Rubio Heads to Manila as Washington and Beijing Quietly Prepare Another Trump-Xi Summit

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A Packed Week in the Philippine Capital

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio departs for Manila on Sunday to join one of the year's biggest diplomatic gatherings in the Indo-Pacific. He will attend the ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference, the East Asia Summit Foreign Ministers' Meeting, and the ASEAN Regional Forum, running from July 19 through July 24.

The Philippines, which holds the rotating ASEAN chairmanship this year, confirmed that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will also attend, alongside counterparts from Japan, Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Foreign ministry spokesperson Dominic Xavier Imperial said New Zealand, India, and the European Union will send representatives as well.

The State Department framed Rubio's trip around "a free and open Indo-Pacific," while also using the visit to strengthen ties with the Philippines, a treaty ally increasingly at the center of U.S. strategy toward the region.

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The Real Story: Setting Up Trump and Xi

While no meeting between Rubio and Wang Yi has been officially confirmed, both sides have a track record of using ASEAN gatherings for exactly this kind of quiet diplomacy. Analysts expect the two to use their time in Manila to prepare for a second summit this year between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, following their first meeting in May. Trump has indicated Xi will travel to the United States by the end of September.

A trade truce reached by the two leaders in October has kept tensions from boiling over, even as most observers still describe the broader U.S.-China relationship as locked in a new kind of Cold War. Trump's approach has been to keep pressure on Beijing over trade and security while leaving the door open for direct dealmaking at the top — a strategy that has produced tangible results without abandoning a firm stance toward the Chinese Communist Party's broader ambitions in the region.

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Beijing's South China Sea Claims Face Renewed Pushback

The South China Sea will loom large over the talks. The meetings follow the tenth anniversary of the 2016 international arbitration ruling that rejected China's sweeping "nine-dash line" claim to the waterway. Beijing has never accepted the decision, again dismissing it this month as "illegal, null and void."

Just days before the Manila meetings, the United States, the United Kingdom, and twelve other nations issued a joint statement reaffirming the ruling as "final, legally binding, and definitive," and calling on Beijing to halt destabilizing actions in the disputed waters. China's foreign ministry dismissed the coalition's statement, while state media mocked it as worthless.

Harrison Pretat, a maritime security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he expects Rubio to reiterate U.S. criticism of Chinese behavior in the South China Sea, but without derailing the broader relationship. "I would expect a calibrated approach rather than an attempt to really hammer Beijing," he said, adding that China will likely want to "state their position and move on."

Manila, for its part, says it remains committed to finalizing a binding code of conduct for the South China Sea with ASEAN partners this year — an effort that would give the region's smaller nations more legal footing against Beijing's expansive claims.

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Myanmar Back on the Table

Myanmar is also expected to feature prominently. ASEAN foreign ministers held informal talks with Myanmar's foreign minister last week in Bangkok — the first face-to-face engagement of its kind since the bloc barred the junta's top leaders from its meetings following the 2021 military coup.

Philippine Foreign Secretary Ma. Theresa Lazaro, who serves as ASEAN's special envoy on Myanmar, has also met with rebel groups and representatives of the National Unity Government as part of a broader push to find a way out of the ongoing crisis. Whether ASEAN eventually reverses its ban on junta leadership remains an open question heading into the bloc's November summit.

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Scam Centers and Regional Security

Beyond geopolitics, Southeast Asia's booming online scam industry is expected to draw attention as well. Andreyka Natalegawa, a Southeast Asia expert at CSIS, noted that the Trump administration considers these scam operations — many of them based in Myanmar and Cambodia — a serious financial threat, estimating they cost Americans billions of dollars annually.

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What Comes Next

With the Iran war continuing to strain global trade and add economic pressure across Asia, the Manila meetings arrive at a genuinely unsettled moment. But if Rubio and Wang Yi do meet, it will be one of the clearest signals yet that both Washington and Beijing intend to keep the Trump-Xi summit track moving forward in September — even as fundamental disagreements over the South China Sea, human rights, and regional influence remain unresolved.

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Sources

1. Reuters – "Rubio expected to discuss Trump-Xi summit in Asia meetings": https://www.reuters.com/world/china/rubio-expected-discuss-trump-xi-summit-asia-meetings-2026-07-17/
2. ABC News (AP) – "US, UK and 12 other nations reaffirm 2016 ruling invalidating China's claims in South China Sea": https://abcnews.com/International/wireStory/us-uk-12-nations-reaffirm-2016-ruling-invalidating-134688444
3. Rappler – "Manila to host ASEAN, US, China foreign ministers for high-level meetings": https://www.rappler.com/philippines/manila-host-asean-foreign-ministers-meetings-july-2026/
4. BusinessWorld Online – "ASEAN envoy says to engage all Myanmar stakeholders, will brief ministers at Manila meeting next week": https://bworldonline.com/the-nation/2026/07/16/763894/asean-envoy-says-to-engage-all-myanmar-stakeholders-will-brief-ministers-at-manila-meeting-next-week/

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