The United States insisted Tuesday it was fully engaged on Asia as President Joe Biden skips the East Asia Summit for the second straight year, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken going instead.
Blinken will head Tuesday to Laos for the annual summit, to which neighboring China — considered by the United States its top competitor — is sending Premier Li Qiang, although not President Xi Jinping.
“While President Biden will not attend the ASEAN leaders’ summit this year, there should be absolutely no doubt regarding his and the United States’ strong commitment to the region,” said Daniel Kritenbrink, the assistant secretary of state for East Asia.
He said that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have visited six Southeast Asian countries during their tenure and he pointed to Biden’s convening of a first-of-a-kind summit in Washington in 2022 with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Kritenbrink also highlighted Biden’s upgrading of security cooperation with Asian allies and the US role as the top foreign investor to Southeast Asia.
“I think the message is crystal clear that the United States of America under the Biden-Harris administration is committed to the Indo-Pacific in clear and unmistakable ways,” he said.
The summit comes just weeks before US elections, although Biden still plans to travel overseas in the coming week to Germany and Angola, fulfilling a promise to visit sub-Saharan Africa as president.
Harris, who is running as the Democratic nominee for president after concerns over the 81-year-old Biden’s age, attended the East Asia Summit last year in Jakarta after Biden also skipped it.
Biden instead headed last year directly to a Group of 20 summit being held immediately afterward in New Delhi and then paid a bilateral visit to Vietnam.
Blinken in Laos will raise “the importance of upholding international law in the South China Sea,” Kritenbrink said, as alarm grows in the Philippines in particular over Beijing’s assertive moves on its maritime claims.
Blinken, who has been consumed by the Middle East crisis, will also raise Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Myanmar’s post-coup turmoil during his meetings, Kritenbrink said.
Among US allies attending the Laos summit will be the new prime ministers of US allies Japan and Thailand, Shigeru Ishiba and Paetongtarn Shinawatra, and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
