Pompeo announces new U.S. investments in Indo-Pacific region
- by Jerome Frank
- in World News
- — Июл 31, 2018
"At the national level, "free" means good governance and the assurance that citizens can enjoy their fundamental rights and liberties", Pompeo said, addressing the first Indo-Pacific Business Forum organised by the US Chambers of Commerce.
This comes as the US looks to expand its trade relationship with Indo-Pacific countries in a move to limit dependence on trade with China.
Mr Hook said the United States' approach to development of the region was not aiming to counter China's Belt and Road Initiative, which comprises of mostly state-led infrastructure projects linking Asia, parts of Africa and Europe.
Eswar Prasad, a Cornell University trade professor and former head of the IMF's China division, said the United States initiatives were small in comparison to Chinese investments.
The move comes nine months after the Trump administration openly spoke against the "predatory economic policies of an Asian giant" that threatens to eat into sovereignty of countries in the Indo-Pacific region, which has now emerged as a critical engine for growth. "We believe in strategic partnerships, not strategic dependency".
Pompeo acknowledged regional anxieties in light of President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), but said American investment in the region continues to grow while the administration works with partner nations to "craft better and higher-standard bilateral trade agreements".
Pompeo said he would visit Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia this week.
"In both scale and scope, these initiatives pale in ambition relative to comparable initiatives by China", Prasad said. "It also highlights the distinction between China's approach of bold and grand government-led initiatives and the much more modest role of the USA government". American assistance and investment in railways, ports, and other infrastructure helped create a foundation for our South Korean friends to recover, thrive, and build one of the world's most prosperous economies - one that is now strong enough to aid other countries in their development.
Читайте также: Samsung Galaxy Note 9 pricing leaked with three color variants"We want private industry with the assistance of the United States government, understanding that we're going to support this effort, we're going to have private industry go in and develop relationships".
Speaking at the same event, US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the United States has eased export controls for high-technology product sales to India. He also reaffirmed the administration's support for the Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development (BUILD) Act, which would more than double the USA government's development-finance capacity, to $60 billion, to support U.S. private investment in strategic opportunities overseas.
"It is a made in China, made for China initiative", Hook said, according to Reuters.
Brian Hook, Pompeo's senior policy adviser, told reporters before Pompeo's speech that Washington is not competing with China's mostly state-led initiatives.
Critics have accused Beijing of using the Belt and Road initiative to expand its global influence and saddle countries - particularly developing ones - with debt.
"This is created to provide mechanism that will allow more private-sector funding for the infrastructure projects that countries in this region need", Kirchner said.
"The announcement of $113 million to fund economic engagement for the entire region feels a bit underwhelming", said Daniel Russel of the Asia Society Policy Institute, until a year ago the State Department's top diplomat for East Asia.
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