PHNOM PENH, June 18: Nuclear powers Russia, China and India want to forge strategic partnerships with Southeast Asia to counter growing US influence and assertiveness in the region, officials said on Wednesday.

The three have given “strong signals” to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) that they would sign up to the grouping’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), effectively a non-aggression pact among the 10 Asean member states.

The treaty was originally signed in 1976 by Asean’s five founding members — Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

Russia, China and India are the first to offer to sign up to the pact to “demonstrate that we are benign powers and do not desire your territory,” an Asean diplomat said

Russia will this week also sign a joint declaration on “partnership of peace, security, stability and cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region” with Asean, an overarching cooperation framework.

The move by the three nuclear powers to forge such pacts comes at a time when the United States is stamping its influence in the region under the guise of the international fight against terrorism, analysts said.

With nudging from Washington, Asean foreign ministers made an unprecedented call on Tuesday for the early release of Myanmar’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from detention by her country’s military rulers.

This is payback time for Southeast Asia, which is getting enormous assistance from the United States in its uphill battle against groups linked to Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network trying to establish a pan-Islamic state in the region, analysts said.

But some Asean members themselves are worried about the high-profile US influence in the region, including Indonesia, which has come under pressure from Washington for its strong-arm approach in containing a revolt in its Aceh province.

“If we put this renewed assertiveness in the context of American dominance in the international arena and its ability to impose its will through its unrivalled military capability, we can understand the worries of some Asean nations that this could very well turn out to be American dominance in this region too,” said Andrew Tan, an analyst with the Singapore-based Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies.

“This worries Russia and China and India as well and it is not surprising that they want to sign the TAC too. It could be symbolic but this is the way of communicating a political message,” Tan told AFP.

All three powers, like the United States, are Asean’s dialogue partners.

“On Asean’s part, they will welcome the three in signing the pact because they are seen as great powers capable of balancing the US influence to some extent,” Tan added.—AFP