The brief tour in Southeast Asia that Secretary of State Antony Blinken has just concluded on Wednesday, December 15, allowed the chief diplomat of the United States to underline the growing importance of the Indo-Pacific region while denouncing the“Aggressiveness” of the Chinese regime in the disputed areas of the South China Sea.
In the context of the regional rivalry between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, the trip that Mr. Blinken made to Indonesia and Malaysia was an opportunity for the latter to list the grievances. of Washington against Beijing while increasing the promises of economic investments intended to counter the influence of China on Asean, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam , Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei).
During his speech on Tuesday in Jakarta at the University of Indonesia, the Secretary of State was very blunt: “From northeast to southeast Asia, from the Mekong to the Pacific Islands, there is cause for concern in the face of aggressive actions by Beijing,” accused Mr. Blinken. China “Claims as belonging to it islands located in the open sea and distorts the functioning of the markets by subsidizing its state enterprises”.
A double challenge
If the Secretary of State qualified his remarks by promising that it was not “Of a competition between an American-centered or Sino-centered region”, it was to add as soon as the priority is currently “To ensure that the most dynamic region on the planet [l’Indo-Pacifique] be free from all coercion and accessible to all: this is good for the peoples of the region and it is good for the Americans because history teaches us that when this vast region is free and open, America feels safer and more prosperous “…
Washington has to face a double challenge in the region, economic and geopolitical: in Southeast Asia, trade between China and the ASEAN countries amounted to 685 billion dollars (605 billion euros) in 2020, or double the amount of trade between Asean and the United States. China has become, in recent years, the main economic partner of almost all the countries of the zone. And Beijing continues to strengthen its presence in the South China Sea after having “polderized” a number of islets on which airstrips have been built.
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