US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton headed on Monday to Indonesia in hopes of encouraging unity among Southeast Asian nations to manage increasingly tense disputes with China.
Clinton’s last trip to the region in July was marred by the failure of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to reach a consensus at talks in Cambodia, amid divisions in the 10-member group on how to treat a rising China.
The top US diplomat will meet Indonesian leaders including President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and also visit the headquarters of Asean, part of her effort to promote ties with the economically dynamic and mostly US-friendly bloc.
She hopes “to get a sense of where we are and to get the Indonesians’ advice about how we can be supportive, how we can put more wind into the sails of a diplomatic effort, which is what we all very much want”, a senior US official said on her airplane on customary condition of anonymity.
“The most important thing is that we end up in a diplomatic process where these issues are addressed in a strong diplomatic conversation between a unified Asean and China rather than through any kind of coercion,” the official said.
Clinton, who made a refuelling stop in Brisbane, Australia, on her way from a South Pacific summit in the Cook Islands, will head on Tuesday to China for talks on the often uneasy relationship between the world’s two largest economies.
The Philippines and Vietnam have both accused China of an intimidation campaign over territorial disputes in the South China Sea, a waterway through which half of the world’s cargo sails.
