US secretary of state Antony Blinken has used a visit to Indo-Pacific to urge China to cease \u201caggressive actions\u201d in the region, as Washington seeks to bolster alliances against Beijing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Joe Biden\u2019s administration is trying to reset relations and reassert its influence in Asia after the turbulence and unpredictability of the Donald Trump era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blinken\u2019s comments came in Indonesia, the first leg of a tour of south-east Asia, the latest visit to the region by a senior US official in recent months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a speech outlining the US approach to the Indo-Pacific, Blinken said Washington would work with allies and partners to \u201cdefend the rules-based order\u201d and countries should have the right to \u201cchoose their own path\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s why there is so much concern \u2013 from north-east Asia to south-east Asia and from the Mekong River to the Pacific Islands \u2013 about Beijing\u2019s aggressive actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cClaiming open seas as their own. Distorting open markets through subsidies to its state-run companies. Denying the exports or revoking deals for countries whose policies it does not agree with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCountries across the region want this behaviour to change \u2013 we do too,\u201d he said, during the speech at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He added that Washington was \u201cdetermined to ensure freedom of navigation in the South China Sea\u201d, and said Beijing\u2019s actions there threatened the movement of more than $3tn worth of commerce every year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Blinken also stressed that \u201cit\u2019s not about a contest between a US-centric region or a China-centric region \u2013 the Indo-Pacific is its own region\u201d, and said Washington wanted to avoid conflict there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
China claims almost all of the resource-rich South China Sea, with competing claims from four south-east Asian states as well as Taiwan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beijing has been accused of deploying a range of military hardware including anti-ship and surface-to-air missiles there, and ignored a 2016 international tribunal decision that declared its historical claim over most of the waters to be without basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blinken also said Washington wants to ensure \u201cpeace and stability in the Taiwan Strait\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
US-China tensions have soared over self-ruled, democratic Taiwan, which China claims as its territory and has vowed to retake one day, by force if necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blinken is seeking to highlight south-east Asia\u2019s growing importance to US foreign policy on the trip, even as his administration has to contend with myriad other crises, from Iran to Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Countries in the region face an increasingly tough task of trying to maintain good relations with both Beijing \u2013 a key trading partner \u2013 and Washington, vital to maintaining the region\u2019s security.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Russia is also trying to assert its influence in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After holding talks with Blinken on Monday, Indonesian president Joko Widodo met the Russian security council secretary, Nikolai Patrushev. After Indonesia, Blinken heads to Malaysia and Thailand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The US-China relationship has deteriorated over a range of issues from cybersecurity and tech supremacy to human rights in Hong Kong and Xinjiang.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Biden has largely continued Trump\u2019s hawkish stance on China, describing the Asian power as the pre-eminent challenge to the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US secretary of state Antony Blinken has used a visit to Indo-Pacific to urge China to cease \u201caggressive actions\u201d in the region, as Washington seeks to bolster alliances against Beijing. President Joe Biden\u2019s administration is trying to reset relations and reassert its influence in Asia after the turbulence and unpredictability of the Donald Trump era. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":3810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[186,188],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-186","category-188"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3813"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3814,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3813\/revisions\/3814"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}