By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service
HONOLULU, April 2, 2014 – At a hotel here, Defense Secretary
Chuck Hagel will join defense ministers from 10 Asia-Pacific countries for the
official start of an unofficial meeting of defense ministers of the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations, their first in the United States.
Hagel himself invited the ministers here, he told reporters
traveling with him on the military plane that brought him yesterday to the
April 1-3 ASEAN meeting and will later take him on to Japan, China and Mongolia
-- a 10-day trip that will be his fourth official visit to the Asia-Pacific
region in less than 12 months.
Last June, at a luncheon for the ASEAN defense ministers
during the Shangri-La Dialogue meeting in Singapore, Hagel invited them to
Hawaii this year. All 10 ministers -- from Burma, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia,
Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam -- immediately
accepted his invitation.
“When I invited the ASEAN defense ministers last year to
Hawaii, the thought I had then … is it’s more and more important that the
United States, as we’ve moved over the last three years into a rebalancing to
the Asia-Pacific, be clear in our intent,” the secretary said.
The purpose of the rebalance, he said, is to strengthen U.S.
relationships in the Asia-Pacific with treaty allies and partners, and
coordinate efforts.
“ASEAN represents the one organization in the Asia-Pacific
where there is a cohesiveness, a consolidation, a coordination among 10 nations
[and] among the ASEAN Defense Ministers-Plus organization,” Hagel said.
The ADMM-Plus is made up of the 10 ASEAN defense ministers
and eight dialogue partners, who are the defense ministers from the United
States, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, India, New Zealand and Russia.
Hagel said the United States has been participating in the
ADMM-Plus since 2010, representing “a tremendous opportunity to connect, to
coordinate, to communicate, to reinforce the U.S. message about our intent and
our cooperation.”
The secretary added, “When we designed the two-and-a-half
days of informal meetings [for the ASEAN defense ministers], I wanted to ensure
that it was more than military-to-military events and I think we’ve done that.”
In attendance will be U.S. Agency for International
Development Administrator Dr. Rajiv Shah, and the head of the U.S. National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Dr. Kathryn Sullivan, he said. Tours
will be held in a new U.S. Department of Commerce technical facility and
several of the events will focus on humanitarian-assistance and disaster-relief
activities, Hagel added.
“All of this is about a more stable, secure Asia-Pacific,”
he said. “That means a prosperous region of the world, [one] that presents
possibilities and hope for all its people.”
Over the past 25 years the Asia-Pacific region has done
well, the secretary added, with a population of more than 600 million people
and huge emerging economies.
“They’ve done that essentially because they’ve had wise
leadership in how they have handled their differences and their areas of
competition,” said Hagel, adding, “It’s imperfect -- there’s been conflict.
There are still issues [and] disagreements and we’ll talk about those. I intend
to talk about those when I go to China and Japan as well.”
Hagel said at the defense ministers’ meeting he would also
discuss the United States’ ongoing fiscal constraints and its commitment,
nevertheless, to the Asia-Pacific rebalance.
“I have been very clear and direct in what I’ve said about
the fiscal restraints we are dealing with [and] working through,” Hagel said,
“and I’ve made very clear the prioritization [for the Asia-Pacific rebalance]
in the president’s budget that I presented to Congress and that Congress will
be dealing with for the next few months.”
The secretary added that the department’s recent Quadrennial
Defense Review also prioritizes the rebalance to the Asia-Pacific region and
named ongoing military activities in the region -- rotating littoral combat
ships to Singapore, rotating 1,150 Marines and four CH-53E Super Stallion
helicopters to Australia, continuing negotiations with the Philippines to use
Subic Bay resources on a rotational basis, progress made with the AN/TP2 missile
defense radar site in Japan, a breakthrough late last year on the Futenma
replacement facility when the governor of Okinawa approved a critical landfill
permit, and continuing efforts and posturing of assets in the Asia-Pacific.
“I think it’s pretty clear, even with budget constraints …
that this is a priority and we’ll fulfill the commitments we’ve made,” Hagel
said, “and I do look forward to talking about this with our ASEAN partners.”
The secretary added, “I want the defense ministers, after
they leave Hawaii, to feel even more clarity about the U.S. commitment to the
[Asia-Pacific], our coordination, our communications [and] the areas where we
can cooperate more and more -- and certainly humanitarian assistance and
disaster relief is one of those.”
There is a tremendous amount of capability and capacity in
the Asia-Pacific region, Hagel said, and the United States represents a good
amount of it.
“This is not about crowding anybody out,” he said, “but it
is about assuring the freedom of the sea lanes and the openness of our skies
and cyber, and we’re going to continue to help do that.”
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