Clinton talks tough in Thailand
By Jakkapun Kaewsangthong and Charles McDermid
PHUKET - United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Thailand
this week to set things right with Southeast Asia - a region that has had its
share of ups and downs with Washington.
In a three-day flurry of pastel pantsuits, celebrity appearances and tough
talk, the former first lady claimed to set a new course for American regional
foreign policy. Along the way, she sounded off on nuclear threats, human rights
and terrorism while reassuring beleaguered long-time ally Thailand and trading
insults with North Korea.
Clinton took pains to distance the new administration of US President Barack
Obama from that of predecessor George W Bush, whose policies towards Asia,
experts believe, were too
tightly focused on the Korean Peninsula and counter-terrorism efforts.
"Under the Bush years, America's Asian policy was lopsided. For Bush, the war
on terror ordered his agenda. The region has changed a lot, and Bush's policies
failed to take these changes into account. China's role has expanded almost by
default because of this," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute
of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University. "Obama has
calibrated the US role in Asia. If the US can use a more balanced and nuanced
approach, it will be welcomed in a lot of Asian capitals."
The trip, according to Clinton, was all about political re-engagement. In an
editorial published on July 21 in the Bangkok Post, she declared, "The United
States and the nations of Southeast Asia are old friends facing new
challenges."
Speaking to a gathering of counterparts in the Association of Southeast Asia
Nations (ASEAN), Clinton pulled no punches with the group's rogue member,
Myanmar, and expressed sympathy and support for Indonesia in the aftermath of
the July 17 suicide bombings in Jakarta which killed nine people and injured
dozens more.
In the week's keynote event, Clinton signed a non-aggression pact with ASEAN
and held the first-ever US meeting with the countries of the lower Mekong - the
theatre of the Vietnam War, a conflict that Clinton opposed in her formative
years as a student politician.
Hers was a diplomatic mission that had all the hallmarks of a concert tour; a
visit from which statements and signals will not be soon forgotten. If
counterbalancing China's rise in the region was the real reason behind the
trip, America's anxiety about losing ground remained in the shadows.
As Clinton announced in her often-repeated rallying cry to Southeast Asia this
week, "The US is back", although the remark remains open to interpretation.
Boosting Thai ties
The Clinton tour was short on scrutiny and long on praise for favored ASEAN
partners. Prior to the trip, Clinton and senior State Department officials had
gushed about Thailand, recently embroiled in political turmoil and the
10-member ASEAN's current chairman.
"...[A] lot of Americans don't know, Thailand has very deep and important ties
with the United States," Clinton told FoxNews on July 20. "We have one of our
biggest embassy operations in Thailand because Bangkok is the center for a lot
of what we do in so many important areas."
In reality, that relationship has sagged in recent years, as detailed by Asia
Times Online's Shawn W Crispin in
When allies drift apart. In 2007, the US put Thailand on its "priority
watch list" for violating intellectual property rights and the two also failed
to negotiate a free-trade agreement. In 2008 to the present, the two sides have
sparred over the extradition of Viktor Bout, the so-called "Merchant of Death"
arms dealer busted by US Drug Enforcement agents in a Bangkok sting operation.
Clinton's choice to travel to Indonesia in her first jaunt to Southeast Asia
earlier this year was taken as a diplomatic slight by some Thai officials.
Still, the US and Thailand maintain strong law enforcement and military links,
including the annual Cobra Gold exercises involving some 15,000 troops and
Thailand's U Tapao airport - used regularly by the US military to refuel planes
en route to Iraq and Afghanistan.
That cooperation extended to a US Central Intelligence Agency-run secret prison
in Thailand, where at least one terrorist suspect was water-boarded by US
officials and their hired private contractors, according to a recent Washington
Post report. The Thai government continues to deny the reports, despite growing
mention of the site's existence in US Congressional testimony.
And there was no mention this week of Thailand's escalating separatist
insurgency in its southern provinces or the ongoing armed stand-off with
Cambodia over an ancient border temple. Allegations of human rights abuses by
Thailand - including the recent treatment of Rohingyha boat-people and Karen
refugees from Myanmar - never came up despite a raft of human rights decrees.
In April, an earlier ASEAN summit in Pattaya was cancelled when anti-government
protesters aligned with deposed former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra - now
in exile and a fugitive from Thai justice - overran the meeting place and
forced several heads of state to be evacuated.
With that stinging embarrassment, this week's high-profile meeting was seen as
a must-win public relations move for the seven-month-old coalition government
of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. US praise and support could not have come
at a more strategic time for his government, which many believe the military
played a behind-the-scenes role in creating.
To ensure security, Bangkok deployed more than 10,000 soldiers and police to
the island of Phuket to enforce the Internal Security Act, which banned all
forms of protest within a five-kilometer radius of the venue. Troops in combat
gear and armed with automatic rifles set up bomb-detection roadblocks and
security checkpoints.
