This content was first published by Radio Free Asia, and it is now being reprinted with permission.
A senior American official announced on Monday that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will match with their Japanese and Asian counterparts this week to explore North Korea’s nuclear programme and China’s claims to the South China Sea.  ,
The two leaders will make frenzy travels to Asia, including a visit to Mongolia by Blinken and a stop in Vientiane for an ASEAN gathering at which Blinken will speak with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
The secretary of state may even meet with the three different foreign ministers of the” Quad” grouping – Australia, India and Japan– while in Tokyo, and did attend Friday’s state death in Hanoi for the late Taiwanese President Nguyen Phu Trong, who , died , last year.  ,
Daniel Kritenbrink, the U. S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific matters, immediately told investigators in a phone that the White House had expressed “our honest apologies” about the government’s moving, but there were no plans to attend the meeting.
However, the U.S. State Department stated in a statement released about an hour later that Blinken would actually attend the funeral and would “further underscore the strength of the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with his government counterparts in Hanoi.”
Blinken already has a packed schedule for the trip, with stops also planned in Laos, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore and Mongolia before he returns to the United States, Kritenbrink explained.
Pressure on Myanmar’s junta
While in Tokyo and Manila, Blinken and Austin will also take part in” two plus two dialogues” with the foreign and defense ministers of Japan and the Philippines, respectively, where discussions will focus on North Korea and the South China Sea, the official said.
He claimed that” this trip is an opportunity to highlight the unprecedented work we’ve done to strengthen relationships with our treaty allies.”
Blinken will also hold meetings with Singapore’s new prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, and new mayor Lawrence Wong, who in May resigned from the city-state’s top position after 20 years in power.
Kritenbrink added that the US would try to put more pressure on Myanmar’s military at the ASEAN summit in Vientiane this year, noting that hosts Laos had agreed to only allow the junta to attend the meetings in an officially “downgraded” capacity.
More than three years have passed since the truly tragic and completely unacceptable coup d’etat in Burma, according to Kritenbrink. ” My understanding is there will be a representative from Burma ,]but ] it will be at the permanent-secretary, non-political level”.
He stated that he was unconcerned with any diplomatic issues that might arise from U.S. allies ‘ concerns about President Joe Biden’s decision to not run for president in the 2024 election or about the possibility of Donald Trump winning and abdicating pledges made by Biden.
Kritenbrink said that he had never” seen a stronger demand signal for American engagement across the region,” and that U.S. officials were “incredibly proud of what we’ve accomplished in this administration in terms of our administrative commitment to the region.”
