The United States will remain engaged in the region with Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld saying that the future of Asia will depend "importantly on the choices our countries will be making in the period ahead".
"The US is, and always will be a Pacific nation. The American people have expended no shortage of blood and treasure in this region over the past century," he said at a gathering here of Asia Pacific defence ministers for the annual security consultation, dubbed the Shangri-La Dialogue, organised by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
By Jackson Sawatan
SINGAPORE, June 3 (Bernama) -- The United States will remain engaged in the region with Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld saying that the future of Asia will depend "importantly on the choices our countries will be making in the period ahead".
"The US is, and always will be a Pacific nation. The American people have expended no shortage of blood and treasure in this region over the past century," he said at a gathering here of Asia Pacific defence ministers for the annual security consultation, dubbed the Shangri-La Dialogue, organised by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
He said that many of the US relationships in the region dated back to the early years of the Cold War and some as far back as World War II.
Rumsfeld acknowledged that from time to time "some folks in our countries" have questioned whether the US should be actively engaged in the world.
"...we must, and we will, lean forward and stay engaged in this part of the world," he said.
In terms of defence and security cooperation in the region, he said, the US "has done more things with more nations in more constructive ways" than at any other time in the its history.
"And other relationships barely existed, if at all, merely a few years ago, yet are growing in importance today".
Rumsfeld said that the breadth and depth of activities around the region showed that security and stability in the Pacific were maintained essentially by a network of bilateral defence relationships between the US and its allies and partners.
"Now we see an expanding network of security cooperation in this region, both bilaterally between nations and multilaterally among nations with the US as a partner...this is a welcome shift.
"We see this at work in the Strait of Malacca where Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia are coordinating patrols to combat the ancient scourge of piracy on high seas," he said.
He described such maritime security cooperation as critical to the success of the Proliferation Security Initiative put forward by President George Bush, which was now supported by more than 70 nations, to stop dangerous weapons and materials from being transported to or from terrorist and rogue regimes.
The US, he said, was looking at modernising its traditional alliances and relationships with nations in the region.
"Consider that South Korea is no longer the devastated, impoverished nation that it was at the end of the Korean War. It has a large and capable military and is properly seeking a greater responsibility for its own defence.
"So, while we have upgraded our overall deterrent capabilities on the Korean Peninsula and North Asia generally, we are able to reduce and adjust the US military footprint in South Korea," he said.
The emergence of Japan, South Korea, and Australia as important players in global as well as regional security has been one of the welcome international development of recent years, he said.
"The way ahead for other nations will be something that our country will watch closely. Consider Russia... they are a partner in some security issues and on the whole, our relationship is better than it has been in decades."
On China, Rumsfeld said that there were aspects of China's actions that could complicate their relationships with other nations
"The lack of transparency with respect to their military investments understandably causes concerns for some of their neighbours," he said.
"The future of the Pacific Rim will also depend on the path North Korea takes.
"Will it continue to starve and repress its people, threaten its neighbours, and pursue nuclear weapons? Or will it at some point do what other nations, such as Libya, have done and choose a path which leads back to membership in the community of nations?" he said.
-- BERNAMA
