Top US diplomat for East Asia to visit 4 Asean countries

WASHINGTON • The top US diplomat for East Asia will visit Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand from the weekend after President Joe Biden pledged to step up engagement with South-east Asia, a key battleground in his contest for influence with China.

Mr Daniel Kritenbrink, the assistant secretary of state for East Asia, will be in the region until Dec 4, a State Department statement on Friday said.

Mr Kritenbrink would "reaffirm the US commitment to work together... to tackle the most serious global and regional challenges" and stress US support for "a rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific", it said, a reference to China's increasingly assertive behaviour in the region, which Washington has denounced as "coercive".

He will discuss human rights "challenges", seek to bolster cooperation on climate change and discuss ways to pressure Myanmar's military government to cease violence and allow unhindered humanitarian access, the statement said.

He will also discuss how to strengthen economic relationships and "build back better" from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mr Biden joined leaders of Asean in a virtual summit last month, the first time in four years that Washington had engaged with the bloc's top level.

He pledged to stand with Asean in defending freedom of the seas and democracy, and said Washington would start talks on developing a regional economic framework, something critics say his Asia strategy has lacked since his predecessor Donald Trump quit a regional trade pact.

An Asian diplomat said regional countries are still awaiting details of this plan, recognising that Mr Biden's focus on rebuilding domestic economic strength was a limiting factor.

Mr Daniel Russel, a predecessor of Mr Kritenbrink's in the Obama administration, said a key question for Asean was "whether the United States truly has a viable economic strategy" for the region. "The pledge to discuss ways to strengthen US economic engagement with Asean countries is music to their ears, even if they may be underwhelmed by the 'economic framework' so far," he said.

Mr Kritenbrink's trip announcement stressed the "centrality" of the 10-member Asean to regional affairs, but he will not visit the bloc's new chair, Cambodia, which has shifted ever closer to China.

REUTERS