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Indonesian
Waterways
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Admiral Harry Felt
The most dramatic assessment came from Admiral Harry Felt
Commander in Chief of the Pacific (CINCPAC),
during a 1962 Senate hearing.
With the basis that the Indonesian archipelago sat squarely
on the major trade routes between the United States,
Northern Pacific and the Near East,
Admiral Felt argued that whoever controlled the archipelago,
controlled the entrance to the Indian Ocean from the Pacific.
"Simple geography" would make the fall of Indonesia into communist hands
nothing less than "a catastrophe to the free world":
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Papua: Time for Firm U.S. Stand?
Posted on February 18 2012 by Alfred Oehlers / The Diplomat (Tokyo)/ Ferdinand Pandey
Against a backdrop of continuing violence and instability, the United States must be prepared
to take a stronger stand on Papua. Rising tensions there risk complicating critically significant U.S.-Indonesia
relations, unnecessarily distracting from the strategically important “rebalancing” towards the Asia-Pacific recently
announced by the Obama administration.
By any measure, Indonesia looms large in U.S. foreign policy. Its status as a “Comprehensive Partner” speaks
to the country’s political, economic and strategic significance. Moreover, as an influential player in multilateral
forums both regionally and internationally, a strong relationship with Indonesia is invaluable in wider U.S. efforts
at engagement in the Asia-Pacific – spanning diplomatic, trade and economic matters, through to security concerns
such as extremism and
maritime issues.
In the context of the recent strategic rebalancing towards the Asia-Pacific, this significance will only increase
in coming years, as the United States seeks to leverage existing relationships with Asian allies and partners.
Keeping a healthy bilateral relationship on track will be one crucial element – among many – assisting this delicate
maneuver.
While certainly positive at the moment, the U.S.-Indonesia relationship is by no means immune from setbacks. In
this respect, it may be instructive to recall the warming of ties between the two nations post-Suharto. Much was
built and anticipated on the back of this, only to be derailed by a serious miscalculation by Jakarta in Timor-Leste.
Recovery from this took some time and effort, and even now in Jakarta, incredulity and resentment continue to
be harbored in some quarters at how the U.S. so readily jeopardized an important bilateral relationship for the
sake of some insignificant (for Jakarta), far-flung province. Yet, that was so. And to the extent the values underpinning
that response continue to endure – on Capitol Hill and among the American public – a response of the same measure
will likely be forthcoming again should circumstances warrant.
If that’s the case, may we currently be seeing history repeating itself in Papua? Recent developments portend
a disturbing likelihood. Jakarta’s alleged deafness to Papuan concerns, escalating protests, frequent tit-for-tat
shootings by shadowy figures, and heavy-handed responses from Indonesian security forces and officials, have all
contributed to a state of semi-chaos and inflamed tensions.
In such a confused environment, a small incident may quickly spiral out of control, drawing the kind of vicious
crackdown security forces in Papua have become notorious for. Graphic images – beamed worldwide – of security
forces indiscriminately shooting into crowds of unarmed civilians may be too difficult to countenance in the U.S.,
irrespective of the status or significance of bilateral relations. The resulting backlash against Indonesia would
invariably damage the bilateral relationship, and even if only temporarily, potentially compromise its usefulness
to broader U.S. strategic goals.
Nor should the likely regional and sub-regional repercussions be ignored by U.S. policymakers. Take the Pacific
neighborhood as a case in point. Lately, Indonesia has been actively cultivating relations with the Melanesian
nationsVanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Papua New Guinea, and Fiji. According to some, though likely motivated by
honorable intentions, such moves may also be attempts to undermine the strength of the Melanesian bonds between
these nations and the separatist National Coalition for the Liberation of West Papua (formerly, the Organisasi
Papua Merdeka or OPM).
On the basis of a shared ethnicity, culture, and kinship, these nations have historically expressed strong solidarity
with the Papuan struggle, affording varying levels of recognition to the separatist movement. Indonesian entreaties
in recent years, however, have steadily eroded this. In April 2011, the Melanesian Spearhead Group – the regional
association of the nations mentioned – voted to extend observer status to Indonesia, ignoring the appeals of Papuans
for similar recognition made ever since the inception of the body. At a bilateral level, Vanuatu – once a staunch
supporter of the separatist cause – signed a Development Cooperation Agreement with Indonesia in December 2011
with clauses explicitly recognizing the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Indonesia and the principle of
non-interference in Indonesian affairs.
It’s uncertain how these Melanesian nations will react to a worsening Papuan situation, bearing in mind surveys
of popular opinion still show much sympathy for the Papuan cause. In Vanuatu, the opposition has already tapped
into this vein of potential political support, promising a repudiation of the Agreement signed in December should
it return to office. May an escalation in tensions in Papua prove to be a catalyst for more political instability
in Melanesia and elsewhere in the Pacific? And what of the implications for Pacific regionalism, now characterized
by some observers to be in a parlous state? In a geographical neighborhood already with more than its fair share
of governance, developmental and security challenges, additional complications of this nature won’t be welcome
by many. Nor should it be by the United States, consumed as it is, attempting a critical strategic shift.
Make no mistake: in the broader overall rebalancing, Asian friends like Indonesia will be critically significant.
What they will bring to bear assisting the U.S. will be all the greater provided they may speak with credibility,
legitimacy, and a moral authority.
For Indonesia, the satisfactory resolution of the Papua issue will burnish its credentials significantly in this
regard. The U.S. should do far more to encourage such an outcome.
Alfred Oehlers is a professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu. The views expressed
in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of APCSS, the U.S. Pacific
Command, the U.S. Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.
This post was submitted by Alfred Oehlers / The Diplomat (Tokyo)/ Ferdinand Pandey.
