This briefing did not take place en route because the official giving
it was not to be on the plane today, but rather is scheduled to meet up
with Mme. Secretary later in the trip.
Background Briefing on Secretary Clinton's Travel to the Cook Islands, Indonesia, China, Timor-Leste, Brunei, and Russia
Special Briefing
Senior State Department Official
Washington, DC
August 29, 2012
The
Secretary’s first stop on this trip will be in the Cook Islands. The
Cook Islands this year are the hosts of the institutional organization
of the Pacific, or one of the most important institutional –
institutions of the Pacific called the Pacific Island Forum. It’s a
group that meets yearly with a number of working groups. It’s been in
existence almost half a century; it’s very significant. Last year – for
their issues – last year, Deputy Secretary Nides went. We had a very
large delegation of over 50 representing upwards of 17 different
agencies, from Coast Guard to Defense to Interior and the like.
This
is part of a process that we have begun at the outset of this
Administration, which is really to step up and to reaffirm our
longstanding commitments in the Pacific. And sometimes when we talk
about the Asia Pacific, the A is the capital and P is small. And our
attempt here is to underscore that we have very strong, enduring,
strategic, moral, political, humanitarian interests across the region.
It’s an area in which we invested substantially historically – blood and
treasure.
I just returned about two weeks ago from my own trip around the Pacific. This is the 70th
anniversary of some of the most challenging fighting in places like the
Solomons – famous Iron Bottom Sound – also places in Papua and
elsewhere. We’ve made some major investments there over the course of
the last several years. We’ve provided some very substantial financing,
upwards of about $7 billion for projects in the Pacific in areas
including new liquid natural gas finds and the like. And we’ve done a
lot of financing for commercial – airline – airplane purchases in places
like New Zealand.
We do, however, recognize that in the Pacific
they are facing enormous challenges, challenges associated with climate
change, with health. They have enormous problems of sedentary diseases,
diabetes and the like, challenges of violence against women and illegal
fishing, you name it. And so when the Secretary arrives at the PIF,
she’s bringing with her a series of initiatives that are intent on
addressing the full range of challenges that the Pacific Islanders face.
She’ll be meeting with the leaders, laying out the work that we are
doing both through USAID but a number of other agencies, and a number of
innovative ideas and projects and plans for dealing with issues like
illegal fishing, so-called shiprider agreements, and we will also
highlight the extent to which we are now working with other countries to
better rationalize and implement our assistance.
In fact, in
terms of per capita assistance, the Pacific actually fares quite well,
but it’s very poorly coordinated assistance. So we’re working much more
closely with Japan, but particularly Australia, New Zealand, Korea, and
most particularly, much closer work with China in the last several
years. And in fact, we have laid out some areas where the two countries
are endeavoring to work together on, for instance, initiatives
associated with energy efficiency. This is the largest, highest
concentration of sunlight on the planet, lowest usage of renewable fuels
and renewable energy technologies.
I’ll be happy to answer any
further. She’ll be meeting with Prime Minister Gillard, Prime Minister
Key, the head of Cook Islands, the head of the Pacific Island Forum. She
will be joined by Admiral Locklear for a number of our security
initiatives. And as we roll out our work on environmental issues, on
women’s issues, we will be supported by other countries and other key
players inside the U.S. Government.
From there, the Secretary will
proceed to Indonesia, where she will be meeting President Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono and Foreign Minister Natalegawa. I say that wrong
(inaudible). We intend to talk about a range of issues. Clearly,
Indonesia is emerging as a leading and critical and crucial state in
ASEAN. We will be talking with them about upcoming plans for the East
Asia Summit, what is their approach to critical issues in terms of
building institutions like the EAS and the ASEAN Regional Forum, and to
get their take on the aftermath of the ASEAN Regional Forum in July
when, as you recall, the ASEAN was unable to reach consensus on a
variety of challenging issues, including the South China Sea.
From
Indonesia, the Secretary will proceed to Beijing. I will already be
there. We’ll be traveling there in the next couple of days with Kin Moy
and myself, where we will be preparing the way for the Secretary’s
meetings with a range of senior Chinese officials, including President
Hu Jintao, Vice President Xi. She’ll have a longer meeting with State
Councilor Dai Bingguo and also intense meetings with Foreign Minister
Yang.
We believe that the full range of issues in U.S.-China
relations will be discussed, from developments in Asia, developments on
the Korean Peninsula, issues associated with peace and stability in the
Asia Pacific region. We will touch on and deal with challenges
associated with the South China Sea. We’ll talk about Iran, obviously
developments in Syria, Afghanistan – the full range.
I think the
Secretary intends very clearly to underscore our continuing interest in
maintaining a strong, positive relationship between our two countries.
We recognize how critically important that is, and one of the challenges
before us is to demonstrate how we deal with areas in which we have
differing perceptions and where we face challenging issues on the
ground, or in this case in the water.
From Beijing, we will travel
first to Timor-Leste. The Secretary will meet with the new leadership
there after the recent elections. We’ll underscore our commitment to
Timor’s fledgling democracy. We’ll have a couple of other stops. Timor’s
– one of Timor’s industries that is growing is in coffee. She will stop
at a coffee plantation to be able to review some of the work that is
being done there. I think we will highlight the role that the United
States and the international community has played in seeing Timor reach
basically a new stage of political and economic development in the last
few years.
We will then travel to Brunei. Brunei will be the host
of the East Asia Summit next year. I think we’ll want to work with them,
talk with them about their plans and goals and ambitions for ASEAN and
for the East Asia Summit in 2013. The Secretary will renew friendships
there. We will thank them for support that they’ve given us in a number
of areas, and she’ll have a chance to sit down over a dinner with the
Sultan.
From Brunei, we will then go north again and we will go to
Russky Island off the shore of Vladivostok for APEC this year. She’ll
be joined by senior officials from the U.S. Government, and she will be
the representative of the President at APEC this year. And I think our
goals there would be to ensure that the very ambitious agenda that we
implemented, we rolled out in Hawaii last year, that the full range of
initiatives are being implemented; to look at particular challenges that
we face in a variety of areas in relation to intellectual property; and
we also anticipate doing some meetings with key players as part of the
Trans-Pacific Partnership.
In addition, the Secretary will host a
number – host or have a number of bilateral engagements with leaders
where we will review the bidding on particular issues associated with
the Asia Pacific. I think I would just simply say that it is a
very long, very diverse trip, but the concurrent themes that run through
this is a strong, determined effort on the part of the United States to
underscore our rebalancing towards the Asia Pacific region, to make
clear that we’re here to stay, that we are engaged on an array of issues
– strategic, political, commercial; it spans not just Asia, not just
Northeast Asia but Southeast Asia and increasingly the Pacific; and that
we are working with a full range of partners, allies, friends, and we
want to underscore our strong commitment to maintaining peace and
stability.
