November 7, 2011US seeks Asia clout through trade in Hawaii summit
Washington, 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.
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"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 Centre 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.
Ernie Bower, also at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said an Obama cancellation would reinforce "a narrative -- that the Chinese have promoted, in some sense -- that the Americans are interested in Asia but they're not consistently engaged."
The administration has planned hectic travel to go along with the summit season. Obama plans to head from Hawaii to Australia and Clinton will go to the Philippines, both historic allies of the United States.
Defence Secretary Leon Panetta recently held talks in key security allies Japan and South Korea as well as Indonesia, which the administration sees as a growing partner due to its size, location and tradition of moderate Islam.
Panetta vowed that Asia would remain a US priority despite looming cuts to the defence budget, saying in Japan: "We have the opportunity to strengthen our presence in the Pacific, and we will."
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