VP Harris assures Asian leaders U.S. is ‘here to stay’
BANGKOK — Vice President Kamala Harris assured Asian leaders Friday that “the United States is here to stay” as she pitched Washington as a reliable economic partner committed to the region and its prosperity.
Harris told leaders at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit that the U.S. is a “proud Pacific power” and has a “vital interest in promoting a region that is open, interconnected, prosperous, secure and resilient.”
“The United States has an enduring economic commitment to the Indo-pacific, one that is measured not in years, but in decades, and generations,” she said. “And there is no better economic partner for this region than the United States of America.”
Harris postponed the start of her speech after receiving news that North Korea had fired an intercontinental ballistic missile that landed near Japanese waters, convening an emergency meeting of the leaders of Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Canada in which she slammed the missile test as a “brazen violation of multiple U.N. Security resolutions.”
“It destabilizes security in the region and unnecessarily raises tensions,” she said.
“We strongly condemn these actions and again call on North Korea to stop further unlawful destabilizing acts,” Harris said.
Her remarks at the broader APEC forum capped a week of high-level outreach from the U.S. to Asia as Washington seeks to counter growing Chinese influence in the region, with President Joe Biden attending first the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit in Cambodia, then the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia.
Biden also pushed the message of American commitment to the region, and met oneon-one with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
Following that meeting, he said there “need not be a new Cold War” between the two nations, while underlining that when it came to China, the U.S. would “compete vigorously, but I’m not looking for conflict.”
Many Asian countries began questioning the American commitment to Asia after former President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Trans-pacific Partnership trade deal, which had been the centerpiece of former President Barack Obama’s “pivot” to Asia.
The Biden administration has been seeking to regain trust, and take advantage of growing questions over strings attached to Chinese regional infrastructure investments that critics have dubbed Beijing’s “debt trap” diplomacy.