BANGKOK (AP) — The American diplomatic push aimed at countering China’s increasing influence in the Asia-Pacific region appears to be paying dividends, with many nations showing a willingness to partner with the United States, a top State Department official said Friday.
U.S. State Department Counselor Derek Chollet told The Associated Press it was noteworthy that 13 nations representing 40% of the world’s economy had signed on to the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework that President Joe Biden launched in Japan at the end of May. He said that China at around the same time failed in its attempt to get a group of Pacific islands to endorse a sweeping agreement with Beijing.
China had broken from its traditional approach of negotiating one-on-one with countries behind the scenes to send Foreign Minister Wang Yi on an island-hopping trip last month to try and rally 10 Pacific nations behind the agreement, which covered a broad range of areas including security and fisheries.
But he was unable to find consensus on the deal at a meeting in Fiji, and instead had to settle for smaller bilateral agreements with some of them.
“I think the fact that the Chinese foreign minister’s trip, where they tried to roll out this very bold ‘take it or leave it’ initiative or partnership cooperation, wasn’t really well received, indicates to me that the Pacific island countries want to have an engagement with us,” Chollet said in an interview in Bangkok.
Chollet is in the middle of a trip to Thailand, Brunei and Singapore, as U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman is concurrently visiting the Philippines, South Korea, Laos and Vietnam.
In addition, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin is a featured speaker on the weekend at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Asia’s premier defense and security forum, and will visit Thailand next week.
The in-person outreach is part of an approach that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in May meant putting “diplomacy back at the center of American foreign policy.”
