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Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday portrayed this week’s meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum here as but the first step in the Obama Administration’s strategy to put new emphasis on America’s diplomatic, economic, and military posture in this region.

In an address before an invitation-only gathering at the East West Center, she said: “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 the western shores of the Americas.”

She added: “And one of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decades will be to lock in a substantially increased investment – diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise – in this region.” Clinton asserted that this would be a “whole of government effort,” meaning several departments and agencies would be engaged.

She said President Obama, who is due to arrive Friday, would meet Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda of Japan on the sidelines of the APEC convention. The U.S. alliance with Japan can only be described as being in disarray, due largely to a paralysis in Japanese politics.

After attending a political fundraiser on Monday, the president will get on a plane the next day for Australia. There he is scheduled to announce, along with Prime Minister Julia Gillard, a new arrangement in which U.S. Marines will spend more time training in northern Australia, putting them close to Southeast Asia.

Next, the president will fly to Bali in Indonesia for a meeting of the East Asia Summit. In recent years, American diplomats and military leaders have been cultivating Indonesia because it is a fledgling democracy, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, and it sits along the southern reaches of the strategically vital South China Sea.

The East Asia Summit, an annual meeting of Asian leaders that began in 2005, has invited the United States and Russia to join. President Obama, who lived in Indonesia as a child, will be the first U.S. president to attend a forum that has gradually become more influential.

After the APEC meeting, Secretary Clinton herself plans to visit the Philippines and Thailand, both treaty allies, then to join the president in Bali. She also said: “In South Korea, we will show once again how our alliance has gone global,” and said she would visit Seoul later this month.

Clinton seemed to be addressing three audiences. The first was American voters and taxpayers. She pledged that the new emphasis on Asia “has and will continue to deliver results for the American people. This is a point I particularly want to emphasize.”

“At this time of serious economic challenges, I am well aware of the concerns of those in our own country that the United States downsize our work around the world. When they hear me and others talk about a new era of engagement in Asia I know they think to themselves, “Why would we increase our outreach anywhere?”

“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, and we cannot afford to sit on the sidelines.” Instead, she contended, “we need to engage and seize these new opportunities for trade and investment that will create jobs at home.”

On a deeper level, Clinton seemed to be saying that the U.S. must shed its Eurocentric outlook even as the Administration seeks to retain the nation’s longstanding Trans-Atlantic ties. And she appeared to be warning against a retreat into isolation.

Secondly, the secretary sought to reassure America’s allies and friends in Asia that “we are here to stay.” Throughout Asia in recent months, murmurs that the Yankees are going home have surfaced repeatedly. A variation of that rumor is that America is in decline in Asia, a theme repeated by the Chinese.

Clinton noted: “As this region changes, we must change our force posture to ensure that it is geographically distributed, operationally resilient, and politically sustainable. A more broadly distributed military presence provides vital advantages, both in deterring and responding to threats, and in providing support for humanitarian missions.”

U.S. military officers said that Admiral Robert Willard, who commands American forces in this region from his headquarters above Pearl Harbor, and his staff have been in frequent contact with Secretary Clinton and her staff, feeding information and making suggestions on security policy.

Clinton’s third audience was China but she addressed it, curiously, in a gingerly way. She did not mention, for instance, that President Obama would meet with President Hu Jintao of China while both were in Honolulu.

“Some in our country see China’s progress as a threat to the United States,” she said, “while some in China worry that America seeks to constrain China. In fact, we believe a thriving China is good for China, and a thriving China in – is good for America.

“President Obama and I have made very clear that the United States is fundamentally committed to developing a positive and cooperative relationship with China,” she asserted. What is not clear, however, is whether China’s leaders are prepared to reciprocate.

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