By Army Sgt. 1st Class Tyrone C. Marshall Jr.
DoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON, May 28, 2015 – America’s rebalance to the
Asia-Pacific is a continuation of its pivotal role over the past 70 years in
helping ensure prosperity in the region, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said
yesterday.
Speaking to reporters as he departed Hawaii during his
second visit to the region, Carter is on a 10-day international trip that will
also take him to Singapore, Vietnam and India, focusing on trust-building,
addressing regional challenges and further developing a strong regional
security architecture in Southeast Asia.
Fundamental Importance of Region
Carter said the Asia-Pacific region is of fundamental
importance to the future of America and the global community. Half of the
planet’s population lives in the Asia-Pacific region, he said, and half of the
global economy is generated there.
While it’s not a region that’s in the headlines all the time
because of its fundamental importance, Carter said that is because of the security
role the U.S. has played there for the last 70 years.
“That role and the continuation of that role is the basic
theme of this trip,” he said, “and will be the basic theme of the speech I make
in a day-and-a-half at the Shangri-La Dialogue.”
Shangri-La Dialogue
The defense secretary alluded to his upcoming speech at the
Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, which is a key element of the emerging
regional security architecture and a forum where the Asia-Pacific’s defense
ministers engage in discussion aimed at building confidence and fostering
practical security cooperation.
Carter said he was at the very first of these meetings which
the International Institute for Strategic Studies convened in 2002, with “the
idea being to be an Asia-Pacific analog to the Munich Security Conference
that’s held in early February every year.”
The defense secretary noted a congressional delegation will
attend, led by U.S. Sen. John McCain, whom he lauded for his “expertise” and
having “more depth of knowledge and time spent in this region that just about
anybody in Washington.”
“The theme of my remarks will be the long-standing and
to-be-continued, pivotal American role in ensuring that the Asia-Pacific is a
region in which everybody gets to rise,” he said.
“Everybody rises, everybody wins,” Carter said. “That’s been
the history of 70 years -- first Japan’s economic miracle, then South Korea,
Taiwan, then Southeast Asia. Today, China and India.”
Purpose of U.S. Rebalance
Carter said a “system of inclusion and attention to
principle” have kept the peace and enabled prosperity in that part of the
world.
“It is in that climate, everyone has gotten to rise,” he
said. “Everyone has gotten to prosper, and in a nutshell, the purpose of
American strategy and the purpose of the American rebalance, which is a part of
the military part of the rebalance strategy, is to keep that going.”
According to Carter, maritime security is an important
dimension, although the region is “not exclusively but importantly” a maritime
theater. During the course of the trip, he said, there will be opportunities to
see the “sheer scale of trade” that passes through the area in places such as
the Strait of Malacca.
Carter noted it is of “incredible importance” to all parties
in the region to have, as they have for 70 years, freedom of navigation,
freedom of the seas, and peaceful use of the commons.
Chinese Inclusion
The defense secretary responded to a question of how the
U.S. will reassure China its rebalance to the region is not an act of aggression.
“The American approach, for 70 years, has been one which is,
first of all, grounded in the values of participation by everyone, and security
and prosperity for everyone,” he said. “So that is what the United States has
stood for in the region.”
What the rebalance is about, Carter said, is basically
helping to keep a security system -- not a purely American one, but one of
friends, allies and inclusiveness -- going, which includes China.
Carter noted China has been invited to joint military
exercises, and “we have very important ties … I hope we’re able to strengthen
between our military and the Chinese military.”
“We work with the Chinese military,” he said, “along with
lots of other militaries in the region on humanitarian assistance, disaster
relief.”
Partnership in Asia-Pacific Region
Carter said the multinational humanitarian assistance and
disaster relief efforts in Nepal following the destruction wrought by a
magnitude-7.8 earthquake serve as an example of partnership in the region.
That was a situation, he said, where many countries --
including China -- trained with the U.S. for those types of circumstances with
many of them operating U.S. equipment.
“Whether it’s refugees and trafficking, natural disasters,
counternarcotics, [or] counterterrorism,” Carter said, “there are lots of
things that plague this region of the world like they do others.”
He added, “Our system and our approach has always been one
that is inclusive, and that’s when I say what we stand for is a system in which
everybody wins.”
That’s not a hegemonic system, but a system in which
everybody wins and everybody participates, Carter said.
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