Kerry off to Asia to address sea rows, N. Korea’s nukes
US envoy will visit Beijing to renew concerns about China’s SCS behaviour
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia—US Secretary of State John Kerry is pressing for peaceful resolutions to increasingly tense maritime disputes in Asia and urging China to take a firmer stand on North Korea’s nuclear program after its recent bomb test.
Set to leave Saudi Arabia on Sunday, Kerry planned stops in Laos, Cambodia and China, shifting his focus as he wraps up an around-the-world diplomatic mission that began in Switzerland with a heavy emphasis on the Middle East, particularly Iran and efforts to bring an end to Syria’s civil war.
First stop
His first stop is Laos, the current head of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), whose members are becoming more vocal in complaints about China’s growing assertiveness over competing claims in the South China Sea (SCS) and whose leaders President Barack Obama will host in California next month.
Before that summit, US officials say, Kerry will make the case to the leader of the 10-nation bloc to present a unified stance in dealing with China on the disputes, which have grown more intense as China continues to construct man-made islands and airstrips in contested areas.
The United States and governments with rival claims with China in the disputed region, including the Philippines and Vietnam, have expressed alarm over the Chinese construction, saying it raises tensions and threatens regional stability and could violate freedom of navigation and overflight.
But Asean unity has not always been possible as China wields great influence among some of its smaller neighbors, such as Cambodia.
Cambodia held the Asean chair in 2012 and blocked the group from reaching consensus on the SCS issue and has frequently sided with China on the matter.
A senior State Department official accompanying Kerry in Asia said the US had heard from regional leaders that problems related to Cambodia’s chairmanship “left a black mark on Asean and are not to be repeated.”
The official said the US believed that Laos would do a better job in balancing Asean interests with China.
Recent developments, including China’s movement of an oil rig into a disputed zone and warnings against overflight of what it claims to be its territory, have raised levels of concern in the region to a point where the official said it would be very difficult for an external power like China to manipulate individual Asean countries in a way that paralyzes the broader group.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the details of Kerry’s visit publicly.
Second U.S. official
Kerry will be only the second secretary of state to visit Laos since 1955 — Hillary Clinton visited in 2012.
And Obama will become the first US leader to visit the landlocked nation later this year.
Laos has moved away from a communist system in the past two decades, but like its close ally Vietnam, it retains a one-party political system and its government has been criticized for being intolerant of dissent.
Laos was targeted heavily by US bombing during the Vietnam War and still has large amounts of unexploded ordnance littering its countryside.
Top US envoy is expected to renew concerns about China’s aggressive behavior in South China Sea