US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has arrived in the South Pacific at the top of a six-nation Asia tour during which she aims to reassert American interests in the face of China’s growing influence and calm rising tensions over territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
Clinton landed in Tahiti late on Thursday for a brief refuelling stop on the trip that will take her from the Cook Islands to Russia’s Far East. The journey will keep her half a world away from US politics at the height of the presidential conventions. But it will put her at the centre of maritime disputes between China and its smaller neighbours.
Clinton will visit Beijing at the midpoint of the 11-day tour that begins in the remote Cook Islands, where she will be the first secretary of state to visit the South Pacific island chain that’s home to just 10,000 people. On the main island of Rarotonga, she will attend an annual gathering of officials from Australia, New Zealand and the tiny nations scattered across the Pacific Ocean.
US officials said Clinton will stress America’s commitment to the sprawling yet sparsely populated area. It is threatened by rising waters, which are attributed to climate change, and faces a choice of whether to continue tight ties with the West or embrace burgeoning Chinese investment and power.
From there, Clinton heads to Indonesia, the seat of the secretariat of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, whose members are sharply divided over how to deal with China’s expansion and conflicting claims over territory in the South China Sea.
A summit of regional leaders in July failed to reach consensus on how to handle the disputes. Clinton will press them to find common ground and hash out a framework for negotiating with China, US officials said.
One senior official told reporters that it was “absolutely manifest” that ASEAN nations find a way to deal with China. “It’s not a matter of geo-strategy, it’s a matter of geography,” the official said.