JAKARTA (REUTERS) - US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a strong commitment to Indonesia on Monday (Dec 13), a senior official said, as he kicked off a South-east Asia trip aimed at strengthening ties with a region that has become a strategic arena for Washington and Beijing.
In his first trip to the region since United States President Joe Biden took office in January, Mr Blinken met with Indonesian President Joko Widodo, the first of several top officials he will see on a four-day tour that includes Malaysia and Thailand.
Summarising the meeting with Mr Jokowi, as the President is known, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said Mr Blinken showed a keen interest in partnering with their country, especially in infrastructure.
"The US commitment was very noticeable," Ms Retno told reporters.
South-east Asia is a key stage for a rivalry between the United States and China, with a heated struggle for influence as the Biden administration seeks to reconnect with a region to which US commitment was questioned under President Donald Trump.
Mr Blinken congratulated Mr Jokowi on Indonesia's Group of 20 presidency and expressed support for its Indo-Pacific leadership role, as a "strong proponent of the rules-based international order", State Department spokesman Ned Price said, adding human rights, the pandemic and the climate crisis were also discussed.
Indonesia is South-east Asia's biggest economy and its most populous nation. It is the third-largest democracy in the world and also home to a third of the planet's rainforests.
Mr Blinken will deliver a speech on US Indo-Pacific strategy on Tuesday in the capital Jakarta, among other events, before meetings in Malaysia and Thailand on Wednesday and Thursday respectively.
He will pursue Mr Biden's aim of elevating engagement with the 10-member Asean bloc and discuss the US President's vision for an Indo-Pacific economic framework, a top US diplomat for Asia said ahead of the trip.
The United States has also been pushing back against Beijing's assertiveness in the South China Sea, a conduit for US$3 trillion (S$4.1 trillion) of annual trade and accuses its vast coastguard fleet of bullying countries including Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia by disrupting energy and fishing activities.
China claims almost the entire sea as its own and has rejected US actions as interference by an outside power.
The Biden administration sees closer engagement in South-east Asia as vital to its efforts to push back against China's growing power, but Mr Trump's withdrawal from a regional trade deal in 2017 has limited its ability to exert economic influence, while Beijing has sought to bolster its trade ties.
The administration has yet to spell out what exactly Mr Biden's envisaged economic framework will entail.