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IEW: Is US-China collision inevitable? —S P Seth
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
With China determined to uphold its ‘core’ national interests, and the US and others equally committed to, for
instance, freedom of navigation through the South China Sea, it only needs a spark to ignite a prairie fire
Even as Iran has come centre-stage of another likely military conflict in the Middle East with the US and its western
allies determined to force it to forgo its nuclear programme, the Asia-Pacific region is emerging as another potential
trouble spot pitting China against the US. With the US now disengaged from Iraq, and in the process of military
withdrawal from Afghanistan by 2014, it has dawned on Washington that China has strengthened its role in the Asia-Pacific
and is slowly, but steadily, working to push it out of the region. China regards the Asia-Pacific as its strategic
space and the US as an external power. The US has decided to hit back by declaring that it is not going anywhere
and, indeed, will beef up its military presence in the region. Straddling both the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans,
the US considers itself a legitimate Pacific country.
US-China relations have never been easy. They are likely to become even more complicated after the recent announcement
of a US defence review that prioritises the Asia-Pacific region. Even though the review seeks to make sizeable
cuts of about $ 500 billion in the US’s defence budget over the next 10 years, it would not be at the cost of its
engagement with the Asia-Pacific region. Indeed, as President Obama told reporters, “We will be strengthening our
presence in the Asia-Pacific...”
Washington’s decision to make the Asia-Pacific a priority strategic area was presaged during Obama’s recent visit
to Australia. He hit out at China on a wide range of issues, while announcing an enhanced US role, including the
use of Australian bases/facilities for an effective military presence. He urged China to act like a “grown up”
and play by the rules. Elaborating on this in an address to the Australian parliament, he said, “We need growth
that is fair, where every nation plays by the rules; where workers’ rights are respected and our businesses can
compete on a level playing field; where the intellectual property and new technologies that fuel innovation are
protected; and where currencies are market-driven, so no nation has an unfair advantage.”
This catalogue of US economic grievances against China has been the subject of intermittent discussions between
the two countries without any satisfactory results. On the question of human rights and freedoms in China, Obama
said, “Prosperity without freedom is just another form of poverty.”
The US is upping the ante in its relations with China, with Asia-Pacific centre-stage. It does not accept China’s
sovereignty claims in the South China Sea and its island chains. This has caused naval incidents with Vietnam,
the Philippines, and with Japan in the East China Sea, and a close naval skirmish or two with the US. As part of
a new resolve to play a more assertive role, the US has reinforced and strengthened its strategic ties with Vietnam,
the Philippines, India, Australia and Japan.
In announcing cuts to the defence budget over the next decade, President Obama seemed keen to dispel the notion
that this would make the US a lesser military power. He said, “The world must know — the US is going to maintain
our military superiority with armed forces that are agile, flexible and ready for the full range of contingencies
and threats.”
The US’s continued military superiority has a catch though, which is that the US will be adjusting its long-standing
doctrine of being able to wage two wars simultaneously. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta maintains that the US military
would still be able to confront more than one threat at a time by being more flexible and adaptable than in the
past.
Be that as it may, the increased focus on Asia-Pacific has upset China. Its hope of making the region into its
own strategic backyard, with the US distracted in the Middle East and its economy in the doldrums, might not be
that easy with the new US strategic doctrine prioritising Asia-Pacific. Not surprisingly, the Chinese media has
not reacted kindly to it. According to the Chinese news agency Xinhua, “...the US should abstain from flexing its
muscles, as this will not help solve regional disputes.” It added, “If the US indiscreetly applies militarism in
the region, it will be like a bull in a china shop [literally and figuratively], and endanger peace instead of
enhancing regional stability.”
The Global Times called on the Chinese government to develop more long-range strike weapons to deter the US Navy.
Australia, the US’s closet regional ally, fears that China’s rising economic and military power has the potential
of destabilising the region. Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd hopes though (as he told the Asia Society in New York)
that there was “nothing inevitable” about a future war between the US and China, emphasising the need to craft
a regional architecture that recognised the coexistence of both countries, and the acceptance of US alliances in
the region. He also saw hope (as a counterpoint to China) in the “collective economic might of Japan, India, Korea,
Indonesia and Australia,” which means that, hopefully, China’s perceived threat might be balanced and contained
with the US’s enhanced commitment to the region, and the rising clout of a cluster of regional countries.
There are any number of issues that could become a flashpoint for future conflict, like Taiwan, Korea, the South
China Sea and its islands, the maritime dispute with Japan and so on. With China determined to uphold its ‘core’
national interests, and the US and others equally committed to, for instance, freedom of navigation through the
South China Sea, it only needs a spark to ignite a prairie fire.
As it is, neither China nor the US wants military conflict between their two countries. China’s official position
was expounded the other day in Beijing by its Vice-President Xi Jinping, who is also the country’s president-in-waiting.
Xi, who is expected to visit the US next month, hoped that “the US can view China’s strategic intentions...in a
sensible and objective way, and be committed to develop a cooperative partnership”. And he emphasised that: “Ultimate
caution should be given to major and sensitive issues that concern each country’s core interests to avoid any distraction
and setbacks in China-US relations.”
The problem, though, is that when it comes to ‘core interests’, objectivity is generally the first casualty. For
instance, the US complains that China’s strategic doctrine, if there is one, lacks transparency. The double-digit
growth in China’s defence budget, as viewed in Washington, is way beyond its defensive needs. On the other hand,
the US has the largest defence budget of any country in the world. It is pertinent to remember that wars have often
been caused by miscalculation rather than deliberation. And this is even more so when an emerging power is staking
its claims impinging on the existing superpower’s perceived interests and/or seen to be threatening its regional
allies. This is how the two World Wars started.
One can only hope that China and the US will carve out a new peaceful way of coexistence and cooperation, though
the past experience in such situations is not very encouraging. Indeed, it points to the inevitability of a potential
military conflict sooner or later.
