US seeks clout in Asia
Through trade during Hawaii summit:
US: The United States will try to prove its mettle as an Asian
power as it welcomes Pacific leaders this week to Hawaii, hoping a
sweeping trade pact will bind together the fast-growing region.
President Barack Obama will show his sun-kissed native state to
leaders of 20 other members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
forum including China, Japan and Russia at talks that will culminate
Sunday.
At a time of economic doldrums in developed nations and increasing
clout by China, the United States hopes to use its APEC chairmanship to
set the terms of a trans-Pacific deal that could breathe life into
moribund global trade talks. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who
will take part in the summit, recently called for the United States to
make a similar investment in establishing Asia’s order as it did in
post-World War II Europe.
Clinton, writing in Foreign Policy magazine, said that the
maintenance of peace in the region “is increasingly crucial to global
progress” and that more open markets would help create badly needed jobs
in the United States.
“We are committed to cementing APEC as the Asia-Pacific’s premier
regional economic institution,” Clinton wrote, pointing to “demand from
the region that America play an active role” in building its
institutions. Michael Green, who served as the top adviser on Asia to
former president George W. Bush, said the United States had a strong
self-interest in focusing on APEC as the bloc — which accounts for more
than half of global economic output — spans the Pacific.
“We don’t want to see an architecture of trade arrangements and
political arrangements in Asia that draw a line down the middle of the
Pacific,” said Green, now a scholar at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies and Georgetown University.
Obama will head the following week to the Indonesian resort island of
Bali for the East Asia Summit — a meeting with many of the same leaders,
but one where some Asian nations had earlier wanted to exclude the
United States.
Obama, who early this month also went to the French Riviera for the
Group of 20 summit, may face domestic pressure not to spend time at a
third summit in Indonesia, where he spent part of his childhood.
AFP |