U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sought to reassure Southeast Asian leaders

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sought to reassure Southeast Asian leaders on Monday that America is committed to deepening its relationship with the region, despite fears that Washington’s foreign-policy agenda was returning to the Middle East.

Some Asian diplomats have privately expressed worries that U.S. budget cuts and Mr. Kerry’s own growing focus on Syria and reviving the stalled peace process between Israeli and Palestinian leaders is weakening Washington’s push to rebalance its foreign policy toward Asia’s booming economies.

At the same time, China has launched a charm offensive with the strategically important countries of Southeast Asia, potentially undermining America’s momentum, analysts say, by agreeing to discussions on how to best resolve territorial conflicts in the energy-rich South China Sea and offering to upgrade its trade relationship with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations bloc.

“Let me be crystal clear,” Mr. Kerry said at a security forum here. “I know some people wonder whether the second term of the Obama administration and a new secretary of state are going to continue on the path that we are on. And the answer I say to all of you is ‘yes,’ and not just ‘yes’: We hope to increase the effort.”

To emphasize the point, Mr. Kerry told a news conference afterward that he and foreign ministers from South Korea, China and Japan had agreed that North Korea must take concrete steps to unwind its nuclear-weapons program before reviving multiparty talks on breaking North Korea’s international isolation.

“All of us, all four of us, are absolutely united and absolutely firm in our insistence that the future with respect to North Korea must include denuclearization,” he said.

Under President Barack Obama, the U.S. has stepped up its diplomatic and commercial involvement in Asia after a decade focused on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a stark statement of intent during an earlier Asean meeting in Vietnam, declaring that America was back in the region as a Pacific power. Mr. Obama has dabbled in similar rhetoric, telling Australian lawmakers in 2011 that the U.S. is “all in” on Asia.

Since then, Washington has from time to time infuriated China by declaring America’s interest in seeing a peaceful resolution to conflicting territorial claims in the South China Sea—which Beijing views as U.S. encroachment—while U.S. forces have gradually stepped up their military relationship with old allies, such as the Philippines, and new partners like Vietnam.

Philippine Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario said in an interview Monday that his country is reviewing how to provide U.S. forces with more access to the country’s military bases.

But since Mr. Kerry succeeded Mrs. Clinton as secretary of state, he has at times appeared more interested in addressing issues in the Middle East. Mr. Kerry arrived in Brunei a day behind schedule after four days of negotiations in the Mideast over the Palestinian issue. Earlier this year, he pulled out of a planned trip to Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy and most populous nation.

Cuts in Pentagon spending are also threatening to delay Washington’s military and economic pivot of its resources to Asia. Across-the-board federal budget reductions known as the sequester required the Defense Department to cut spending by as much as $41 billion in the fiscal year to the end of September, and further cuts could follow.

“The U.S. may have lost some of its traction, some of the momentum built up by Hillary Clinton, and it’s not really offering anything new,” said Ian Storey, a senior fellow at the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.

Mr. Kerry singled out maritime security in the shipping lanes of the South China Sea as a policy priority. The waters are claimed in whole or in part by China, Vietnam and the Philippines, among others, occasionally sparking armed confrontations.

“What happens here matters to the United States and it also matters to everybody else, it matters to the global community,” Mr. Kerry said. He was careful to stress that the U.S.’s interest in the region wasn’t designed to “contain” or “counterbalance” any one country—a thinly veiled reference to China, whose own influence continues to grow.

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