Blinken promotes deeper U.S. engagement amid concern over ‘aggressive’ PRC
Reuters
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken in mid-December 2021 promoted a U.S. strategy to deepen its Indo-Pacific treaty alliances, offering to boost defense and intelligence work with partners in a region increasingly concerned over the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) “aggressive actions.”
On a visit to Indonesia, Blinken called the Indo-Pacific the world’s most dynamic region, where everyone has a stake in ensuring a status quo without coercion and intimidation, making a barely veiled reference to the PRC. (Pictured: United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken, left, bumps elbows with Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi during a meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, in mid-December 2021.)
He said the U.S., its allies and some South China Sea claimants would push back against any unlawful action.
“We’ll work with our allies and partners to defend the rules-based order that we’ve built together over decades to ensure the region remains open and accessible,” Blinken said.
“Let me be clear: The goal of defending the rules-based order is not to keep any country down. Rather, it’s to protect the right of all countries to choose their own path, free from coercion and intimidation.”
The PRC claims almost the entire South China Sea as its own, despite overlapping claims with other coastal states and a ruling by an international tribunal that its vast claim had no legal basis.
Beijing has rejected the U.S. stance as interference from an outside power.
It was Blinken’s first visit to Southeast Asia since U.S. President Joe Biden took office in January 2021.
Despite tension in the South China Sea, Beijing’s influence has grown in recent years as it pushes infrastructure investment and integrated trade ties in the region.
Blinken said the U.S. would strengthen ties with treaty allies such as Japan, the Philippines, South Korea and Thailand, boost defense and intelligence capabilities with Indo-Pacific partners and defend an open and secure internet.
He stressed that it was not a contest between a U.S.- or China-centric region. He also said Washington was committed to pressing the military junta in Myanmar to end violence, free detainees and return to an inclusive democracy.
Blinken said the U.S. was also committed to a new comprehensive regional economic framework, which would include more U.S. foreign direct investment and U.S. companies identifying opportunities in the region.
Blinken, who also visited Malaysia during the trip, said the U.S. would work to strengthen supply chains and close the region’s infrastructure gaps, from ports and roads to power grids and the internet.
He said the U.S. was hearing increasing concerns in the Indo-Pacific about opaque, corrupt processes of foreign companies that imported their own labor, drained natural resources and polluted the environment.
“Countries in the Indo-Pacific want a better kind of infrastructure,” he said. “But many feel it’s too expensive — or they feel pressured to take bad deals on terms set by others, rather than no deals at all.”
IMAGE CREDIT: REUTERS
