July 22 (Bloomberg) -- The Obama administration plans to join a friendship accord with Southeast Asia, six years after China signed up and signaled a challenge to U.S. military might and economic interests in the resource-rich region.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will sign the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations today at a meeting in Phuket, Thailand. The non-binding agreement would give the U.S. a seat at regional forums as a counterweight to rising Chinese clout.
“As China rises in the region, it is in the U.S. interest to provide an alternative great power to which Asean countries can relate,” said Donald Weatherbee, professor emeritus at the University of South Carolina, who has studied the region since the 1950s. “For the U.S. to deliberately diminish its engagement could lead to a bandwagon effect toward China with negative consequences for other friends and allies in Asia.”
The treaty accession reflects growing U.S. unease with China’s increasing political, economic and military power in a region that contains sea lanes vital to world trade, as well as coal, oil and other commodities. The U.S. Navy’s 40,000-strong force in the 7th Fleet has helped police Southeast Asian waters since World War II.
China’s trade with Southeast Asia has grown almost 20 times since 1993 to $179 billion last year, with its share of total Asean commerce rising to 10.5 percent from 2 percent. The U.S. share of trade with the region during that time fell to 12 percent last year from 17 percent even as two-way shipments almost tripled to $201 billion, according to Asean statistics.
‘New Opportunities’
“In the days and months ahead, the United States will seek new opportunities to work with Asean and partners across the region,” Clinton wrote in the Bangkok Post yesterday.
Asean, whose 10 members include Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, aims to create a European Union-style economic bloc by 2015 to integrate a market of 583 million people. The region’s waterways include the Straits of Malacca, 1.7 miles (2.7 kilometers) wide at its narrowest point, through which about 80 percent of China’s oil imports pass.
Members of Asean are seeking to benefit from China’s economic ties without becoming smothered by its military superiority. Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia the Philippines and Taiwan claim all or part of the oil-rich Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. China says it owns the 3,000 islands spread over an area the size of California.
Island Disputes
The sea, stretching from Singapore to the Straits of Taiwan, carries half the world’s merchant fleet by tonnage each year. China has said all disputes should be resolved peacefully according to a 2002 agreement with Asean in which every country agreed not to inhabit the islands.
All countries that claim the sea should find a “solution through dialogue and consultation,” China’s foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said last month. China “attaches great importance to safeguarding national sovereignty as well as its citizens’ safety and legitimate rights and interests,” he said.
For the past two years, China has put pressure on companies from the U.S. and elsewhere to stop them working with Vietnamese oil companies to explore the South China Sea, Scot Marciel, the U.S. ambassador to Asean, told Congress at a July 15 hearing. The Chinese government last year said it opposed a plan by Exxon Mobil Corp. to explore for petroleum in the region with Vietnam.
‘Imbalance of Power’
“Only the United States has both the stature and the national power to confront the obvious imbalance of power that China brings to these situations,” Senator Jim Webb, a Virginia Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told last week’s hearing. “We have an obligation to maintain a geostrategic balance in the region that ensures fairness for every nation in Asia.”
U.S. sanctions against Asean member Myanmar for failing to release political prisoners including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi were among the reasons the Treaty of Amity has been delayed, according to the Congressional Research Service. Australia, already a signatory, maintains sanctions on Myanmar.
In signing the treaty, the U.S. joins most other Asian powers. Accession is a prerequisite to joining the East Asia Summit, an even larger grouping of Asia’s powers that may precede a wider economic community.
‘Stabilizing Force’
Both China and the U.S. have an important role to play in maintaining peace in Southeast Asia, Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said this week. Whereas China is “an important market for Asean countries,” the U.S. Navy’s patrol of the sea ways makes it “a stabilizing force,” he said.
Asean’s push for alliances with all of Asia’s powers reflects its desire to avoid getting caught up in a wider battle, said Simon Tay, chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. For centuries, the region has found itself a battleground of colonizers and ideological fights, a vulnerability that remains, Tay said.
Asean also includes Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Brunei and Laos.
“The key is not so much what Asean as a grouping does, but what China and the U.S. do together,” Tay said. “If these two big guys fight, it doesn’t make much difference.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Daniel Ten Kate in Phuket, Thailand at
dtenkate@bloomberg.net
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will sign the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations today at a meeting in Phuket, Thailand. The non-binding agreement would give the U.S. a seat at regional forums as a counterweight to rising Chinese clout.
“As China rises in the region, it is in the U.S. interest to provide an alternative great power to which Asean countries can relate,” said Donald Weatherbee, professor emeritus at the University of South Carolina, who has studied the region since the 1950s. “For the U.S. to deliberately diminish its engagement could lead to a bandwagon effect toward China with negative consequences for other friends and allies in Asia.”
The treaty accession reflects growing U.S. unease with China’s increasing political, economic and military power in a region that contains sea lanes vital to world trade, as well as coal, oil and other commodities. The U.S. Navy’s 40,000-strong force in the 7th Fleet has helped police Southeast Asian waters since World War II.
China’s trade with Southeast Asia has grown almost 20 times since 1993 to $179 billion last year, with its share of total Asean commerce rising to 10.5 percent from 2 percent. The U.S. share of trade with the region during that time fell to 12 percent last year from 17 percent even as two-way shipments almost tripled to $201 billion, according to Asean statistics.
‘New Opportunities’
“In the days and months ahead, the United States will seek new opportunities to work with Asean and partners across the region,” Clinton wrote in the Bangkok Post yesterday.
