U.S. President Joe Biden speaks throughout the ASEAN-U.S. summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Saturday.

Vincent Thian/AP

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Vincent Thian/AP

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks throughout the ASEAN-U.S. summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Saturday.

Vincent Thian/AP

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — President Joe Biden promised Saturday that the United States would work with a strategically very important coalition of southeast Asian nations, telling leaders that “we’re going to build a better future that we all want to see” within the area the place U.S. rival China can also be working to increase its affect.

Citing the three Association of Southeast Asian Nations summits he is participated in as president, Biden stated the 10-country bloc is “at the heart of my administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy” and promised to collaborate to construct a area that’s “free and open, stable and prosperous, resilient and secure.”

“I look forward to continuing our work together with ASEAN and with each one of you to deepen peace and prosperity throughout the region to resolve challenges from the South China Sea to Myanmar and to find innovative solutions to shared challenges,” Biden stated, citing local weather and well being safety amongst areas of collaboration.

Biden’s efforts at this 12 months’s ASEAN summit are supposed to lay the groundwork for his extremely anticipated assembly with Chinese President Xi Jinping — the primary face-to-face encounter of Biden’s presidency with a pacesetter whose nation the U.S. now considers its most potent financial and navy rival.

Biden and Xi will meet on Monday on the Group of 20 summit that brings collectively leaders from the world’s largest economies, which is held this 12 months in Indonesia on the island of Bali.

Traveling to Phnom Penh earlier Saturday, U.S. nationwide safety adviser Jake Sullivan stated Biden will increase points resembling freedom of navigation and unlawful and unregulated fishing by China with the ASEAN leaders — geared toward demonstrating U.S. assertiveness in opposition to Beijing.

Freedom of navigation refers to a dispute involving the South China Sea, the place the United States says it could sail and fly wherever worldwide regulation permits and China believes such missions are destabilizing. Sullivan stated the U.S. has a key position to play as a stabilizing pressure within the area and in prevention of anybody nation from participating in “sustained intimidation and coercion that would be fundamentally adverse to the nations of ASEAN and other countries.”

“There’s a real demand signal for that,” Sullivan instructed reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday. Referring to the People’s Republic of China, Sullivan continued: “I think the PRC may not love that fact, but they certainly acknowledge it and understand it.”

One new initiative associated to these efforts that Biden will talk about Saturday focuses on maritime consciousness, particularly utilizing radio frequencies from industrial satellites to raised monitor darkish transport and unlawful fishing, Sullivan stated.

Biden’s go to to Cambodia — the second ever by a U.S. president — continues his administration’s push to exhibit its investments within the south Pacific, which was highlighted earlier this 12 months when the White House hosted an ASEAN summit in Washington, the primary of its type. He additionally tapped considered one of his senior aides, Yohannes Abraham, because the official envoy to ASEAN, one other means the White House has highlighted that dedication.

ASEAN this 12 months is elevating the U.S. to a “comprehensive strategic partnership” standing — a largely symbolic enhancement of their relationship however one which places Washington on the identical degree as China, which was granted the excellence final 12 months.

U.S. President Joe Biden shakes arms with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen earlier than their assembly throughout the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit on Saturday in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Alex Brandon/AP

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Alex Brandon/AP

U.S. President Joe Biden shakes arms with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen earlier than their assembly throughout the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit on Saturday in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Alex Brandon/AP

Biden opened Saturday in Phnom Penh by assembly with Hun Sen, the prime minister of Cambodia, the host for the regional summit. He additionally participated within the conventional household picture with southeast Asian leaders — one which required a re-do because the gregarious Biden was too busy shaking arms with different heads of state — and later, will attend a gala dinner hosted by a parallel summit in Cambodia specializing in east Asia.

Another subject Biden centered on is Myanmar, the place the navy junta overthrew the ruling authorities in February 2021 and arrested its democratically elected chief, Aung San Suu Kyi. As he met with Hun Sen, Biden harassed that the U.S. was dedicated to the return of democracy in Myanmar, which had steadily headed towards a democratic type of governance earlier than the coup.

Biden additionally raised human rights considerations in Cambodia. In an announcement after the assembly with Hun Sen, the White House stated Biden urged the prime minister — an authoritarian ruler in a nominally democratic nation — to “reopen civic and political space” earlier than its 2023 elections.

Biden, in response to the White House, additionally pushed Hun Sen to launch activists together with Theary Seng, a Cambodian-American lawyer who was convicted of treason because the prime minister’s long-running rule aimed to crack down on his opposition. The White House stated Biden additionally raised considerations about actions at Ream Naval Base, whose growth Cambodian officers have described as a collaborative effort between it and China.

At the U.S.-ASEAN summit, there was an empty chair the place a consultant from Myanmar would have sat had its leaders not been barred from taking part in official ASEAN conferences.

In his transient remarks Saturday, Biden mistakenly recognized host nation Cambodia as “Colombia,” a flub he additionally made on Thursday night time as he was leaving the U.S.

Biden will take part in East Asia summit classes on Sunday, together with a three-way assembly with the leaders of South Korea and Japan, earlier than leaving for the G-20 summit in Bali.