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Clinton: 21st century will be US' Pacific century

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The United States will be focusing on building a trans-Pacific architecture as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Thursday said the 21st century will be the United States' Pacific Century.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton [File photo/Xinhua]

As the war in Iraq winds down and efforts in Afghanistan to transition begin, the U.S. administration is to pivot its diplomatic efforts elsewhere, namely the Asia-Pacific region, Clinton said here.

"After a decade in which we invested immense resources in these two theaters, we have reached a pivot point," the U.S. top diplomat said before leaders from 21 economies of the Asia-Pacific rim are to meet for their annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit hosted by the United States.

"We now can redirect some of those investments to opportunities and obligations elsewhere. And Asia stands out as a region where opportunities abound," she said.

However, the United States, still mired in economic maladies and having dispatched too many assets around the world, faces daunting challenges including its capacity limit when refocusing on the Asia-Pacific region.

The Asia-Pacific region has several largest and fastest-growing economies, and consequential challenges such as military buildups and natural disasters, as Clinton described.

"It is becoming increasingly clear that in the 21st century, the world's strategic and economic center of gravity will be the Asia-Pacific, from the Indian subcontinent to western shores of the Americas," Clinton said.

"One of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will be to lock in a substantially increased investment - diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise - in this region," she said.

In addition to "forward deployed" State Department assets and economic focus, Clinton also mentioned the 50,000 U.S. troops stationed in Japan and South Korea.

"As this region changes, we must change our force posture, to ensure that it is geographically distributed, operationally resilient, and politically sustainable," she said.

"A more broadly distributed military presence provides vital advantages, both in deterring and responding to threats, and in providing support for humanitarian missions," Clinton said.

However, as Michael Green, Japan Chair and Senior Adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Washington thinktank, said one issue that will certainly be on everyone's mind is the budget woes facing the U.S. military. If the debt committee at Congress failed to meet its Nov. 23 deadline to find 1.2 trillion U.S. dollars in government-wide savings over 10 years, the Pentagon's budget will automatically shrink more than 20 percent.

The budget issue is one reason there are concerns in the United States that it is not a time to reach out, but rather to come home.

Clinton said she is aware of such financial concerns, noting "this thinking is understandable, but it is mistaken."

"What will happen in Asia in the years ahead will have an enormous impact on our nation's future. We cannot afford to sit on the sidelines and leave it to others to determine our future for us," said Clinton.

After the APEC meeting, U.S. President Barack Obama is expected to travel to Australia, while Clinton will head for Manila, Philippines and Bangkok, Thailand before she joins Obama at Bali, Indonesia for the East Asia Summit.