‘No letup in US pivot to Asia-Pacific’

WASHINGTON – The new US point man on East Asia on Monday vowed no let-up in Washington’s focus on the region, pledging to build cooperation both with US allies and a rising China.

Daniel Russel, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said there will be “no let up, no backtracking, no diminution” of America’s commitment to rebalance its interests and investments in the Asia Pacific region.

“You can count on us to remain deeply engaged in the Asia-Pacific region because our interests are so profound in that region,” he said in his first press conference since assuming his post.

Russel, who succeeded Kurt Campbell, said the Asia Pacific region was in an extraordinary period of growth and prosperity and “promoting that growth, facilitating it, sustaining it and harnessing it, frankly is central to America’s economic and strategic interest.”

But he said the US was also very mindful of the problems and the challenges, citing North Korea’s nuclear program and tensions over territorial disputes in the South China Sea and in the East China Sea.

Russel said China and the US were working hard to develop a candid dialogue on areas of disagreement and to make sure each understands the motivations and objectives of the other.

“The US and China don’t agree on everything, of course, but talk about everything,” he said.

Maintaining good lines of communication between Washington and Beijing is a priority also for the other countries in the region, he added.

China: US should change tack

In a related development, an article published by China Daily said the US should change its approach to territorial disputes in East Asia and match its statements of neutrality.

“Washington must exercise great care or the United States could become entangled in an assortment of volatile territorial disputes in East Asia,” Ted Galen Carpenter, senior fellow of defense and foreign policy studies based in Washington, said in an article titled “Ending a Dangerous Game” in the Opinion page of China Daily.

Carpenter said:  “Washington is playing a dangerous game by stirring tensions and backing certain parties regarding emotional territorial disagreements.”

“Except for the preservation of navigation rights through the relevant bodies of water, the US does not have important interests at stake in these disputes. Strict neutrality is appropriate for Washington – in deeds as well as words,” he said.

Carpenter noted that US actions, particularly in the past three years, belie its statements of neutrality in all of these disputes. He said Washington has increasingly become involved, and US policy has tilted toward any claimant other than China.

“That is an unwise course, since it encourages some nations, especially US treaty allies such as Japan and the Philippines, to adopt uncompromising stances and reduces the prospects for compromise solutions,” Carpenter said. “A policy so biased against China also has the potential to poison the US’s crucial economic, diplomatic, and strategic relationship with a re-emerging great power in the international system.”

Another China Daily column by Zhou Bo, an honorary fellow of the Center on China-American Defense Relations at the Academy of Military Science, said Beijing is worried about a number of worst-case scenarios involving its territorial disputes with other countries.

“While the West believes China is strong enough not to be attacked by anyone, China is still concerned about a number of worst-case scenarios where external forces could be involved in either China’s internal affairs such as Taiwan or its maritime territorial disputes with other countries,” Zhou said.

“China believes that there is still a gap between its strength and that of the US-led Western powers. Its objective, as laid out in the defense white paper, is to achieve military modernization by mid-century,” he said – With Pia Lee-Brago, Jaime Laude