Asean, whose 10 members include Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines, aims to create a European Union-style economic bloc by 2015 to integrate a market of 583 million people. The region’s waterways include the Straits of Malacca, 1.7 miles (2.7 kilometers) wide at its narrowest point, through which about 80 percent of China’s oil imports pass.
Members of Asean are seeking to benefit from China’s economic ties without becoming smothered by its military superiority. Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia the Philippines and Taiwan claim all or part of the oil-rich Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. China says it owns the 3,000 islands spread over an area the size of California.
Island Disputes
The sea, stretching from Singapore to the Straits of Taiwan, carries half the world’s merchant fleet by tonnage each year. China has said all disputes should be resolved peacefully according to a 2002 agreement with Asean in which every country agreed not to inhabit the islands.
All countries that claim the sea should find a “solution through dialogue and consultation,” China’s foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang said last month. China “attaches great importance to safeguarding national sovereignty as well as its citizens’ safety and legitimate rights and interests,” he said.
For the past two years, China has put pressure on companies from the U.S. and elsewhere to stop them working with Vietnamese oil companies to explore the South China Sea, Scot Marciel, the U.S. ambassador to Asean, told Congress at a July 15 hearing. The Chinese government last year said it opposed a plan by Exxon Mobil Corp. to explore for petroleum in the region with Vietnam.
‘Imbalance of Power’
“Only the United States has both the stature and the national power to confront the obvious imbalance of power that China brings to these situations,” Senator Jim Webb, a Virginia Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told last week’s hearing. “We have an obligation to maintain a geostrategic balance in the region that ensures fairness for every nation in Asia.”
U.S. sanctions against Asean member Myanmar for failing to release political prisoners including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi were among the reasons the Treaty of Amity has been delayed, according to the Congressional Research Service. Australia, already a signatory, maintains sanctions on Myanmar.
In signing the treaty, the U.S. joins most other Asian powers. Accession is a prerequisite to joining the East Asia Summit, an even larger grouping of Asia’s powers that may precede a wider economic community.
‘Stabilizing Force’
Both China and the U.S. have an important role to play in maintaining peace in Southeast Asia, Thai Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said this week. Whereas China is “an important market for Asean countries,” the U.S. Navy’s patrol of the sea ways makes it “a stabilizing force,” he said.
Asean’s push for alliances with all of Asia’s powers reflects its desire to avoid getting caught up in a wider battle, said Simon Tay, chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. For centuries, the region has found itself a battleground of colonizers and ideological fights, a vulnerability that remains, Tay said.
Asean also includes Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, Brunei and Laos.
“The key is not so much what Asean as a grouping does, but what China and the U.S. do together,” Tay said. “If these two big guys fight, it doesn’t make much difference.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Daniel Ten Kate in Phuket, Thailand at
dtenkate@bloomberg.net
16 comments:
if the going gets tough and then you look for a way to abandon the people that put trust in you then don't bother USA.
It is important to understand the importance of Asian strategically important locations in which the United States would like to have, which geographically situated in the location where the United States could utilize in the event of war in the regions and does not impede its logistical operations. Of course, that said, we can fairly explain why the United States has multi-million-dollar US Embassy compound in Phnom Penh.
PPU
While US is sleeping, China is still at work.
It is too late for the US now. Cause China really have hand on Cambodia's side.
We will kick the Thai out of Preah Vihear area.
Thanks to CHINA that we got the weapons to shoot down the Thai Airforce.
We're reminded every day that the person closest to the job is,indeed, in the the best position to know how to improve it.
I believe is not to late for the US and China play an important roll to maintain peace in southeast Asia.
May GOD restore PEACE in the Kingdom of Cambodia.
i told you, if you wait too long, you'll lose out with cambodia. cambodia has a policy that we waits for no one. life goes on with or without you. so, hurry up and invest in cambodia before cambodia become unaffordable! also, keep in mind cambodia can change too; after all we have a two thousand and longer history as a nation, from a mediocre beginning to a powerful empire to a decline during the dark ages and now getting back up again. as long as the sun and the moon still revolve around earth or actually the other way around, life goes on, you know! nobody can live forever, but the earth and cambodia as a country can, even after we all long gone! please think about it! god bless cambodia.
The USA has to do much more than this. They can't just preach and didn't do anything. They want to see Democracy prosperous in Cambodia but on the hand they stay silence in all situation. I know it is an individual country's affair. But they need say what they mean.
If they kept delaying the time there will be more influence from CHINA present in Southeast Asia.
Cambodia needs USA, the sooner you come the better. Don't lost this chance.
China for the win!
North Korea for the win!
We want Chinese and North Korean weapons flow to Cambodia more and more. Cause we want to fight the Thai.
Bravo! China and NK!!
Agree!
We need to teach ah chor siem"Thai-thives" some more lesson! this way they'll felt release some of their boredom....
Thailand wanted their army to get into an experience, i think we should show them how...
Like HUN SEN said, it will take 5 Thai to fight 1 Khmer.
We already in the ready position. What's hurt is them. Cause they will run to us. We just aim and shoot.
Don't worry, folks, they (US) alread entered its intelligence community; they're everywhere on Cambodia soil. If you want to get rid of them is to have another Toul Sleng.
PPU
US want their kick again!
That's why the US open its biggest embassy after IRAQ in Cambodia. Why the hell open its biggest embassy in Cambodia. You all got to wonder about that. IRAQ is the biggest one and Cambodia is the 2nd biggest on spending.
Something fishy going on!!!
No matter what happend! PPU still prostitute...
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