WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Asia this week in a bid to assert US leadership against the backdrop of China’s rising influence, an official said Monday.
The message of Blinken’s trip, which starts Wednesday, is that “America is all in on the Indo-Pacific from day one of this administration,” said Daniel Kritenbrink, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs.
“We have significantly and dramatically stepped up our engagement,” he added.
Blinken will visit Laos, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore and Mongolia.
He will also travel to Vietnam to attend the funeral of late communist leader Nguyen Phu Trong, and will separately meet with government officials in Hanoi in an effort to boost diplomatic relations.
In Laos, he will attend a ministerial meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and is scheduled to meet with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of the event.
Blinken will then visit Japan for a four-party meeting with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Japanese counterparts, which will focus on defense deterrence, according to the State Department and Japan’s foreign ministry.
He is also due to take part in a meeting of the so-called Quad — a strategic security dialogue of the United States, Japan, India and Australia.
In the Philippines, Blinken will have talks with the country’s diplomatic and defense chiefs that will center on Chinese behavior in the South China Sea.
Kritenbrink said Monday that the United States welcomed efforts to ease tensions in the South China Sea, after the Philippines and China agreed to a provisional arrangement for resupplying Filipino troops stationed on a disputed shoal.
After a stopover in Singapore focused on strengthening bilateral relations, Blinken will conclude his Asia tour in Mongolia for a meeting with the country’s foreign minister.
Blinken headed to Asia to reaffirm US leadership
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Blinken headed to Asia to reaffirm US leadership
- Secretary of State will visit Laos, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore and Mongolia
- Blinken will also travel to Vietnam to attend the funeral of late communist leader Nguyen Phu Trong
US abstains in UN vote voicing support for Ukraine
- The resolution also called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire and “comprehensive, just and lasting peace“
- The US delegation had pressed for a separate vote on paragraphs involving Ukraine’s territorial integrity and international law but this idea was rejected
UNITED NATIONS: The UN General Assembly voiced support for Ukraine Tuesday on the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion, with the United States among countries abstaining from the vote.
The assembly passed a resolution saying it was committed to “the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders.”
It passed by a tally of 107 countries in favor, 12 against and 51 abstentions, which included the United States.
The resolution also called for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire and “comprehensive, just and lasting peace.”
The US delegation had pressed for a separate vote on paragraphs involving Ukraine’s territorial integrity and international law but this idea was rejected.
The transition from Joe Biden to Donald Trump in the White House last year has seen firm, unconditional US support for Ukraine cool dramatically.
Trump has brought Russian leader Vladimir Putin back in from the diplomatic cold and Washington has repeatedly refused to condemn the Russian invasion of 2022.
US deputy ambassador Tammy Bruce said she welcomed the UN appeal for a ceasefire.
But she said the resolution includes “language that is likely to distract” from diplomatic efforts to end the war rather than support them. She did not identify these words.
Still, leaders of the G7 global powers, including Trump, on Tuesday reaffirmed their “unwavering support for Ukraine” in a statement on the fourth anniversary of the invasion.
A month after Trump returned to power in January 2025, the United States voted against a UN General Assembly resolution calling for a “just and lasting peace” to end the war.
The US delegation later won Security Council passage of a Russian-backed resolution that called for peace but made no mention of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, frustrating Ukraine’s European allies.
Until then, the council had failed to speak out on the war because Russia consistently used its veto power.
“Despite peace efforts led by the US and supported by Europe, Russia continues to demonstrate no genuine willingness to stop this aggression,” Ukraine’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mariana Betsa said.
Russia’s deputy ambassador Anna Evstigneeva answered, saying Ukraine should focus on diplomacy to end the war “rather than initiating yet another politicized vote.”
In Washington, Ukraine’s Ambassador to the US Olga Stefanishyna urged the Trump administration to intensify pressure on Russia.
“We hope that the US government this particular day... will get to the understanding that the language which is understood by Russians is not the dialog or diplomatic effort, it’s the pressure,” Stefanishyna told reporters.
She expressed hope that US lawmakers would soon pass a bill imposing tariffs and secondary sanctions on countries doing business with Russia in order to choke its economy and ability to finance the war.
Stefanishyna added that Ukraine is in desperate need of air defenses at a time when Russia has been intensifying its attacks on civilians and critical infrastructure during a brutal winter.
While acknowledging that “it’s too premature to speak about any settlement in the nearest period of time,” she said that any deal to end the war must include powerful US and EU Security guarantees.
