US targets Asean partnership to ‘push back’ on China actions in South China Sea

Senior envoy touts ‘shared view and vision for the region’ ahead of Antony Blinken’s visit to Jakarta, criticising Beijing’s ‘many irresponsible acts’

Asean has struggled to coordinate a response to China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, which oppose those of several of its members

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A suspected Chinese militia ship passes a Philippine coastguard vessel in the South China Sea on April 21. Photo: AP

Published: 6:30am, 8 Jul 2023Updated: 7:35pm, 8 Jul 2023

Washington hopes to work closely with Southeast Asian nations to “push back” against an “upward trend” in Beijing’s “unhelpful, coercive and irresponsible” actions in the South China Sea when its top diplomat takes part in a series of regional engagements next week, a senior US State Department official said on Friday.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Jakarta, Indonesia, to attend a series of meetings including the annual US-Asean foreign ministers’ gathering. The meetings are expected to run from July 13 to 15 and will follow Blinken’s trip with US President Joe Biden to Britain and Lithuania for the Nato summit.

“It’s not a matter of getting countries on board with the US view,” said Daniel Kritenbrink, the US assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs, of Blinken’s objective in Jakarta. “It’s a matter of working with our Asean partners to advance our shared view and vision for the region.”

This required the partnership “to push back on behaviour that runs counter to that vision and to those principles, including the many irresponsible acts that we’ve seen carried out by China over the last several years and in the last several weeks”, he added.

Daniel Kritenbrink, the US assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific affairs, speaks to reporters in Seoul, South Korea, on June 21. Photo: EPA-EFE

The meetings in Indonesia will focus on building American partnerships and “strengthening our relationships”, Kritenbrink said. Washington was not asking countries to choose, but was “simply ensuring that countries have choice and the ability to make their own sovereign decisions free from coercion”.