Sunnylands gives summit informal air

US PRESIDENT Barack Obama will host a summit today with Asean leaders at a location that could be called the West Coast “Camp David” to achieve their strategic partnership goals.

The meeting will be held at the Sunnylands centre in Rancho Mirage, California.

To make the venue available for the US-Asean summit, the historic estate and adjacent Sunnylands Center & Gardens has been closed to the public since 9am on February 7 and will reopen 9am on Saturday.

Obama has had several opportunities to use the venue of the beautiful and comfortable estate for important meetings with world leaders. The president has often found the grounds to be conducive to dialogue and discussions, according to W Patrick Murphy, the deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Bangkok.

“Being in California is convenient for the leaders from Southeast Asia to travel to the West Coast of the US. It is also kind of nice to be outside of Washington since things [that] happen in Washington trend to be formal, limited in time … Sunnylands is a chance to get away from the capital and day-to-day business to focus on the dialogue,” Murphy said.

The US-Asean Sunnylands gathering will not send a political message to China, he added, although the venue has been used for meetings between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Obama in recent years.

While it is apparent that the US and China are competing to win hearts and minds in Asean, some members such as the Philippines and Vietnam have territorial disputes with China over the South China Sea and need to build close alliances with the US. As a result, some analysts have disagreed with Murphy, saying a meeting at the same Sunnylands venue may send in fact send a message to China.

“Some might be reading too much into that, in fact President Obama also hosted the King of Jordan at Sunny-lands,” Murphy insisted. “You might be surprised, we don’t have a lot of perfect venues for this kind of event; [Sunnylands is] intimate, friendly but also has the infrastructure to support personnel, the media and other components that are necessary when the leaders come together.”

Sunnylands is owned and operated by the Annenberg Foundation Trust, which was established by Walter and Leonore Annenberg in 2001. Since it was founded, the Trust has focused on programmes to improve civics education, developed and spread information targeting the treatment of mental disorders in adolescents, facilitated communication among Annenberg-funded organisations to augment their effectiveness, and hosted retreats analysing how to buttress democratic institutions. “It is this history that forms the bedrock of the current retreat programming,” according to the Sunnylands website. Before her death in 2009, Leonore Annenberg began to build a 1,600-square-metre building and 3.6-hectare garden to provide additional meeting areas for retreats and to educate the public about the historic significance of Sunnylands, the website added.

The Trust occasionally considers request from outside organisations to use the venue, although it is not available to rent for weddings, business conferences or other social events. 

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who left Bangkok yesterday, will have the opportunity to attend meetings and functions at Sunnylands on Monday and Tuesday but will not stay overnight at the centre.

The prime minister is staying at a California hotel, which he will also use a workspace and meeting venue in connection with the US-Asean summit. Shortly after landing in California, he met with Thai scientists who work at Nasa as well as representatives of the private US online firm Amazon.

On the first day today, Prayut will join Asean leaders meeting Obama under the banner of “Promoting Regional Prosperity Through Innovation and Entrepreneurship”.

Obama is also hosting a working dinner with his Asean counterparts at the historic Sunnylands house to discuss his regional strategic outlook.

On the final day of the US-Asean summit tomorrow, Asean leaders will hold discussions with Obama titled “Protecting Peace, Prosperity, and Security in the Asia-Pacific”. Prayut is scheduled to leave California tomorrow afternoon.