's Guangdong province on November 3, 2026. [AFP]

Global leaders are set to descend on Asia for a series of high-stakes meetings that will tackle everything from AI to trade to, potentially, nuclear disarmament.

AFP looks at a few of the key issues to watch for in the days ahead:

- Three summits, five days -

The 11-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) opens its final leaders' summit of the year on Sunday in Manila, while French President Emmanuel Macron attends a Francophonie summit in Phnom Penh.

Focus then shifts north for the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) conference in Shenzhen.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to be a key figure at APEC, while India's Narendra Modi will be attending the ASEAN meet.

US President Donald Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will travel to both.

Analysts told AFP that the bruising midterm election defeat Trump recently suffered will not appreciably change how the US president is perceived.

"I don't think the region will see him as a lame duck," Siew Mun Tang, former head of the ASEAN Studies Centre at Singapore's ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, told AFP.

"He has two more years. He can do a lot of things."

- Xi-Trump-Putin meet -

The agenda for a proposed sit-down between China's Xi Jinping, Trump and Putin may remain a mystery, but no meeting at the APEC conference will attract more attention.

While Putin has pushed for talks on Ukraine, Trump this week suggested the focus would be on denuclearisation and ending his faltering war in Iran.

Analysts who spoke to AFP cautioned expectations should be kept to a minimum.

"The symbolism... will account for a good portion of its substance," the Brookings Institution's Ryan Hass told AFP.

While he expects Xi and Putin to give Trump "a respectful hearing" on arms control, Hass said they will likely only "agree on broad principles without committing to any follow-on actions".

Wang Wen, dean of Renmin University's Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, agreed major outcomes were unlikely, calling it "a high probability that talks could end without a breakthrough".

Separately, a meeting Trump once hoped for with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appears dead in the water, with Pyongyang rejecting repeated overtures.

- Eyeing AI safeguards -

Artificial intelligence will be a hot topic at APEC, after Xi and Trump agreed in September to set up a "communication channel" for AI incidents.

Trump has repeatedly dismissed fears that AI could pose a threat to humanity. But despite the countries' fierce tech rivalry, calls for cooperation are growing due to shared concerns regarding bioweapons and infrastructure hacking.

Xi in September said Washington and Beijing have a responsibility to "develop and manage AI for good and ensure that the development of AI is always under human control".

APEC talks could build on the pair's previous communication channel agreement, Stephen Wu, founder of Carthage Capital, told AFP.

"Both sides need an outcome, and a hotline is diplomacy's cheapest: free to announce, free to ignore," he said.

Meanwhile, a spying scandal enveloping Nvidia boss Jensen Huang, who was once widely expected to accompany Trump to APEC, threatens to cast a pall on AI discussions. US officials have accused him of sleeping with a woman they claim was working for Beijing.

- ASEAN's murky waters -

In Manila, the Philippines' year in the ASEAN chair looks set to come and go without fulfilling one of its top objectives: signing a South China Sea Code of Conduct (COC) with China.

The ongoing dispute over the waterway has cast a shadow over the bloc's events all year. Philippine and Chinese sailors clashed a day before the start of a July summit, and a diplomatic row erupted at an October defence meeting.

One Southeast Asian diplomat involved in summit preparations told AFP he did not see any agreement being reached in Manila.

Tang, the former ASEAN Studies Centre chief, said the code may have outlived its usefulness.

"If a COC was signed 10 years ago, 15 years ago, it's meaningful. The COC today, I think, has lost its purpose... because the effects on the ground have changed," he said, noting the militarisation of islands by both China and Vietnam.

- Tariff relief? Not likely -

Trade will be a major topic at both ASEAN and APEC, but the prospect of advancing regional free-trade frameworks remains complicated by China-US tensions and Trump's tariff war.

A pause in the China-US trade war was extended through January 10 during Xi's September visit to the White House. But friction remains over the level of Chinese rare-earth exports.

For the rest of the APEC and ASEAN nations, no major changes to US trade policy are expected for the time being.

Existing tariff "mechanisms rest with the president and executive branch rather than Congress... reversing them would require legislation the president could veto", Harry Murphy Cruise, an economist from Oxford Economics, warned in a note.