Meeting in Cambodia this week for the annual Asean
summit, Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said Asean deserves credit for
encouraging reforms in Burma, and he’s frustrated that international sanctions
against Burma have not been removed altogether.
“I think the U.S. and the EU are adopting two separate
strategies,” Surin told reporters. “The EU is suspending sanctions, meaning
anything can go, but it can be imposed again. The U.S. is relaxing it step by
step – so two strategies.”
“We appreciate that. But we hope that the pace will be
quick and that evolution inside Myanmar will warrant a serious reconsideration
of the measures put in place for the sanctions,” he said.
Burma is scheduled to become chair of Asean in 2014,
and the annual summit will be held in Naypyitaw.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will arrive in
Cambodia from Laos on Wednesday evening, to attend the summit and other
meetings and to meet with U.S. businessmen who are attending related
conferences.
Clinton will host a large gathering of U.S. business
executives in Siem Reap to discuss ways of increasing U.S. exports to the
region.
She is also expected to announce what officials said
are “very substantial new resources” for nations along the Mekong River.
Her trip is seen as affirming the U.S. re-engagement
with Asia, and the strategic and economic importance of Southeast Asia.
The U.S. also wants a presence in the debate going on
over competing claims over territorial rights in the South China Sea that pits
various S.E. Asia nations against China, which has claimed territorial rights
on the sea.
Analysts have warned it will be difficult to obtain a
consensus on the issue, in large part because the Southeast Asian nations
themselves haven't been able to agree on the best course of action. Vietnam and
the Philippines have pressed for a harder line opposing China’s claim, but
Thailand and Cambodia have resisted strong steps that would embarrass Chinese
leaders. Asean is working to craft a Code of Conduct governing the sea
disputes.
Such divisions put the spotlight on other countries,
such as Laos and Burma, which are now eyed by the U.S. as potential allies in
countering China’s dominance in the Asian region.
“I think the U.S. is worried it doesn't have enough
clout within Asean and East Asia as China becomes so significantly important,
and so I think they feel a vote is a vote—whether you're the size of Indonesia
or the size of Laos, you're still a vote in the Asean environment,” Christopher
Bruton, an analyst at Dataconsult Ltd. in Bangkok told the Wall Street Journal
in an article on Tuesday.
On Monday, an Asean spokesman said, “They met and they
adopted the key elements of the Code of Conduct [for South China Sea disputes]
only among the member states, and from now on they will have to start
assessments with China.”
The official did not elaborate on the key elements of
the Code of Conduct.
On Monday, China said Asean meetings are “not an
appropriate venue for discussing the South China Sea.”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin told reporters
in Beijing, in response to a question over U.S. concerns about a code of
conduct in the waters. “Intentional stirring up of the issue is ignoring the
nations striving for development, intentionally kidnapping the relationship
between China and Asean.”
Clinton, speaking in Tokyo on July 8, said, “We have a
national interest, as every nation does, in the freedom of navigation, in the
maintenance of peace and stability, respect for international law, and
unimpeded, lawful commerce in the South China Sea. Therefore we believe the
nations of the Asia Pacific region should work collaboratively and
diplomatically to resolve their disputes without coercion, without intimidation,
without threats, and without conflict.”
In Cambodia, Clinton will also promote the Lower
Mekong Initiative, launched by the U.S. in 2009 to boost development in Burma,
Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam by investments in education,
infrastructure and the environment.
“This is a watershed moment for Burma and the United
States stands ready to facilitate economic engagement,” David Adelman, the U.S.
ambassador to Singapore, who will lead a trade mission to Burma in August, told
the Bloomberg news website on Tuesday.
China is now the Asean blocks largest trading partner,
accounting for 11.3 per cent of Asean’s total trade in 2010, compared with 9.1
per cent for the U.S., according to Asean. In 2000, U.S. trade represented 16
percent of Asean’s total, compared with 4 percent for China.
However, trade between the U.S. and China is No. 1 in
Asia. The U.S. traded $503 billion in goods with China in 2011, more than
two-and-a-half times the combined $194 billion traded with Indonesia, Thailand,
Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam and other Asean nations, according to the U.S.
Census Bureau.
Analysts said Clinton’s current initiatives in S.E.
Asia send a message to China that while each is a strong trading partner with
the other, the U.S. will work to retain its traditional role and influence in
the region. Increasingly, the U.S. sees itself playing a mediating role in the
region in disputes involving Asia and China.
Carl Thayer, a Southeast Asia securities expert at the
University of New South Wales, told Voice of American on Tuesday that Clinton
will stress that the Obama administration is not only focused on the region for
military purposes.
“The rebalancing we're going to hear is economic
engagement with the region and America's interest in education, health
promotion, environmental and water management along the Mekong [River], that
there are a whole raft of other issues that the U.S. is going to be engaged
with to rebalance, so that the view that the U.S. is only interested in
military confrontation with China is a second component of the rebalancing,”
said Thayer.
Mizzima News
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