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Rice to visit Asia, but skip ASEAN forum
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will travel to China, Thailand, Japan and South Korea this week, but will skip a key security meeting in Southeast Asia later in the month, officials said on Tuesday. Rice's July 8-13 visit to Asia comes amid signs of gathering momentum for a fourth round of six-nation talks on the North Korean nuclear dispute, possibly this month. She will hold nuclear consultations with Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. However, in a development that analysts have criticized as shortsighted, the top U.S. diplomat will send her deputy to attend the annual Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum in the Lao capital of Vientiane on July 28-29, U.S. officials indicated. "The only thing she has scheduled (for late July) is Africa. There's certainly nothing planned for ASEAN," said a U.S. official, who asked not to be named. A second official, without referring by name to Rice's No. 2, Robert Zoellick, said: "I think you can count on the high-level representative being the deputy." The ASEAN Regional Forum brings the 10 ASEAN states together with diplomatic and security partners from North America and Europe in the Asia-Pacific region's only security forum. Rice's predecessors have attended frequently in the past, and Asia-based analysts have said a no-show would be a slap in the face to the region, where a rising China vies with the United States for the attentions of old U.S. allies. CHINESE EMBRACE In Washington, former U.S. diplomat John Tkacik called Rice's exclusion of the Laos meeting a surprising move that would disappoint ASEAN states. "The fact that she would go to Beijing and snub the (ASEAN Regional Forum) is very short-sighted," said Tkacik, a researcher at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington. "It's clear that Beijing is expanding its influence in Southeast Asia and the ASEAN states are looking for someone to balance off China's increasing influence," he said. ASEAN comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar, Indonesia and the Philippines. China has reached a free trade agreement with ASEAN to take effect in 2010. This week Beijing hosted a summit of Mekong River states -- Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam -- and signed electricity deals and tariff reduction plans. A key focus of Rice's July 9-10 stay in Beijing and stops in Tokyo and Seoul next week will be finding a way to persuade North Korea to rejoin six-party talks. The United States, North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia last met in June 2004. North Korea declared itself a nuclear-armed power in February. "On this trip we'll consult again with other members of the six-party talks about the way forward, but we still urge the North Koreans to return to the table and engage in a constructive manner," McCormack said.
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