The US, Japan and Australia said yesterday that China had a constructive role to play in the Asia-Pacific and encouraged the emerging superpower to "pull its weight" as a regional and global player.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso and Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer also called on North Korea to return to six-party nuclear talks and voiced grave concerns about Iran's nuclear program.
But China appeared to be the focus for the inaugural Trilateral Security Dialogue, held at a naval base in Sydney, with Rice expressing concern ahead of the meeting over the rise of the Asian giant, in particular its military buildup.
"We welcomed China's constructive engagement in the region and concurred on the value of enhanced cooperation with other parties such as ASEAN and the Republic of [South] Korea," the three ministers said in a statement after the talks.
"Supporting the emergence and consolidation of democracies and strengthening cooperative frameworks in the Asia-Pacific region was a particular focus of our attention," the statement said.
But Downer, whose nation sells billions of dollars worth of coal and iron ore to China each year and is expected to soon start exporting uranium there, sought to downplay concerns about containment.
He said it was important that Beijing did not feel Japan, Australia and the US were "ganging up" on it, and the three nations just wanted to make sure the economic and political growth of China worked to benefit the region.
"We certainly don't have a policy of ... containment, clearly we don't," he told reporters.
"We want China to pull its weight as a good regional participant, an example of that is on North Korea," he said.
Rice, Downer and Aso urged Pyongyang to return "immediately and unconditionally" to talks.
They also discussed the need for the UN Security Council to convince Iran to suspend enrichment-related activities, fully cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency and return to negotiations on its nuclear programs.
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