US to remain focused on Indo-Pacific regardless of election outcome, says Blinken

The Star

After attending the East Asia Summit in Laos on Oct 11, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters that the United States will remain committed to the Indo-Pacific region, regardless of the outcome of the Nov 5 US presidential election, saying that the region is critical to US interests.  WATCH MORE: https://thestartv.com/c/news SUBSCRIBE: https://cutt.ly/TheStar LIKE: https://fb.com/TheStarOnline

Transcript

00:00Well, good afternoon, everyone.

00:04Our focus has remained intensely on this region.

00:08And again, it's because it's so critical to our own future, to the lives and livelihoods

00:12of Americans.

00:14So given that, it's my belief that that basic approach will continue, irrespective of who's

00:24president, because it's so manifestly in our interests.

00:28And I think there's strong support in Congress for our engagement in the region across parties

00:37and across both houses of Congress.

00:39And I don't see that changing.

00:42What was also striking, again, is almost across the board, the strong desire for all of the

00:50ASEAN countries, and this extends well beyond ASEAN, but the countries in the room, to see

00:57that peace and stability is maintained across the Taiwan Strait.

01:03And I can tell you that with regard to the so-called 10-10 speech, which is a regular

01:11exercise, China should not use it in any fashion as a pretext for provocative actions.

01:21On the contrary, we want to reinforce, and many other countries want to reinforce, the

01:25imperative of preserving the status quo, and neither party taking any actions that

01:30might undermine it.

01:33And again, this goes to something that's very powerfully felt across the region.

01:37It goes to the importance of preserving peace and stability in general, but it also goes

01:45to something that I think affects the lives, the livelihoods, and the future of every country

01:50in the region, and arguably every country in the world.

01:52Fifty percent of commercial container traffic goes through the Taiwan Strait every day.

01:56More than 70 percent of the high-end semiconductors that the world needs are produced on Taiwan.

02:01So there's a strong interest around the world on maintaining peace and stability, preserving

02:06the status quo, avoiding any kind of conflict that could disrupt things that are so essential

02:12to the global economy.

02:22For more UN videos visit www.un.org

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