From Gulf News:
Experts caution that the United States can lose its foothold in Southeast Asia, the bulwark of which is the 10-member nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), if it ignored the region and focused only on fighting - military and verbal - wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea and elsewhere.
China, which provides technical and economic assistance, and also market accessibility to the Asean countries, earns a lot of goodwill amongst the region's business community as well as the political elite.
The US administration seems to have earned notoriety for its habit of cancelling scheduled visits and meetings; this has frustrated the Asean leaders who feel that their region is of little or no consequence to Washington.
The cancellation of two scheduled trips in three years by the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has fed suspicions amongst the Asean leaders that Washington is losing interest in the region.
Rice, who is soon visiting the Middle East to follow up a major US peace initiative, recently cancelled her participation in the forthcoming meeting of the Asean Regional Forum in Manila, Philippines, next month.
The foreign ministers of the Asean group, China, South and North Korea, Australia, the European Union, Japan, India, New Zealand, Canada and Russia sit side-by-side with the Secretary of State, and discuss important issues.
2 comments:
It's pretty upsetting that trips with China have been cancelled, she needs to do her job and this is part of it.
No surprise as Connie is up to her neck in crimes here in the US. Most foreign officials don't respect her as all she does is bring messages from Bush/Cheney. She has no experience as Secretary of State so what do people expect. Powell is laughing as he got out in time. Yes Powell did his job as directed by Bush/Cheney but at lease he knew what his job was. Now Connie is giving promos for Golf. Now that George has a new pillow mate name Bachmann Connie is on the back burner.
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