Trade, disputed seas on US-ASEAN agenda

Feb 16, 2016, 11:39

"You and the people of ASEAN have always shown me extraordinary hospitality and I hope we can reciprocate with the warmth today and tomorrow, which is why I did not hold this summit in Washington", Obama said.

At a meeting with the 10 leaders that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, Obama said the region was now the fourth largest goods trading partner of the US, including that of USA exports that supported more than 500,000 jobs for Americans in recent years.

Speaking with visiting U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry last month, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said "for the South China Sea issue, we should... try to encourage the countries concerned in the dispute to continue negotiations with each other because ASEAN has no rights to measure land for any sides".

For Obama, the gathering is chiefly another opportunity in his long-term plan to nurture relationships with Southeast Asian leaders and to bolster the regional alliance among Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia.

"As president, I've insisted that even as the United States confronts urgent threats around the world, our foreign policy also has to seize on new opportunities, and few regions present more opportunity in the 21st century than the Asia-Pacific", he added. The summit is the first of its kind, and is largely seen as a a means of developing a strategy to counter China's hegemonic growth in the region.

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Obama and the ASEAN leaders will meet for two days at the scenic Sunnyland retreat in Rancho Mirage where a more informal agenda is planned to discuss a range of critical and thorny issues central to the USA pivot to the region. Citing "international public opinion", a commentary on Monday carried by the Global Times said the summit demonstrated the U.S. desire to further contain China.

In recent years, the United States has increased its maritime security assistance to its allies and partners in the region, improving mutual capabilities to protect lawful commerce and to respond to humanitarian crisis, he said. Coloma said Aquino will likely lead his Asean counterparts during the dialogue with President Obama since he has been so passionate about the sea dispute with China.

The challenge at the summit may be to get all Asean countries to agree on a strong statement on the issue.

The ASEAN countries already have a combined annual gross domestic product of $2.4 trillion, making the bloc the second-largest economy in Asia, after China, and the seventh-largest economy in the world.

At the heart of these disputes are a series of barren islands in two groups - the Spratly Islands, off the coast of the Philippines, and the Paracel Islands, off the coasts of Vietnam and China. Obama hosted Chinese president Xi Jinping at Sunnylands in 2013.

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In this November 22, 2015 file photo, U.S. President Barack Obama, left, shakes hands with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, second left, while Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, second right, and Laotian Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong look on.

Encouragement from Obama, and a message that the United States will continue to engage with the group, may counteract that.

The Obama administration's engagement has included the installation of a full-time USA ambassador to ASEAN, based in Jakarta, Indonesia, and the president has made seven trips to the region, more than twice the number of any of his predecessors.

William Kirby, T.M. Chang Professor of China Studies at Harvard University, said that all the attending countries have complex relations with China, most of which are very positive. White House officials also expressed concern about some of the Asean countries' human-rights record.

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