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Biden’s US still 'struggling' to engage with ASEAN
The United States attempted this week to salvage ties with Southeast Asia after a recent mishap ruined US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s debut meeting with ASEAN, amid tenser competition with China.
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United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken concludes his first press briefing at the US State Department in Washington, DC, on Jan. 27.
(Agence France Presse/Carlos Barria)
T
he United States attempted this week to salvage ties with Southeast Asia after a recent mishap ruined US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s debut meeting with ASEAN.
However, US diplomatic efforts do not seem to have been enough to diminish the feeling critics have that the region is still being sidelined, despite the US lagging China in engaging Asian partners that could play a key role in their rivalry.
As Washington leaves behind a period of “engagement” with Beijing in favor of competition, it still faces mounting challenges in maintaining a presence in Southeast Asia, where US-China tensions have traditionally played out.
US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman’s visit to the region this week, the first among senior US officials under the Joe Biden administration, still left questions as to whether Washington had earned back the trust of ASEAN, which had diminished under Donald Trump’s presidency.
Her visit to Indonesia, Cambodia and Thailand comes just a week after the inaugural ASEAN-US foreign ministers’ meeting was supposed to be held on May 25.
The virtual meetup was eventually postponed after Blinken struggled to log in from on board his flight to the Middle East to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Palestine.
Speaking to the media in a telephonic briefing from Bangkok on Wednesday, Sherman claimed that officials were committed to having Blinken join the conference, but that ASEAN member states agreed to reschedule the meeting after they were made to wait for 45 minutes.
