AN ASIA SUMMIT MEETING IS OVERSHADOWED BY SCALIA

[Holding the meeting here, officials said, was meant to confer the same sense of privilege on the Asian leaders that Mr. Obama lavished on Mr. Xi. But experts on the region said many of the leaders would have preferred a visit to the White House. Sunnylands is so identified with the Obama-Xi meeting that it also serves as a reminder of how much America’s relations with Asia are dominated by China.]

By Mark Landler

The president on Monday said he wanted to boost security and economic cooperation 

with the 10 leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, 

gathered in California. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS on Publish 

Date February 15, 2016.Photo by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters. 

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RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. — President Obama welcomed the leaders of 10 Southeast Asian countries to this desert oasis for a summit meeting on Monday, giving him another chance to shine a spotlight on one of his most ambitious geopolitical projects: the “pivot” to Asia.

But, as with so many previous meetings or trips involving Asia, Mr. Obama’s moment has been eclipsed by other news — this time, by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, and the election-year battle it has ignited over the future of the Supreme Court.

White House officials doggedly promoted the importance of the day-and-a-half meeting, which is the first time the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, have gathered in the United States. Mr. Obama laid out a full agenda of economic and security issues for his guests, led by the tensions with China over its aggressive reclamation of land on disputed reefs and islands in the South China Sea.

 “At this summit, we can advance our shared vision of a regional order where rules and norms, including freedom of navigation, are upheld, and where disputes are resolved through peaceful, legal means,” Mr. Obama said at Sunnylands, a sprawling estate built by the publisher Walter H. Annenberg. Susan E. Rice, the national security adviser, said the United States would work with the leaders on a statement affirming those principles.

But the nations are divided over how hard to push back on China. Maritime countries like the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia, which see China as threatening their sovereignty, favor a more aggressive approach. Other nations, like Cambodia and Laos, which have close trade ties with China, are reluctant to risk an open confrontation. That divide is likely to play out in the statement, which will probably embrace broad principles but avoid specific references to Beijing.

In meetings at Sunnylands, a tieless Mr. Obama was aiming for the same intimacy and informality he sought, with mixed results, when he welcomed President Xi Jinping of China to the estate in 2013 for what officials called a “shirt-sleeves summit.”

Holding the meeting here, officials said, was meant to confer the same sense of privilege on the Asian leaders that Mr. Obama lavished on Mr. Xi. But experts on the region said many of the leaders would have preferred a visit to the White House. Sunnylands is so identified with the Obama-Xi meeting that it also serves as a reminder of how much America’s relations with Asia are dominated by China.

“The South China Sea is still the dominant story,” said Jeffrey A. Bader, a former senior adviser to Mr. Obama on Asia. “This will be a taking of the temperature of the Southeast Asians, especially the key claimants: Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam.”

“What do they want out of the United States?” Mr. Bader asked. “Are they happy with what the U.S. has been doing over the last few years? Would they like to see a more robust approach? Or are they uneasy about a U.S.-China confrontation?”

China recently conducted test landings on a nearly 10,000-foot runway that it built on reclaimed land on Fiery Cross Reef, in a disputed part of the sea. That raised the hackles of the Philippines, which fears that China might try to control the airspace over that land by declaring an “air defense identification zone,” as it did in 2013 in the East China Sea.

Several of the countries are undergoing delicate political transitions, which led to one high-profile no-show. Myanmar’s president, Thein Sein, stayed home to oversee the transition from a military-led government to one led by the pro-democracy party of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. While his absence deprives Mr. Obama of the chance to celebrate his opening to Myanmar, administration officials said the orderly transfer of power vindicated his efforts.

White House officials were relieved that Vietnam’s prime minister, Nguyen Tan Dung, decided to attend after reports that he would send a deputy in his place.

But several leaders brought unsavory reputations with them. Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha of Thailand seized power in a coup in May 2014. Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia has ruled with an iron hand since 1985. When Cambodian-Americans began organizing protests timed to his visit, he warned that pro-government forces would carry out demonstrations against the political opposition at home.

“We reject that type of effort to intimidate, and have similarly expressed concern over threats made to opposition figures inside the country,” said Benjamin J. Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser. On Monday morning, a few hundred people gathered in a parking lot to protest several of the leaders.

At the manicured resort, where many of the delegations are staying, Vietnamese and other Asian officials wandered the palm-fringed grounds, gazing at the vacationing golfers. Mr. Obama squeezed in a last round at Sunnylands on Monday morning with three high school friends.

In 2014, he golfed in Hawaii with Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia. Mr. Najib is at Sunnylands, but he did not get an invitation this time. He has been the target of corruption investigations after nearly $700 million ended up in his personal bank accounts. The Malaysian government, noting that he had returned $620 million of the money to the Saudi royal family, closed its investigation in January.

@ The New York Times