The writer is a senior journalist and academic based in Sydney, Australia.
He can be reached at sushilpseth@yahoo.com.au
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The US has been increasingly vocal about
defending freedom of navigation in the South China
US Navy expects to base ships in Singapore
By Shaun Tandon (AFP) – Dec 16, 2011
WASHINGTON — The United States, facing a rising China but a tighter budget, expects to station several combat ships
in Singapore and may step up deployments to the Philippines and Thailand, a naval officer said.
The United States has been increasingly vocal about defending freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, where
tensions over territorial disputes between Beijing and Southeast Asian nations have been on the rise.
In an academic article forecasting the shape of the US Navy in 2025, Admiral Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval
operations, wrote that "we will station several of our newest littoral combat ships" in Singapore.
Greenert said that the United States may also step up the periodic deployment of aircraft such as the P-8A Poseidon
-- which is being developed to track submarines -- to regional treaty allies the Philippines and Thailand.
"The Navy will need innovative approaches to staying forward around the world to address growing concerns
about freedom of the seas while being judicious with our resources," he wrote in the December issue of the
US Naval Institute's Proceedings.
"Because we will probably not be able to sustain the financial and diplomatic cost of new main operating bases
abroad, the fleet of 2025 will rely more on host-nation ports and other facilities where our ships, aircraft, and
crews can refuel, rest, resupply and repair while deployed," he wrote.
The naval officer did not directly mention China, as part of the usual policy by US President Barack Obama's administration
to publicly seek a more cooperative relationship with the growing Asian power.
But the United States has laid bare its concerns about China. Obama last month announced that the United States
would post up to 2,500 Marines in the northern Australian city of Darwin by 2016-17, a move criticized by Beijing.
The United States also has some 70,000 troops stationed in Japan and South Korea under longstanding alliances and
has offered assistance to the Philippines which launched its newest warship on Wednesday.
Singapore is also a long-standing partner of the United States. The US military already operates a small post in
the city-state that assists in logistics and exercises for forces in Southeast Asia.
In the article, Greenert described the Gulf monarchy of Bahrain as a model. The US Fifth Fleet is based on the
small island which is strategically close to Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran.
"In 2025 the Navy will operate from a larger number of partner nations such as Bahrain to more affordably
maintain our forward posture around the world," he wrote.
The United States spent some $700 billion on its military in the past year, far more than any other country, and
many lawmakers accept the need for cuts as the Iraq and Afghan operations wind down.
The Obama administration has identified Asia -- full of fast-growing economies and with a still emerging security
order -- as the key priority for the United States.
Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta all traveled to Asia in recent months
to hammer home the message that the United States will not leave the region despite economic woes at home.
"As the United States puts our fiscal house in order, we are reducing our spending," Obama said in his
speech in Darwin.
But he added: "Here is what this region must know. As we end today's wars, I have directed my national security
team to make our presence and missions in the Asia-Pacific a top priority."
Naval power, critical to the rise of the United States and earlier Britain as global powers, is expected to remain
critical in the 21st century.
China has developed its first aircraft carrier, which has undergone two sea trials this year. An image of the 300-meter
(990-foot) refitted former Soviet carrier was captured by US-based company DigitalGlobe Inc.
Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
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The US has been increasingly vocal about defending freedom of navigation in the South China
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US Eyes Singapore Base
By David Axe
June 6, 2011
The US Navy will establish a new presence in Singapore as a staging location for its latest class of warship.
Defence Secretary Robert Gates announced plans for the presence during his visit to Singapore last week. Gates’
current Asian tour is his last. After five years heading the world’s most powerful military, he will step down
on June 30.
‘We’ve taken a number of steps towards establishing a defence posture across the Asia-Pacific that is more geographically
distributed, operationally resilient and politically sustainable,’ Gates said.
According to the Singaporean Defence Ministry, those steps include deploying to Singapore ‘one or two’ of the new
Littoral Combat Ships current under construction in the United States. The 400-foot-long, high-speed warships,
optimized for shallow-water operations, would be the first US military vessels permanently stationed in the tiny
Southeast Asian country, although the Navy for many years has maintained a support facility there.
The Littoral Combat Ships are short-range vessels compared with the destroyers, cruisers and aircraft carriers
that make up the bulk of the Navy's 280-strong battle fleet. Typically, US warships on deployment in the Pacific
sail from California or Japan and periodically receive supplies from supply vessels while on the move. The Littoral
Combat Ships would require far more frequent resupplying than other vessels, making forward deployment to Singapore
particularly attractive for them.
Perhaps coincidentally, the Singapore basing announcement comes at a time when China could be planning for its
first overseas naval base -- in Gwadar, western Pakistan. ‘We have asked our Chinese brothers to please build a
naval base at Gwadar,’ Pakistan Defence Minister Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar said.
Beijing denied Mukhtar's assertion.
Regardless, China's rapid naval modernization, including nuclear submarines and a refurbished aircraft carrier,
now has a clear US response. The US Navy is meeting China’s naval expansion with an expansion of its own.
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Scot Marciel is the US ambassador to Indonesia
America’s Future in the Asia Pacific
Scot Marciel | December 08, 2011
US President Barack Obama’s visit to Bali to participate in the East Asia Summit last month was a historic first
that affirmed the commitment of the United States to playing a long-term role in the Asia-Pacific region. The visit
culminated a long period of quiet, persistent and multi-faceted diplomacy aimed at sustained US engagement in the
Asia-Pacific region, which is home to over half the world’s population, comprises the key engines of global economic
growth and is a key driver of global politics. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called US engagement in Asia
one of the most important tasks of American diplomacy over the next decade.
