WASHINGTON—US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday she will attend the East Asia Summit in Hanoi in late October as Washington deepens engagement in a region concerned about a rising China.
Clinton, who also announced she will travel to Australia in November, said Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, a China expert, influenced her thinking on the need for buttressing trans-Pacific groupings and organizations.
"Because of the growth in Asia and the many issues that are now having to be confronted by the nations there, we need a different architecture," the chief US diplomat said at a news conference with Rudd.
"In addition to deepening our commitment to ASEAN, we began the process of exploring the opportunity for the United States to join the East Asia Summit. Australia ... was very supportive of that effort," she said.
She said would attend the East Asia Summit (EAS) in the Vietnamese capital at the end of October while President Barack Obama, who spent part of his boyhood in Indonesia, will attend the next EAS in Jakarta next year.
ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. The East Asia summit groups ASEAN, plus Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.
During a speech she gave in Hawaii in January, Clinton said the United States sought to play a more active role throughout Asia after the previous administration of George W. Bush paid less attention to groupings like ASEAN.
She linked deeper US engagement in Asia to what she said were regional concerns that Washington act "as a force for peace and stability, as a guarantor of security," as China's power rises.
Southeast Asian countries agreed earlier this year to invite the United States and Russia to join the summit on issues ranging from security to trade and the environment.
Diplomats said their inclusion would also help to "counterbalance" the dominance of regional superpower China.
Rudd, who was prime minister in the previous Australian government, dismissed suggestions in Australia that the United States should cede primacy in Asia and be persuaded to share influence with China.
For Australia, "the strategic stability of East Asia and the Pacific remains anchored in the strategic presence of the United States of America," Rudd, a fluent Mandarin speaker, told a reporter who aired the suggestions.
"So much of the economic growth that we have seen in East Asia and the Pacific in the last 30 years has come off the back of the strategic stability afforded to the region by the United States presence, Rudd said.
Later Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa, who was here as part of deepening bilateral ties with the United States, welcomed Washington's "renewed and enhanced engagement in our region," including in the EAS.
In January, Clinton had planned to travel from Hawaii to Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, but she was forced to cancel the plans after a massive earthquake hit Haiti.
But Clinton, recalling the cancellation, said she would now visit Australia in November, joining US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, as both meet their Australian counterparts on the 25th anniversary of such a forum.
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