Acknowledging the “challenging history”, President Barack Obama on Tuesday opened a historic visit to this isolated Southeast Asian nation on a mission to heal war wounds and reinvigorate relations with a country with rising strategic importance to the U.S.
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The tiff between the two allies overshadowed the opening of a summit of East and Southeast Asian nations in Laos.
Philippine leader responds to controversy by regretting that his statement came across as personal attack on US president.
President Barack Obama said on Tuesday his push to rebalance USA foreign policy to focus more on Asia was not “a passing fad” of his presidency and, in a clear reference to China, said bigger countries should not dictate to smaller ones.
Philippines new president Rodrigo Duterte triggered a diplomatic rift when he cursed President Obama and called him a “son of a whore”, after receiving weeks of criticism over his war on drugs, in which around 2000 people have been killed so far.
Obama learned about the insult as he emerged from the Group of 20 summit in Hangzhou, China.
Hours later, his aides said the meeting had been cancelled.
Laos is the final Asian visit of Obama’s eight-year presidency, during which he has sought to refocus American military, political and economic resources on the region.
Instead, Obama plans to meet South Korean President Park Geun-hye on Tuesday, said Ned Price, spokesman for the White House National Security Council – a meeting where the response to North Korea’s latest missile tests is expected to be on the agenda. The summit will be followed by a series of other meetings on Wednesday and a summit Thursday between leaders from ASEAN and other countries, including the United States, China, Russia, India, South Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
“I think it is important for the entire region and it is important for the United States”, he said.
“Our primary intention is to chart an independent foreign policy while promoting ties with all nations, especially the United States with which we have had a longstanding partnership”, he said.
More than 2,000 alleged drug dealers and addicts are thought to have been killed in the Philippines since Mr Duterte took office on 30 June, pledging to rid the country of its rampant drugs trade.
The rest are “deaths under investigation”, a term human rights activists in the Philippines say is a euphemism for vigilante and extrajudicial killings.
Duterte has repeatedly poured scorn on critics, usually larding it with curses.
This is not the first time the Philippine president has branded a United States official the “son of a whore”. Until the (last) drug manufacturer is killed we will continue. He sought to address worries that United States’ new focus on Asia will leave smaller nations as pawns in a chess match between the USA and China. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also have competing claims to the strategically vital waters, but have watched China expand its presence by building artificial islands in key locations. China claims most of the South China Sea, through which more than $5 trillion of trade moves annually.
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An arbitration court in The Hague in July invalidated China’s territorial claims after a case was brought by the Philippines, a ruling Beijing refuses to recognise.