This renewed focus on the Asia Pacific is crucial to US economic and political interests, and we believe is also
important to the future of Asian countries. With strong flows of trade and investment, a security presence that
underpins the region’s stability, and no territorial ambitions, the United States offers a partnership that will
be invaluable to peace and prosperity in the region.
America’s commitment is broad and strategic. On the economic side it includes working together with partners from
Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam to build an ambitious Trans-Pacific
Partnership agreement that will enhance trade and investment, promote innovation and environmentally sound economic
growth and development and support the creation of jobs. The future of this region depends on robust trade and
commerce, and we hope that Indonesia, China, and other countries interested in creating a new 21st century trade
agreement will consider joining us in making it happen.
In Indonesia, our economic partnership also includes agreement this month on a Millennium Challenge Corporation
Compact under which the United States will provide $600 million to support environmentally sustainable economic
development, public health, and improved public services in Indonesia. We also fully support the Indonesian government’s
focus on upgrading its infrastructure and believe that US companies can play a critical role in partnering with
Indonesian companies to accomplish its ambitious objectives.
We also are strengthening our treaty relationships and building new partnerships with emerging powers, including
China, to sustain the stability that has facilitated rapid economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region. People-to-people
contacts to reduce lingering suspicions on both sides of the Pacific will also be an important element of our diplomacy
over the next decade.
Our commitment to update and invigorate our security relationships led to the force posture initiative recently
announced by President Obama and Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Under the agreement, US Marines, starting
with a small group of 250 and eventually expanding to a 2,500-person Marine Air Ground Task Force, will rotate
to Darwin and Northern Australia, for around six months at a time, where they will conduct exercises and training
with the Australian Defense Force. Additionally, we will increase access of US aircraft to air bases in northern
Australia to enhance collaboration.
Both of these initiatives build on years of close alliance cooperation between the United States and Australia.
These expanded activities will also provide increased opportunities to deepen security ties with regional partners,
including in Indonesia, and to better provide humanitarian assistance and respond to natural disasters and other
contingencies in the region.
The US-Australia agreement does not involve the creation of any US bases in Australia, but rather is simply a rotation
of Marines through Northern Australia to ensure that existing joint exercises can be sustained and expanded.
While many in Indonesia and other neighboring countries have welcomed these initiatives as a positive addition
to stability in the region, some Indonesian commentators have speculated that the rotation of Marines through Northern
Australia might be directed at Indonesia. This could not be further from the truth. Indeed, deepening security
cooperation with Indonesia, as well as other partners in the region, is an important goal of these new initiatives.
The United States enjoys friendly relations with Indonesia and we consider Indonesia to be a critical partner in
the region. We strongly support Indonesia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The new agreement with Australia
is part of an ongoing, long-term review of the way American forces are deployed throughout the region and the world
and is not directed at any nation.
The United States has a crucial stake in Indonesia’s success as a vibrant prosperous democracy. We all benefit
from shared stability and growth. The activities of the United States in Indonesia supports Indonesia’s success,
whether through military cooperation such as the grant of excess F-16 aircraft to Indonesia’s Air Force, development
cooperation like the MCC compact, or educational cooperation.
Indonesia and the United States share a long history of friendship dating from the first days of Indonesian independence.
Our commitment to continuing a long lasting partnership of equals with all of our friends in Asia is unwavering.
History will record renewed focus on Asia as one of the most significant developments of American diplomacy after
the Cold War.
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China Business
Dec 8, 2011
Obama's risky oil threat to China
By Michael T Klare
When it comes to China policy, is the Barack Obama administration leaping from the frying pan directly into the
fire? In an attempt to turn the page on two disastrous wars in the Greater Middle East, it may have just launched
a new Cold War in Asia - once again, viewing oil as the key to global supremacy.
The new policy was signaled by President Obama himself on November 17 in an address to the Australian Parliament
in which he laid out an audacious - and extremely dangerous - geopolitical vision. Instead of focusing on the Greater
Middle East, as has been the case for the last decade, the United States will now concentrate its power in Asia
and the Pacific.
"My guidance is clear," he declared in Canberra. "As we plan and budget for the future, we will
allocate the resources necessary to
maintain our strong military presence in this region." While administration officials insist that this new
policy is not aimed specifically at China, the implication is clear enough: from now on, the primary focus of American
military strategy will not be counterterrorism, but the containment of that economically booming land - at whatever
risk or cost.
The planet's new center of gravity
The new emphasis on Asia and the containment of China is necessary, top officials insist, because the Asia-Pacific
region now constitutes the "center of gravity" of world economic activity. While the United States was
bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, the argument goes, China had the leeway to expand its influence in the region.
For the first time since the end of World War II, Washington is no longer the dominant economic actor there. If
the United States is to retain its title as the world's paramount power, it must, this thinking goes, restore its
primacy in the region and roll back Chinese influence. In the coming decades, no foreign policy task will, it is
claimed, be more important than this.
In line with its new strategy, the administration has undertaken a number of moves intended to bolster American
power in Asia, and so put China on the defensive. These include a decision to deploy an initial 250 US Marines
- someday to be upped to 2,500 - to an Australian air base in Darwin on that country's north coast, and the adoption
on November 18th of "the Manila Declaration," a pledge of closer US military ties with the Philippines.
At the same time, the White House announced the sale of 24 F-16 fighter jets to Indonesia and a visit by Hillary
Clinton to isolated Myanmar, long a Chinese ally - the first there by a secretary of state in 56 years. Clinton
has also spoken of increased diplomatic and military ties with Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam - all countries
surrounding China or overlooking key trade routes that China relies on for importing raw materials and exporting
manufactured goods.
