THE United States said it was committed to Asia, China accused Japan of hyping a food scare and Australia pledged money to fight sex tourism as Asia’s hectic security summit kicked off last Wednesday.

Diplomats held dozens of meetings in the Philippines capital, using the annual gathering of nearly 30 nations to confer on everything from the North Korean crisis to the conflict in Darfur.

The absence of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for the second time in three years did little to dampen the US welcome.

“These are challenging times that we live in and US leadership is critical,” Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said in a speech on behalf of ASEAN, host of the summit.

“However the US stays engaged, this can be a new golden age for Asia and the world,” Yeo said, welcoming Rice’s number two, Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte.

Insisting Rice’s no-show was no snub, Negroponte said the United States remained committed to ASEAN – its fourth-largest export market – and praised the bloc’s progress on democracy and free markets.

“Our common interests are not just economic,” he said in a meeting with the 10-country bloc’s foreign ministers. “One area where ASEAN is playing a stronger role is in support of democracy.”

Every year, ASEAN caps days of meetings with the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) – Asia’s main security talks, which this year bring in 17 partners including China, Japan, the Koreas, Russia, Australia, the United States and others.

Diplomats also held talks on a wide range of security concerns both in Asia and around the globe, including cyber-security, aviation security, the threats of bird flu and global warming and even the scourge of child sex tourism.

“We looked at the issue of what we are doing with the spectre of terrorism, as an issue, right across the board,” New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters said after meeting with ASEAN ministers.

“The conclusion we came to is this – no country, no matter how powerful, can do it by itself,” he said.

On North Korea, top US negotiator Christopher Hill said the next round of six-party talks on disarming Pyongyang was expected in September amid hopes that progress on ending the regime’s nuclear ambitions will continue.

“We are not at the point where we can open the champagne and say we have a nuclear-free Korean peninsula, because frankly we don’t,” Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said. “We have made progress.”

Downer meanwhile unveiled more than A$7 million in aid programs to help fight the spread of bird flu as well as child sex tourism, hailing his country’s “very important” ties with the region.

“Our engagement and interaction with ASEAN is ancient and deep,” he said.
European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana meanwhile said Europe could contribute to a new peacekeeping force for Sudan’s troubled Darfur region that was approved by the UN Security Council. – AFP