US secretary of state Antony Blinken will travel to the South Pacific next week as Washington seeks to fortify its position in the region amid rising Chinese influence, the State Department announced Thursday.
Blinken will travel to the Polynesian island kingdom of Tonga on July 26 for the inauguration of a new US embassy, before heading to Australia and New Zealand, the State Department said.
It will be the first visit ever to Tonga by a US secretary of state, and follows Blinken’s May trip to Papua New Guinea, where he signed a security pact that allows the US military to develop and operate out of bases there.
President Joe Biden has pushed for intensified diplomacy with leaders of the region, hoping to strengthen alliances and prevent Beijing from filling its place.
But Biden himself recently was forced to cancel a trip to Australia and Papua New Guinea due to a domestic political crisis over the US budget.
“Our embassy is not being set up to counter China,” a senior State Department official told journalists on grounds of anonymity.
“We’re delivering on our promise in stepping up our engagement in Tonga and the Pacific at large,” the official said.
“We want to be on the ground to … explore ways that we can deepen our cooperation,” the official said.
The United States has placed the broader Asia-Pacific region at the center of its global strategic stance as it seeks to counter China’s growing footprint.
Washington, the main power in the region for decades after World War II, says it wants the Asia-Pacific to remain “free and open,” while China considers the strong US presence — with military bases across the region — unwarranted.
From Tonga, Blinken will fly to Wellington, New Zealand on 27 July, where, besides conducting diplomacy, he plans to watch the US team play the Netherlands at the Women’s World Cup soccer tournament.
From there he heads to Australia where he will hold meetings with his counterpart and the defense chiefs of the two countries on July 28-29.
In 2021 the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom formed the AUKUS security cooperation agreement which will permit Canberra to acquire US nuclear-powered submarines, to China’s dismay.
It will be Blinken’s 12th trip in two years to the region.