As portrayed by administration officials, such moves are intended to maximize America's advantages in the diplomatic
and military realm at a time when China dominates the economic realm regionally. In a recent article in Foreign
Policy magazine, Clinton revealingly suggested that an economically weakened United States can no longer hope to
prevail in multiple regions simultaneously. It must choose its battlefields carefully and deploy its limited assets
- most of them of a military nature - to maximum advantage. Given Asia's strategic centrality to global power,
this means concentrating resources there.
"Over the last 10 years," she writes, "we have allocated immense resources to [Iraq and Afghanistan].
In the next 10 years, we need to be smart and systematic about where we invest time and energy, so that we put
ourselves in the best position to sustain our leadership [and] secure our interests... One of the most important
tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will therefore be to lock in a substantially increased investment
- diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise - in the Asia-Pacific region."
Such thinking, with its distinctly military focus, appears dangerously provocative. The steps announced entail
an increased military presence in waters bordering China and enhanced military ties with that country's neighbors
- moves certain to arouse alarm in Beijing and strengthen the hand of those in the ruling circle (especially in
the Chinese military leadership) who favor a more activist, militarized response to US incursions. Whatever forms
that takes, one thing is certain: the leadership of the globe's number two economic power is not going to let itself
appear weak and indecisive in the face of an American buildup on the periphery of its country. This, in turn, means
that we may be sowing the seeds of a new Cold War in Asia in 2011.
The US military buildup and the potential for a powerful Chinese counter-thrust have already been the subject of
discussion in the American and Asian press. But one crucial dimension of this incipient struggle has received no
attention at all: the degree to which Washington's sudden moves have been dictated by a fresh analysis of the global
energy equation, revealing (as the Obama administration sees it) increased vulnerabilities for the Chinese side
and new advantages for Washington.
The new energy equation
For decades, the United States has been heavily dependent on imported oil, much of it obtained from the Middle
East and Africa, while China was largely self-sufficient in oil output. In 2001, the United States consumed 19.6
million barrels of oil per day, while producing only nine million barrels itself. The dependency on foreign suppliers
for that 10.6 million-barrel shortfall proved a source of enormous concern for Washington policymakers. They responded
by forging ever closer, more militarized ties with Middle Eastern oil producers and going to war on occasion to
ensure the safety of US supply lines.
In 2001, China, on the other hand, consumed only five million barrels per day and so, with a domestic output of
3.3 million barrels, needed to import only 1.7 million barrels. Those cold, hard numbers made its leadership far
less concerned about the reliability of the country's major overseas providers - and so it did not need to duplicate
the same sort of foreign policy entanglements that Washington had long been involved in.
Now, so the Obama administration has concluded, the tables are beginning to turn. As a result of China's booming
economy and the emergence of a sizeable and growing middle class (many of whom have already bought their first
cars), the country's oil consumption is exploding.
Running at about 7.8 million barrels per day in 2008, it will, according to recent projections by the US Department
of Energy, reach 13.6 million barrels in 2020, and 16.9 million in 2035. Domestic oil production, on the other
hand, is expected to grow from 4.0 million barrels per day in 2008 to 5.3 million in 2035. Not surprisingly, then,
Chinese imports are expected to skyrocket from 3.8 million barrels per day in 2008 to a projected 11.6 million
in 2035 - at which time they will exceed those of the United States.
The US, meanwhile, can look forward to an improved energy situation. Thanks to increased production in "tough
oil" areas of the United States, including the Arctic seas off Alaska, the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico,
and shale formations in Montana, North Dakota, and Texas, future imports are expected to decline, even as energy
consumption rises.
In addition, more oil is likely to be available from the Western Hemisphere rather than the Middle East or Africa.
Again, this will be thanks to the exploitation of yet more "tough oil" areas, including the Athabasca
tar sands of Canada, Brazilian oil fields in the deep Atlantic, and increasingly pacified energy-rich regions of
previously war-torn Colombia. According to the Department of Energy, combined production in the United States,
Canada, and Brazil is expected to climb by 10.6 million barrels per day between 2009 and 2035 - an enormous jump,
considering that most areas of the world are expecting declining output.
Whose sea lanes are these anyway?
From a geopolitical perspective, all this seems to confer a genuine advantage on the United States, even as China
becomes ever more vulnerable to the vagaries of events in, or along, the sea lanes to distant lands. It means Washington
will be able to contemplate a gradual loosening of its military and political ties to the Middle Eastern oil states
that have dominated its foreign policy for so long and have led to those costly, devastating wars.
Indeed, as President Obama said in Canberra, the US is now in a position to begin to refocus its military capabilities
elsewhere. "After a decade in which we fought two wars that cost us dearly," he declared, "the United
States is turning our attention to the vast potential of the Asia-Pacific region."
For China, all this spells potential strategic impairment. Although some of China's imported oil will travel overland
through pipelines from Kazakhstan and Russia, the great majority of it will still come by tanker from the Middle
East, Africa, and Latin America over sea lanes policed by the US Navy. Indeed, almost every tanker bringing oil
to China travels across the South China Sea, a body of water the Obama administration is now seeking to place under
effective naval control.
By securing naval dominance of the South China Sea and adjacent waters, the Obama administration evidently aims
to acquire the 21st century energy equivalent of 20th century nuclear blackmail. Push us too far, the policy implies,
and we'll bring your economy to its knees by blocking your flow of vital energy supplies.
Of course, nothing like this will ever be said in public, but it is inconceivable that senior administration officials
are not thinking along just these lines, and there is ample evidence that the Chinese are deeply worried about
the risk - as indicated, for example, by their frantic efforts to build staggeringly expensive pipelines across
the entire expanse of Asia to the Caspian Sea basin.
As the underlying nature of the new Obama strategic blueprint becomes clearer, there can be no question that the
Chinese leadership will, in response, take steps to ensure the safety of China's energy lifelines. Some of these
moves will undoubtedly be economic and diplomatic, including, for example, efforts to court regional players like
Vietnam and Indonesia as well as major oil suppliers like Angola, Nigeria, and Saudi Arabia.
