US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is visiting the Asia-Pacific region next week, including a meeting of foreign ministers of the four-member Quad, the US State Department says.
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Blinken is making the trip despite the mounting crisis over Ukraine and policy analysts say the aim is to show the Pacific region support and that pushing back against China's expanding influence remains the top US priority.
Blinken will leave Washington DC on Monday and be in Australia February 9-12 for the meeting of the Quad - the United States, Japan, India and Australia.
Blinken will then meet Pacific island leaders in Fiji before heading to Hawaii to confer with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts to discuss the North Korea issue.
The US State Department said the purpose of the trip was "to engage Indo-Pacific allies and partners to advance peace, resilience and prosperity across the region and demonstrate that these partnerships deliver".
The trip was announced even as China and Russia proclaimed a deep strategic partnership on Friday to balance what they portrayed as the malign global influence of the United States.
The State Department said that in Fiji on February 12 Blinken will discuss the climate crisis, COVID-19, disaster assistance and "ways to further our shared commitment to democracy, regional solidarity, and prosperity" with Pacific island leaders.
He will be the first US secretary of state to visit Fiji since 1985.
A senior US official has said President Joe Biden's administration plans to start a new Pacific islands initiative with allies and partners that would bring together regional countries to "raise our ambition in the region, including on climate, maritime, and transportation issues".
The official said it would at the same time finalise negotiations on Compacts of Free Association: agreements with three Pacific countries - the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia and Palau - that facilitate US military access.
They are due to expire in 2023 in the case of the former two countries and in 2024 in the case of Palau.
US Indo-Pacific co-ordinator Kurt Campbell has said that the Pacific could be the part of the world most likely to see "strategic surprise" - comments apparently referring to possible Chinese ambitions to establish Pacific-island bases.
The US had not done enough to assist the region and that there was a very short amount of time, Campbell said, to work with Australia, New Zealand, Japan and fellow Pacific power France "to step up our game across the board".
Australian Associated Press