Old adversaries The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) is billed as East Asia's top
security-related summit, gathering 26 countries and the European Union, and
Clinton came with a wide array of talking points, focusing sharply on North
Korea and Myanmar, also known as Burma.
"We know that there are also growing concerns about military cooperation
between North Korea and Burma, which we take very seriously," Clinton said. "It
would be destabilizing for the region. It would pose a direct threat to Burma's
neighbors. And it is something, as a treaty ally of Thailand, that we are
taking very seriously."
She was referring to suspicions in Washington that Pyongyang might be selling
nuclear and missile technology to Myanmar's ruling generals. In recent weeks, a
North Korean freighter, the Kang Nam I, was steaming towards Myanmar
with a suspected arms cargo.
According to reports, the US Navy shadowed the ship as Washington pressed other
countries to deny it entry under a recently passed UN Security Council
resolution against North Korea and the ship eventually turned around.
Clinton's focus on the two pariah states dominated media coverage of the ASEAN
event. North Korea and Myanmar both had representatives at the ARF and it was
widely believed that the US might use the forum to drum up regional support for
more UN resolutions against North Korea.
After one-on-one meetings with fellow members of the six-party talks on North
Korea's nuclear ambitions - minus Pyongyang - Clinton told reporters that the
US, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea were a "united front" for an
"irreversible denuclearization" of the Korean peninsula. "We won't reward North
Korea just for returning to the table," Clinton said, adding, "We are in a
strong position."
In an earlier television interview, she had likened North Korea to an "unruly
child" and later claimed that the isolated country "had no friends". Not to be
out-done, North Korean representatives in attendance responded by releasing a
critical statement about Clinton: "Sometimes she looks like a primary-school
girl and sometimes a pensioner going shopping."
Clinton also played tough with Myanmar. She mentioned that the US's policy
review for the reclusive, military run country had been further put "on hold"
by the ongoing trial and detention of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
"It's very important - it's so critical - that she be released. This would open
up - at least for my government - a lot of opportunities for engagement and
that includes investment and other forms of exchange," Clinton said on July 22.
Clinton stressed that as ASEAN as a whole was moving in a positive direction,
especially in terms of protecting human rights, Myanmar was "moving in the
opposite direction". She urged the regime to stop its war against ordinary
citizens and ethnic groups. Not everyone is convinced the strong language will
work.
"There's nothing wrong with the US prioritizing democracy and human rights
issues in Burma, if it were part of a consistent policy of prioritizing these
issues everywhere, including say in China or Saudi Arabia," Thant Myint U, a
Burmese historian and author of River of Lost Footsteps told Asia Times
Online. "The perception of double standards damages America's image, and many
in the region think that the US is beating up on the Burmese government just
because it's relatively cost-free - and creates a very cynical view of American
foreign policy.
"There's a huge gap between US rhetoric on Burma and it's ability to actually
influence events on the ground. As America's relative power in the region
diminishes, the worry is that this becomes a more general trend, with
nice-sounding statements on human rights and grandstanding for domestic
audiences taking the place of more more modest but more results-oriented
policies."
Clinton also used the forum to warn Iran that its pursuit of nuclear weapons
was "unacceptable" and risked sparking an arms race in the Middle East.
"Iran needs to understand that its pursuit of nuclear weapons will not advance
its security or achieve its goals of enhancing its power both regionally and
globally," Clinton said. "That should affect the calculation of what Iran
intends to do and what it believes is in its national security interests
because it may render Iran less secure - not more secure."
Clinton hedged the strong remarks by stating that Iran has a right to the
development of "peaceful and sustainable" nuclear power, and claimed she had
discussed that possibility in a number of international settings. She concluded
her remarks by rallying an unnamed international community around her cause -
in this case Iran.
"The world community is united in its rejection of Iran's pursuit of nuclear
weapons and wants to point out it may not actually deliver the positioning and
enhanced power that Iran believes it could," Clinton said.
Clinton's remarks on Iran came minutes before she was scheduled to sign ASEAN's
Treaty of Amity and Cooperation [TAC] - a non-aggression pact that Washington
was reluctant to sign under the George W Bush administration.
Some have said the US is eager to sign the friendship agreement to counter the
rise of China's influence in the region, although Beijing has already signed
on. Others, such as political analyst Thitinan, call it a well-timed move to
gain more access and good-will after a period of criticism that the US was
neglecting the region. He calls it a "gate-opener".
"The signing of the TAC suggests the US will engage the entire region much more
than in the past. It is highly significant of a new attitude towards Asia,"
Thitinan said. "It is important to note that Clinton's last meeting will be
with the countries ofthe lower Mekong - Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.
The US under Bush completely neglected these countries and all of mainland
Southeast Asia."
The US-Lower Mekong Ministerial Meeting, a gathering to discuss the region's
environment, health, education and infrastructure was the first of its kind,
according to the US State Department. Clinton also announced the US intends to
open a mission to ASEAN with an ambassador in Jakarta.
Charles McDermid and Jakkapun Kaewsangthong are Asia Times Online
correspondents based in Thailand.
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