Make no mistake, however: others will be of a military nature. A significant buildup of the Chinese navy - still
small and backward when compared to the fleets of the United States and its principal allies - would seem all but
inevitable. Likewise, closer military ties between China and Russia, as well as with the Central Asian member states
of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan), are assured.
In addition, Washington could now be sparking the beginnings of a genuine Cold-War-style arms race in Asia, which
neither country can, in the long run, afford. All of this is likely to lead to greater tension and a heightened
risk of inadvertent escalation arising out of future incidents involving US, Chinese, and allied vessels - like
the one that occurred in March 2009 when a flotilla of Chinese naval vessels surrounded a US anti-submarine warfare
surveillance ship, the Impeccable, and almost precipitated a shooting incident. As more warships circulate through
these waters in an increasingly provocative fashion, the risk that such an incident will result in something far
more explosive can only grow.
Nor will the potential risks and costs of such a military-first policy aimed at China be restricted to Asia. In
the drive to promote greater US self-sufficiency in energy output, the Obama administration is giving its approval
to production techniques - Arctic drilling, deep-offshore drilling, and hydraulic fracturing - that are guaranteed
to lead to further Deepwater Horizon-style environmental catastrophe at home. Greater reliance on Canadian tar
sands, the "dirtiest" of energies, will result in increased greenhouse gas emissions and a multitude
of other environmental hazards, while deep Atlantic oil production off the Brazilian coast and elsewhere has its
own set of grim dangers.
All of this ensures that, environmentally, militarily, and economically, we will find ourselves in a more, not
less, perilous world. The desire to turn away from disastrous land wars in the Greater Middle East to deal with
key issues now simmering in Asia is understandable, but choosing a strategy that puts such an emphasis on military
dominance and provocation is bound to provoke a response in kind. It is hardly a prudent path to head down, nor
will it, in the long run, advance America's interests at a time when global economic cooperation is crucial. Sacrificing
the environment to achieve greater energy independence makes no more sense.
A new Cold War in Asia and a hemispheric energy policy that could endanger the planet: it's
a fatal brew that should be reconsidered before the slide toward confrontation and environmental disaster becomes
irreversible. You don't have to be
a seer to know that this is not the definition of good statesmanship, but of the march of folly.
Michael T Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College, a TomDispatch regular,
and the author, most recently, of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet. A documentary movie version of his previous
book, Blood and Oil, is available from the Media Education Foundation. To listen to Timothy MacBain's latest Tomcast
audio interview in which Klare discusses the American military build-up in the Pacific, click here or download
it to your iPod here.
(Copyright 2011 Michael T Klare.)
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China wonders about
reason for Clinton's Myanmar trip
By TOM LASSETER
McClatchy Newspapers
Wednesday, 11.30.11
BEIJING -- As Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Myanmar on Wednesday, the neighbors were watching closely.
The trip to the usually closed-off nation, the first by a U.S. secretary of state in more than half a century,
boosted suspicions in China that the United States is pursuing a strategy of encirclement to blunt China's rise.
An editorial in the English-language edition of the Global Times, a Chinese state-controlled tabloid with nationalist
leanings, said Clinton's appearance in Myanmar "raised speculations that the U.S. is trying to win the former
British colony over from China, since it appears that China's neighboring countries have become increasingly pro-U.S."
That worry is sharper in conservative circles than it is among other Chinese observers. But the questions about
the purpose of Clinton's visit are being asked by a wide range of China foreign-policy observers.
"We are quite uncertain what kind of role the U.S. is going to play in Myanmar," said Zhu Feng, an international
relations expert at Peking University. "Myanmar will be a test for American policy toward China."
Will the Americans push for reform in Myanmar, a development that China probably wouldn't oppose if such advances
were controlled and measured? Or is the U.S. looking to use the nation on China's southern border as a counterweight
to Beijing? Perhaps a bit of both?
The concerns underline the complexity of relations between the United States and China. On one hand are economic
ties that include more than $457 billion in trade last year and China's holding of more than $1.1 trillion in American
Treasury debt.
On the other hand, China's growing might has made the United States and much of the West nervous about Beijing's
own long-range plans.
When President Barack Obama said Nov. 18 that Clinton would visit Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, he emphasized
"flickers of progress" by President Thein Sein and American desires to "empower a positive transition."
He said he'd received support for U.S. engagement from Myanmar's most famous democracy activist, Aung San Suu Kyi.
A senior Obama administration official said later that day, speaking anonymously as a condition of the briefing,
that "it's about Burma, not about China."
But the backdrop of Obama's announcement suggested that China and its clout in the region were very much on the
minds of those in his administration.
Obama announced Clinton's trip while he was attending a summit in Bali, Indonesia, where American officials pushed
for an open discussion of China's ongoing territorial disputes with neighbors in the South China Sea. It was a
conversation, with Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in the room, that China had very much wanted to avoid.
A day earlier, Obama had told the Australian Parliament that the United States had made a "deliberate and
strategic decision, as a Pacific nation" to take "a larger and long-term role in shaping this region
and its future." While in Australia, he unveiled plans to post a rotating group of 2,500 U.S. Marines in the
country.
For many watchers of U.S. policy, Clinton's presence in Myanmar - which is subject to U.S. economic sanctions and
is ruled by a military-led government notorious for its human rights abuses - is one more piece of what they see
as a recognizable mosaic.
It's "part of the grand policy adjustment by the U.S. to reconsolidate its presence in the Asian Pacific,
and its main driving force is concern about China," said Wang Yong, a professor of foreign relations and the
director of the Center for International
Political Economy at Peking University.
