On Tuesday she is scheduled to deliver a speech detailing the White House's policy for the entire Indo-Pacific region. Harris' trip to Asia, which will see her travel to Vietnam on Tuesday after her time in Singapore, was intended to push back against China's growing influence in the region, politically and economically, across Southeast Asia. Several countries in Southeast Asia dispute China's expansive claims over islands, shoals and reefs in the sea, and resources below the seabed. She stressed the U.S.' "enduring engagement" in Asia and hit on the Biden administration's previous talking points about an "open and free" Indo-Pacific and "freedom of navigation" in the South China Sea.īeijing claims nearly all of the South China Sea as its territory. "The reason I am here is because the US is a global leader, and we take that role seriously," asserted Harris on Monday. The Biden administration has sought to reassure Asian allies nervous about China's assertive policies in the region, but those efforts have been complicated by the mounting questions over the planning and execution of the long-expected withdrawal from Afghanistan. ally and key base for the American Navy in Southeast Asia - follows trips by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to Asia over the past month. Harris' visit to Singapore - a close U.S. And the president and I are thankful for their service, and as I know you all know, we send them our thoughts and our prayers from afar, and close up, we thank you every day for the work that you do." "They're doing this mission in an incredibly challenging and dangerous environment. ![]() "We are grateful to those men and women in uniform, and the embassy staff on the ground for bringing safety to Americans and to the Afghans who work side by side with us, and to other Afghans at risk," Harris said aboard the Tulsa. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to troops as she visits the USS Tulsa in Singapore, August 23, 2021. nationals, their dependants and vulnerable Afghans. She said she knew they would all be watching with concern the scenes unfolding in Kabul, where their fellow service members were still busy trying to evacuate thousands of U.S. ![]() ![]() sailors on the USS Tulsa warship, docked at Singapore's Changi Naval Base. The Singaporean leader revealed that his government had offered Washington a tanker transport plane in support of efforts to evacuate thousands of Americans and their allies from Afghanistan. In prepared remarks to rolling cameras, both Harris and Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong focused on cooperation on COVID prevention and regional stability, but in an open question and answer session that followed, reporters focused on Afghanistan, not the intended themes of Harris' trip. Instead, Harris' three-day stop in Singapore quickly turned into a platform for journalists to question her on the U.S.' reliability as a security partner as Washington's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan continued. Hong Kong - Kamala Harris' first trip to Asia as vice president was meant to signal the United States' staunch commitment to partners in the Indo-Pacific region in the face of a rising China.
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