A senior United States diplomat on Monday
said America is not pushing the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN)
to choose between them and China even as both nations are perceived to be
competing for influence over the region.
Former
ambassador J. Stapleton Roy, US representative to the ongoing ASEAN-US Eminent
Persons Group (EPG) meeting in Manila, said Washington’s comeback to the region
after years of preoccupation in the Middle East should not be construed as a
containment of China.
“If we
were approaching it that way, then that would be a failed policy because there
is no support for that approach,” Roy told reporters on the meeting’s
sidelines.
The US
and China have been at loggerheads in Asia, where they have tried to court
support and expand security and economic clout.
Territorial
disputes over the resource-rich South China Sea or West Philippine Sea to
Manila recently became a tug-of-war ground for a rising China and a returning
America, the Pacific power which has come to realize how rapidly it lost the
strategic advantage and tight control it once wielded over the region when it
stepped back and focused its attention in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Roy
said it would be a “mistake” to force the ASEAN to take sides since Southeast
Asia and northeast Asian countries like Japan and South Korea, as well as the
US, “have important relations with China,” the world’s second biggest economy.
Neutral stance
Philippine
eminent person and former ASEAN Secretary General Rodolfo Severino Jr., who is
co-chairing the meeting with Roy, said ASEAN had always maintained a neutral
stance concerning the two rival powers.
“In the
spirit of inclusiveness, ASEAN has made it a point that it should not be forced
to choose between China and the United states,” Severino said in his opening
remarks as he asked the US to clarify the sustainability of its presence in the
region.
“It has
been repeatedly said so and there’s no question on ASEAN taking sides in
whatever rivalry is taking place,” Severino said.
The
EPG, which is meeting for the first time in Manila since it was formed by
leaders of the ASEAN and the U.S in 2009, is an advisory body tasked to
formulate recommendations on how to strengthen the relations between the two
sides, specifically economic, political and security.
The US
is one of the longstanding dialogue partners of ASEAN, having established
relations with the multilateral body in 1977.
ASEAN, a bloc of democratic, socialist and aristocratic states formed in
the Cold War era, consists of the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia,
Singapore, Brunei, Vietnam, Cambodia. Laos and Myanmar.
Roy
admitted that many Americans think the only reason the US is re-focusing its
attention on Southeast Asia is because of the rise of China.
But the
10-member ASEAN’s vast economic potential, he noted, largely influenced
America’s so-called pivot to the region.
Roy
said Washington sees a long-term presence in Southeast Asia, which is rapidly
transforming itself as one of the world’s most economically vibrant region,
while providing “the conditions of peace and stability that are necessary underpinning
for continued economic growth.”
The US
diplomat added that an increased engagement with ASEAN is beneficial to the US
economy.
He said
ASEAN cannot simply be ignored as it is nearly three times greater than US
investments in China and nine times more than its investments in India.
The
Asian Development Bank predicted that by 2030, the region will have a
population of more than 700 million people twice the size of the US population
and would become Asia’s economic hub.
“Any
country that neglects this region is going to pay a serious cost in terms of
the health of its economy,” he said.
Michaela
del Callar/RSJ, GMA News
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