There's little question that Washington has gained diplomatically from ongoing disputes between China and other
nations, including Vietnam and the Philippines, about competing claims to the South China Sea. With each flare-up,
the United States has grown in importance as a hedge against Chinese dominance.
The same holds true for a disagreement that threatened to boil over last year between China and Japan about ownership
of a string of islands in the East China Sea known in China as the Diaoyu and in Japan as the Senkaku.
Also included is South Korea, which drew closer to the U.S. after China failed to condemn its North Korean allies
for allegedly torpedoing and sinking a South Korean naval ship last year. China similarly said nothing after North
Korea shelled a South Korean island.
Despite those twists and turns, the bottom line for China and the United States for now is the importance of maintaining
ties, Zhu said. "Geopolitical competition is not the whole of U.S.-China relations," he said. "It's
not the Cold War."
His colleague at Peking University, Wang, agreed, with a caveat. "We have a building confidence in ourselves,"
he said. With the U.S. economy lagging, and Asia dependent in many ways on China, Wang said, "if the United
States has adopted a kind of containment strategy, I think these countries will be very cautious about siding with
the United States."
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Obama's
real pivot is from earlier feckless policy
Greg Sheridan, Foreign Editor
From: The Australian
November 24, 2011
THE US Republican presidential candidates had a debate on foreign policy yesterday. Not the least odd element of
it was how little President Barack Obama's trip through Asia, and his decision to "pivot" US policy away
from the Middle East to Asia, figured.
It was an oddly structured debate, with almost all the questions coming from a few conservative think tanks, and
they focused on the Middle East, Iran, Pakistan, the defence budget, the war on terror and illegal immigration.
The debate did reinforce the idea that Mitt Romney will be the Republican candidate and is surely the only one
who could possibly beat Obama. Romney encouragingly cited Indonesia as a positive model for Pakistan.
There is a benign interpretation of the lack of reference to Asia in the debate: Asian engagement isn't controversial.
Neither did China figure heavily (apart from Texas Governor Rick Perry saying communist China was headed for the
ash heap of history), so the idea that the US, even its activist Right, is driven by paranoia about China is hard
to sustain.
From an Asian point of view, three things stand out in recent US policy. In the midst of a deep economic downturn
the US has produced a populist movement, the Tea Party, demanding government spending be cut. The President, from
traditionally the more protectionist side of politics, has successfully sponsored free trade agreements with South
Korea, Colombia and Peru. And, finally, the US has underlined its military commitment to Asia.
Nonetheless, it is difficult to make a more fine-grained assessment of Obama's commitments to Asia. Mike Green,
the former Asia director at the National Security Council under George W. Bush, told me he thought the Canberra
speech was not only good in itself. It had to be seen as part of an overall Washington approach that included the
trade agreement with South Korea and the promotion of a Trans-Pacific Partnership for free trade, as well as strengthened
relations, especially military relations, with virtually all of China's neighbours. Taken together, this helps
reassure Asia and assist the management of China's rise.
Green's is pretty much the consensus view of Washington's Asia hands. But Green also has some serious criticisms.
He put them pithily in a piece for Foreign Policy online in which he criticised the "pivot" concept.
Obama didn't use the word pivot, but White House aides briefed the travelling press constantly in those terms,
and it appeared in most of the big media coverage of the visit: The New York Times, The Economist, etc.
Green wrote: "The 'pivot' spin makes the US look like a spastic superpower that swings around focusing on
only one region at a time. During the Cold War, the US managed a grand strategy that was global in scope with skill;
are we not capable of doing so today, when our freedom of manoeuvre and our relative power are in fact greater?
It is unbecoming of a global power; unnerving to our European allies (whose support we also need to manage China's
ascendance); and carries the unfortunate connotation that we may 'pivot' again based on a new, reductionist one-region-at-a-time
concept of a grand strategy."
What Asia wants from the US above all is steadiness of policy and engagement, and certainly reassurance about long-term
security commitments, but it can be unnerved by what seem to be sudden swings. In reality, Obama was promising
only to keep doing what the US has been doing for decades.
Obama is a president with many good points. But he somewhat resembles Julia Gillard (who certainly has had a couple
of good weeks in foreign policy and deserves credit for that) in that his grandest announcements often lack follow
through.
Obama's real pivot is away from the fecklessness of the foreign policy of his first two years in office. He began
by promising a kind of condominium of intimate strategic co-operation with China. He did a lot to propitiate Beijing.
He delayed seeing Tibet's Dalai Lama, delayed modest defensive arms sales to Taiwan and went soft on human rights.
In return, he got nothing. Now he is scolding China on currency manipulation, human rights, strategic assertiveness
and a host of other issues.
In Obama's defence, it is also the case that China's behaviour in the past three years has become much more bellicose
and difficult.
A few examples: countless challenges to the vessels of other nations in the South China Sea; failure to condemn
its ally, North Korea, for attacking and sinking a South Korean naval vessel; suspending rare earth exports to
Japan as an act of strategic intimidation: attempts to prevent the US Navy from exercising in international waters
in the Yellow Sea; a savage crackdown on domestic dissidents including Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo; and
jailing foreign corporate executives whose companies are commercially offside with local authorities.
So the pro-Obama interpretation would be that the President demonstrated immense goodwill, but was forced by Beijing's
behaviour to become more tough-minded.
The East Asia Summit last weekend forced Beijing to discuss the South China Sea with all the other governments
of the region together, instead of bilaterally, where China's size intimidates its smaller interlocutors. This
was a good act of regional assertiveness made possible by US involvement.
There are two other qualifications to enter about Obama's Canberra speech and Asian tour, however. One is that
although Obama promises that cuts in the US defence budget will not come from Asia, he has shown no real political
interest in protecting the US defence budget. Former Defence secretary Robert Gates thought you could cut the Pentagon
by $US70 billion across 10 years. As soon as he was out the door, Obama agreed to $450bn in cuts. With the failure
of a congressional budget-cutting commission, this could become a trillion-dollar cut over a decade. You can't
cut at that level without hurting US capacity in Asia.
