With friendly tone with Beijing, nation preps for ASEAN summit

Coinciding with the decision by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to meet Southeast Asian leaders next month, a senior US official said on Wednesday that the United States must maintain a sound relationship with China for peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region.

On Wednesday, Kurt Campbell, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said "one of the most important things for us at the (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) forum is to make it clear, particularly to colleagues in ASEAN, that we are committed to a strong, stable and durable relationship with China".

"It is our strong determination to make it clear that we want to work with China," Campbell told the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

Clinton and China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi are expected to meet in Cambodia for the ASEAN forum and roll out specific initiatives on humanitarian disaster relief and wildlife protection, Campbell said.

Clinton's trip follows a series of recent diplomatic trips by the Obama administration in the Southeast Asia region, with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's trip to Vietnam and a visit by Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the Philippines earlier this month.

China has overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea with Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines.

Campbell said the high-level visits show Washington's long-term commitment to regular engagement in the dynamic economic region.

The US is also trying to persuade their European allies into a discussion about Southeast Asian affairs. European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton will be invited to the regional forum for the first time.

"One of the areas that is dramatically lacking, in which is the remarkably little discussion or strategic engagement between Europe and US is on Asia," Campbell said.

Clinton is also expected to lay out a multifaceted diplomatic approach at the ASEAN forum, including a specific economic initiative for Southeast Asia, though Campbell would not elaborate on details.

After the forum, Clinton will take an economic envoy to Siem Reap, Cambodia, to meet business leaders to expand trade ties.

Clinton's attendance highlights the challenges Beijing and Washington have been facing on Southeast Asian issues in recent years due to China's growing political and economic influence in Asia and the US' re-engaged diplomatic policy in the region.

In 2010, Clinton waded into territorial disputes on the South China Sea by telling a security forum in Vietnam that a peaceful resolution over the Nansha and the Xisha islands were within the US' national interests.

Beijing strongly objected at the time, saying Washington was interfering in Asian regional affairs and trying to hype disputes over the South China Sea.

On the recent development of disputes between China, the Philippines and Vietnam, Campbell said the US has insisted on not taking a position and supporting current diplomatic efforts.

Bonnie Glaser, an Asia-Pacific security expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the US does not view relations in the region in zero-sum terms and it is not seeking to force ASEAN members to choose between the world's two largest economies.

"Although the US and other media often pin blame on China, I think other claimants of the South China Sea also sometimes behave in provocative or confrontational ways that has generated concern from the US government," she said.

tanyingzi@chinadailyusa.com