'FIRST PACIFIC PRESIDENT': OBAMA VOWS
GREATER U.S. ROLE IN ASIA
TOKYO, NOVEMBER
15, 2009
(STAR) Billing himself as America’s “first Pacific president,” Barack
Obama said yesterday the United States does not seek to “contain” China and
promised an engaged US role in charting Asia’s future.
Obama also warned he would not be “cowed” by North Korea’s nuclear saber-rattling, and repeatedly challenged regional leaders to wean themselves off lucrative US export markets to secure a “balanced” global economic rebound.
Tokyo is the first stop in Obama’s nine-day Asian tour, which also takes him to Singapore for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, to China for talks likely to feature climate change and trade imbalances, and to South Korea, where North Korea’s nuclear ambitions will be in focus.
The president chose Japan, for half-a-century a bedrock US ally, to deliver his latest major speech framing a new foreign policy, invoking his upbringing in Indonesia and Hawaii to show he shared the region’s worldview.
“As America’s first Pacific president, I promise you that this Pacific nation will strengthen and sustain our leadership in this vitally important part of the world,” Obama said on the second day of his debut Asian tour.
He later left for Singapore for the APEC summit, where he was due to meet 20 regional leaders, including China’s President Hu Jintao and Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev.
His Tokyo remarks signaled yet another break with the foreign policy of ex-president George W. Bush, who is accused by Obama aides of letting US ties with East Asia founder while waging war in Iraq and against global terrorism.
Drawing an enthusiastic welcome from 1,500 people in Tokyo’s Suntory concert hall, Obama said he knew many in Asia wondered how Washington saw China’s rise to prominence, which some observers believe has come at America’s expense.
“The United States does not seek to contain China, nor does a deeper relationship with China mean a weakening of our bilateral alliances,” Obama said.
“On the contrary, the rise of a strong, prosperous China can be a source of strength for the community of nations,” he said.
A day ahead of his first visit to China, Obama warned that he would not waver from raising human rights with Beijing but would do so “without rancor.”
He notably, however, did not specifically mention Tibet, amid claims by critics that he avoided Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, in Washington, so as to avoid angering leaders in Beijing.
Some US critics have accused him of downplaying human rights concerns to win Beijing’s cooperation on issues like North Korea and Iran.
Many Asian observers believe that the US immersion in bloody wars in Afghanistan and Iraq forced it to take its eye off dynamic Asia, leaving an opening for China to seize a more powerful regional role.
“Even as American troops are engaged in two wars around the world, our commitment to Japan’s security and to Asian security is unshakeable,” Obama said, against a backdrop of US and Japanese flags.
“It can be seen in our deployments throughout the region - above all, through our young men and women in uniform.”
North Korea issue
Obama again called on North Korea to return to six-party talks on ending its nuclear program, but warned Washington would not be “cowed” by threats from Pyongyang, following its detonation of a nuclear device earlier this year.
As he pursues a tentative engagement strategy with Myanmar, Obama called on the junta to release democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi - though he stumbled over her name in an apparent sign of fatigue - and political prisoners in response to US outreach.
Turning to the economy, just before making a surprise early appearance yesterday at the APEC forum in Singapore, Obama called on Asian economies to live up to G20 pledges to support balanced economic growth after the worst global recession in decades.
“We must strengthen our economic recovery, and pursue growth that is both balanced and sustained,” said Obama.
“Now that we are on the brink of economic recovery, we must also ensure that it can be sustained,” he said. “We cannot follow the same policies that led to such imbalanced growth.”
With an eye on multiple political challenges back home, including crushing 10 percent unemployment, Obama also told Americans that Asia plays a vital role in their economic security.
But he did not spell out detailed US policy changes to match his political rhetoric, or explain how he could reconcile his pledges with his limited political room for maneuver on issues like free trade, for example.
Obama arrived in Tokyo on Friday and met Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, lauding the US-Japan alliance and signaling flexibility on the thorny issue of the relocation of a US military base on the island of Okinawa.
Obama flies today from Singapore to Shanghai on his debut visit to China, and then moves to Beijing for talks with President Hu.
He wraps up his visit in South Korea next week.
Trans-Pacific FTA
The US also announced yesterday it will join a trans-Pacific free-trade area, giving a major boost to a proposal to expand it and signaling that Washington will resist protectionism despite the global downturn.
Obama made the announcement first in Tokyo, and US Trade Representative Ron Kirk cited the decision minutes later in Singapore.
Washington’s decision to participate in the Trans-Pacific Partnership - a free trade agreement among Chile, New Zealand, Singapore and Brunei - was welcomed with loud applause in Singapore.
The agreement is seen as a starting point for a possible free-trade area spanning the 21-member APEC (APEC) forum, which was founded 20 years ago to promote greater trade and integration in the region.
Its scope has since expanded to encompass a wide range of issues, including climate change, energy and food security, and politics.
“We believe that a high-standard, regional trade agreement under the Trans-Pacific Partnership can help bring home to the American people the jobs and economic prosperity that are, in fact, the promise of a global trading society,” Kirk told a news conference, held on the sidelines of APEC’s weeklong annual forum.
Kirk urged APEC members to work closely with the US in stimulating recovery in a “balanced” way.
“This means the United States needs to consume less, and produce and export more, while many of our APEC members with surpluses should seriously consider the need to increase their consumption and imports,” he said.
He emphasized American willingness to expand economic ties across the Asia-Pacific region, and emphasized the key role the US plays in helping to lead global efforts toward freer trade.
“A rising tide lifts all boats,” he said. “If we work together to rise above this downturn, we can lift up all our economies and all our peoples,” he said.
ASEAN ‘talk shop’
A US engagement with ASEAN should have tangible results if the regional bloc wants to keep Washington’s respect and shed off its “talk shop” reputation, according to the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation.
Walter Lohman, director of the foundation’s Asian Studies Center, said Obama can help advance US strategic interests by helping ASEAN prove its value.
“The capitals of ASEAN nations are very tolerant of dialogue for dialogue’s sake. In fact, they often testify to its dubious positive value. Americans, however, are not as patient with mere conversation,” Lohman said.
Lohman said the Bush administration contributed immensely to US-ASEAN relations but its “public diplomacy was not as successful.”
“President Bush’s decision to cancel a US-ASEAN leaders’ summit in 2007, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s intermittent attendance at regional meetings, Assistant Secretary Chris Hill’s seeming indifference to Southeast Asia, contributed to a damaging impression of American withdrawal,” he said.
“That conclusion was neither fair nor accurate, but it proved difficult to shake,” he said.
The Bush administration developed the ASEAN Cooperation Plan, the Enterprise for ASEAN Initiative, the ASEAN-US Enhanced Partnership, and the US-ASEAN Trade and Investment Framework Arrangement.
It also opened free trade agreement negotiations with Malaysia and Thailand and saw to a successful US-Singapore FTA that has resulted in a 73 percent increase in US exports to the island state. Bush also appointed the first ever US Ambassador to ASEAN.
“And now the President has lined up his own summit with ASEAN leaders. But, thus far, his engagement has lacked substance,” he said.
But he said no one expects President Obama to immediately produce accomplishments.
“It is reasonable, however, to expect the President to use this week’s US-ASEAN summit meeting in Singapore to lay down markers on the most important issues in the US-ASEAN relationship such as free trade, Burma, and the rise of China,” he said. - Pia Lee-Brago and AP