US President Barack Obama yesterday arrived in Malaysia on the final leg of a series of summits aimed at furthering Washington’s bid to rebalance ties toward Asia and challenge China’s increasingly assertive posture in the region.
Security was unusually tight in the Malaysian capital with police citing unconfirmed reports of an “imminent terrorist threat” following last week’s attacks in Paris and the downing of a Russian airliner over Egypt by Islamic State militants.
Obama is to join leaders of the 10-member ASEAN for a weekend summit. Leaders from seven other countries with close partnerships with the grouping — New Zealand, Australia, China, India, Japan, Russia and South Korea — are also to attend a series of meetings starting today.
At least 2,000 army personnel were stationed at strategic points in Kuala Lumpur and another 2,500 were on standby, Malaysian Armed Forces head Zulkifeli Mohd Zin said.
Obama and most of the other leaders were arriving from the APEC summit in Manila, where the president tried to turn the heat on China over its territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea.
Both the APEC meeting and the ASEAN summit typically focus on economic issues, but have been overshadowed by global efforts to combat the Islamic State following the attacks in Paris that killed at least 129 people.
Beijing’s claim to almost the entire South China Sea is shown on Chinese maps with a “nine-dash line” that stretches deep into the maritime heart of Southeast Asia.
This clashes with claims by Taiwan and ASEAN members Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei on atolls and islets scattered around strategic sealanes that annually carry US$5 trillion worth of trade.
In talks on Thursday with Philippine President Benigno Aquino III, Obama demanded that China halt land reclamation work that is turning seven reefs in the Spratly Islands Islands (Nansha Islands, 南沙群島) into artificial islands. China is building airfields and other facilities on some of them.
While ASEAN has yet to take a collective stand about China’s activities in the South China Sea, its secretary general said it was no surprise that member countries are looking for peaceful ways to challenge it.
“They have the right to take any path or any process, as long as its a peaceful one conducive to a solution of the dispute,” ASEAN Secretary-General Le Luong Minh said in an interview.
In a legal setback for Beijing, an arbitration court in the Netherlands has ruled it has jurisdiction to hear some territorial claims the Philippines has filed against China over disputed areas in the South China Sea.
China said it does not want the South China Sea issue to be the focus of the meetings in Kuala Lumpur and a draft of the chairman’s statement to be issued at the end makes no mention of the recent tensions.
Obama has issues with Malaysia. He is to “very directly” raise concerns about the status of Malaysia’s political opposition during a bilateral meeting with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, US Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters in Manila on Thursday.
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