US national security advisor Robert O'Brien will represent the United States at back-to-back virtual summits with Asian countries this weekend, the White House said on Friday.
O'Brien will lead the US delegation in talks with the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) beginning on Friday evening US time, or Saturday morning in Asia.
"Ambassador O'Brien will reaffirm the commitment of the United States to prosperity and security in the Indo-Pacific during virtual remarks," the White House said in a statement.
O'Brien will participate in a broader East Asia Summit on Sunday, when 15 Asia-Pacific economies - excluding the United States - are expected to sign a China-backed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which could become the world's largest free trade agreement.
It will be the third year in a row that the United States has been represented in the East Asia meetings at a relatively low level, even though the outgoing administration of President Donald Trump had declared the Asia Pacific and competition with China a foreign policy priority.
Trump is preoccupied with challenging the results of last week's U.S. presidential election and has refused to concede defeat to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden, who is due to take office in January.
While Trump attended the US-ASEAN summit in Manila in 2017, he has never attended a full EAS meeting. Vice-President Mike Pence represented the United States at the meetings in Singapore in 2018, while O'Brien did so in Thailand last year.