US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pledged on Saturday to provide nearly $300 million in new security funding for Southeast Asia, as China forges ahead with plans to bolster its engagement in the region.<\/p>\n
Pompeo unveiled the figure to reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of foreign ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other officials from around the world in Singapore.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs part of our commitment to advancing regional security in the Indo-Pacific, the United States is excited to announce nearly $300 million in new funding to reinforce security cooperation throughout the entire region,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The new security assistance will strengthen maritime security, develop humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping capabilities and counter \u201ctransnational threats\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n
The United States said earlier this week it would invest $113 million in technology, energy and infrastructure initiatives in emerging Asia which he called \u201ca downpayment on a new era of U.S. economic commitment to the region\u201d.<\/p>\n
The United States\u2019 developing vision for a \u201cfree and open Indo-Pacific\u201d comes at the same time as China ramps up its influence as part of is Belt and Road plan to bolster trade ties with nations in Southeast Asia and beyond.<\/p>\n
Analysts have said that a spiralling trade dispute between Beijing and Washington could also ratchet up tensions over other regional hotspots, such as the South China Sea, claimed in whole by China and in part by some Southeast Asian nations.<\/p>\n
The Chinese government\u2019s top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, told reporters at the same forum that China welcomed, and was willing to work with, the United States to help with faster development and better security in the region.<\/p>\n
He added, however, that the United States had been sending \u201cmassive strategic weaponry\u201d into the South China Sea and the region as a show of military might that puts pressure on China and other regional countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is the biggest force behind militarisation in this region,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
China and the ASEAN bloc on Thursday hailed a \u201cmilestone\u201d agreement on a single working text to kick off what will likely be protracted negotiations towards a code of conduct for behaviour the disputed waters.<\/p>\n
But critics have said that this enthusiasm for talks is a means for China to buy time and solidify its position during a period of relative dominance in the region where it has built island bases on submerged reefs.<\/p>\n
Pompeo told reporters that he had raised concerns at the meeting about Chinese militarisation of the South China Sea and the importance of maintaining a rules-based order.<\/p>\n
Progress towards resolving the continuing humanitarian in crisis in Myanmar\u2019s troubled Rakhine state and other security issues were also essential to a free and open Indo-Pacific, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pledged on Saturday to provide nearly $300 million in new security funding for Southeast Asia, as China forges ahead with plans to bolster its engagement in the region. Pompeo unveiled the figure to reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of foreign ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38191,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38190"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38192,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38190\/revisions\/38192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}