Political analysts said Obama is determined to present the USA as a Pacific Power and his meeting with the ASEAN leaders is aimed at cementing that legacy.
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President Obama’s two-day summit with the leaders of 10 Southeast Asian nations beginning here Monday marks an unprecedented bid to deepen US ties to a distant region that barely registers in the consciousness of most Americans.
Other ASEAN members, however, have hinted that they do not want to anger China with USA action. This is for the first time that the US President has hosted ASEAN leaders for a summit meeting. Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung also turned up, reversing an earlier decision not to come. At the summit, the U.S.is urging all the ASEAN leaders to agree on “shared visions”, which include the importance of freedom of navigation in the region and human rights.
So far, the pivot has entailed allocating more USA military resources to East Asia-for example, sending Marines to Australia and more naval assets to the U.S.-controlled island of Guam-and beefing up formal and informal Cold War alliances in the region and improving relations with former enemy Vietnam, which has a historic rivalry with China.
“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.
“It is cold there”.
At the meeting in Sunnylands, a southern California desert resort, the leaders sat around a horseshoe-shaped table.
Underscoring the relaxed atmosphere, all leaders wore open-collar shirts with their suits.
“Together, we can also continue to increase our security cooperation to meet shared challenges”, he said as he welcomed leaders of Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia at Rancho Mirage in California.
Southeast Asia is now America’s fourth largest goods trading partner, said the president, including US exports that sustain more than 500,000 U.S.jobs.
“And it’s largely because the administration has started to build institutions and institutionalize the U.S.-Southeast Asian relationship in a way that we had not locked in”, he said. And our sustained engagement is delivering concrete results that benefit all of us – momentum that we can build on here at this summit.
Obama plans to hold talks on the economy focused on promoting innovation and entrepreneurship and a working dinner. But China is expected to loom large amid rising concerns over territorial disputes and maritime security in the South China Sea and White House efforts to reach agreement with Beijing on responding to recent aggression from North Korea. The four ASEAN members in TPP – Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam – will want to know if it Congress will ratify the pact, which remains in doubt.
China is ASEAN’s biggest trade partner, but its claims to nearly all of the South China Sea as its own and its rapid buildup of artificial islands there is a growing source of concern among Beijing’s Southeast Asian neighbors.
In 2012, Cambodia refused to mention discussions in an ASEAN foreign ministerial summit statement about a shoal disputed by China and the Philippines.
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Though China was not mentioned in Mr Obama’s opening remarks on Monday, he did make reference to the need for stability in the region. Despite the region’s relative success in combating al-Qaida-linked militancy since 9/11, the Islamic State group, or IS, appears to be gaining a foothold.
