RAROTONGA, Cook Islands (AP) - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday pledged renewed American commitment to security in the Asia-Pacific, where tensions are rising between China and its smaller neighbors over territorial disputes and many nations face threats from climate change.
Speaking at a meeting of leaders of South Pacific island nations, Clinton said the United States would not abandon its long history of protecting maritime commerce in the region and serving as a counterbalance to domination by any particular world power.
'We have underwritten the security that has made it possible for the people of this region to trade and travel freely,' she said, noting nearly a century of American military presence in the Asia-Pacific.
'We have consistently protected the Pacific sea lanes through which a great deal of the world's commerce passes. And now we look to the Pacific nations in a spirit of partnership for your leadership on some of the most urgent and complex issues of our time.'
'All of us have an interest in maintaining peace and security in the Pacific,' Clinton said. 'Hundreds of U.S. vessels, from our Navy and Coast Guard ships as well as our fishing vessels, sail these waters. We know how important the ocean and its resources are to your economic development, food security and traditional culture.'
Clinton, the first secretary of state to participate in the Pacific Island Forum and the first to visit the sprawling but sparsely populated Cook Islands, said the U.S. would increase its investments in the Pacific and enhance security cooperation to maintain free trade and combat crime, such as human trafficking and illegal fishing, in the ocean.
She also announced a new contribution of more than $32 million for programs throughout the region aimed at boosting economic development while protecting biodiversity in the face of rising waters attributed to climate change. The U.S. already spends $330 million a year.
Clinton's visit to the main island, population 10,000, in the remote Cook chain has created a buzz of excitement and she was welcomed on arrival by dozens of colorfully clad local traditional dancers and dignitaries amid lots of drumming.
Signs of greeting dotted the main street of Rorotonga, which runs around the 26-kilometer (16-mile) circumference of the island. And, well-wishers waved American flags outside the beachfront restaurant where Clinton ate breakfast with other leaders before the meeting that was held in the partly enclosed National Auditorium that doubles as a basketball court.
Her speech, as well as those of other participants, was occasionally punctuated by the crows of roosters, which run freely through the island's small communities and main town.
Clinton's far-flung travels keep her half a world away from U.S. politics at the height of the presidential conventions. But it puts her at the center of maritime disputes between China and its neighbors.
Clinton will visit Beijing at the midpoint of her 11-day tour, which will take her next to Indonesia, the seat of the secretariat of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, whose members are sharply divided over how to deal with China's expansion of influence and increasingly aggressive claims on disputed territory.
A summit of ASEAN leaders in July failed to reach consensus on how to handle the disputes. Clinton will press them to find common ground and hash out a framework for negotiating with China, U.S. officials said.
China has bristled at the U.S. claiming to have a national security interest in the resolution of the disputes and maintains that they should be resolved between it and each of the other claimants individually, a position that American officials and others say puts the smaller nations at a disadvantage.
After Clinton departs Beijing, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is to make his first visit to China as Pentagon chief in a few weeks to underscore the U.S. message.
After her stop in China, where she will also raise the issue of unrest in Syria and Iran and North Korea's nuclear programs, Clinton will stop in East Timor, Brunei and then represent the U.S. at a summit of leaders from Pacific Rim countries in Vladivostok, Russia.
Clinton will be the first secretary of state to travel to East Timor when she makes a brief stop in Dili, the capital.
In another U.S. diplomatic first, the well-traveled Clinton will become the only secretary of state to touch ground in all 10 members of ASEAN when she holds talks in the small oil-rich nation of Brunei.
Clinton made history in December and then July by going to two ASEAN nations that had not seen America's top diplomat since the mid-1950s - Myanmar, which is emerging from decades of isolation, and Laos.
After Brunei, Clinton will move on to Vladivostok to stand in for President Barack Obama at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, which is expected to center on trade and food security.
In meetings with foreign leaders there, Clinton also will discuss Syria, Iran and North Korea and will lay the groundwork for the upcoming U.N. General Assembly, officials said.
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