The other qualification concerns the TPP which, like much good Obama policy, is leftover Bush policy. With Japan
involved this becomes essentially a US-Japan FTA negotiation, which will be enormously interesting. It gives US-led
Asia great leverage with Europe and in global trade negotiations, and it puts the focus of the debate on China's
illiberal practices, because to join the TPP you need to commit to very wide-ranging liberalisation.
The TPP is, therefore, a useful political device and will help focus energy and debate towards liberalisation.
But it is inconceivable that all these countries will ever embrace zero tariffs and all the other requirements
of the TPP, not least in intellectual property. At some level it's fantasy. Overall, there was more spin than was
healthy in Obama's Asian policy, but enough substance to be encouraging.
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Obama and Asian Leaders Confront China’s Premier
By JACKIE CALMES
Published: November 19, 2011
ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE — President Obama and nearly all the leaders at an Asian summit directly confronted China
on Saturday for its expansive claims to the resource-rich South China Sea, putting the Chinese premier on the defensive
in the long-festering dispute, according to Obama administration officials.
Premier Wen Jiabao was by turns “grouchy” and constructive as he responded to the concerns aired by almost all
of the leaders attending the East Asia Summit, said one of the administration officials, who spoke to reporters
aboard Air Force One as Mr. Obama returned from an eight-day diplomatic swing around the Pacific Rim.
The meeting, at the end of the summit, capped a week during which Mr. Obama moved quickly, and on several fronts,
to restore the influence of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region after years of preoccupation in Iraq and
Afghanistan. He announced that 2,500 Marines would be stationed in Australia; opened the door to restored ties
with Myanmar, a Chinese ally; and gained support for a regional free-trade bloc that so far omits Beijing.
The announcements appeared to startle Chinese leaders, who issued a series of warnings that claimed the United
States was seeking to destabilize the region.
Despite the rapid-fire diplomatic challenges, Mr. Obama did make time to speak with Mr. Wen on Saturday morning
after the Chinese leader asked if they could meet. And Thomas E. Donilon, the national security adviser, described
the meeting as “a good engagement.” A report in Xinhua, the official Chinese government news service, backed up
the administration’s suggestion that Mr. Wen had been put in an uncomfortable position by the focus on the South
China Sea, especially because the country has long insisted that the issue should not be discussed in multinational
forums.
At an Asian regional meeting last year in Hanoi, at which Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton bluntly warned
China to curb its aggressiveness in its territorial claims, the Chinese foreign minister walked out enraged, according
to officials who were there.
On Saturday, Mr. Wen acknowledged that he did not want to discuss the issue at the summit, but added that it would
be “impolite” not to answer the concerns of his country’s neighbors, according to Xinhua. He then defended China’s
stance on the sea, according to the news service and an Obama administration official who briefed reporters on
the condition of anonymity.
The fact that Mr. Wen spoke at all, however, represented a tactical defeat in a struggle that has become a focal
point in the larger tug-of-war with the United States over influence in the region.
The United States, with an eye toward strengthening ties with China’s smaller neighbors, has backed their preference
for multinational talks, rather than one-on-one negotiations in which China would have the advantage.
The administration official’s account of the nearly two-hour session suggested a more dramatic exchange than is
typical of such gatherings. Of the 18 nations represented at the East Asia Summit, only the leaders of Cambodia
and Myanmar did not raise the issue of maritime security as the presidents and prime ministers took turns speaking,
the administration official said.
Unlike an initial session of the summit, where the leaders met in a large ballroom with retinues of aides on
issues of trade, education and multilateral responses to natural disasters, the session Saturday included only
the 18 leaders and one adviser each in a smaller room — suggesting a relative intimacy that likely facilitated
more candor.
The official said that Mr. Obama, who was the first American president to attend the East Asia Summit, “did not
lobby” the other leaders to speak up.
The first to speak up, the administration official said, were the leaders of Singapore, the Philippines and Vietnam
— among whom tensions with China run highest — followed by representatives of Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, India,
Russia and Indonesia, the summit host.
The leaders reiterated their insistence on a “multilateral resolution of the conflicting territorial claims,” the
official said.
Only after other leaders had spoken did Mr. Obama express his agreement with them, the official said.
Premier Wen Jiabao was by turns “grouchy” and constructive as he responded to the concerns aired by almost all
of the leaders attending the East Asia Summit, said one of the administration officials, who spoke to reporters
aboard Air Force One as Mr. Obama returned from an eight-day diplomatic swing around the Pacific Rim.
The meeting, at the end of the summit, capped a week during which Mr. Obama moved quickly, and on several fronts,
to restore the influence of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region after years of preoccupation in Iraq and
Afghanistan. He announced that 2,500 Marines would be stationed in Australia; opened the door to restored ties
with Myanmar, a Chinese ally; and gained support for a regional free-trade bloc that so far omits Beijing.
The announcements appeared to startle Chinese leaders, who issued a series of warnings that claimed the United
States was seeking to destabilize the region.
Despite the rapid-fire diplomatic challenges, Mr. Obama did make time to speak with Mr. Wen on Saturday morning
after the Chinese leader asked if they could meet. And Thomas E. Donilon, the national security adviser, described
the meeting as “a good engagement.” A report in Xinhua, the official Chinese government news service, backed up
the administration’s suggestion that Mr. Wen had been put in an uncomfortable position by the focus on the South
China Sea, especially because the country has long insisted that the issue should not be discussed in multinational
forums.
At an Asian regional meeting last year in Hanoi, at which Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton bluntly warned
China to curb its aggressiveness in its territorial claims, the Chinese foreign minister walked out enraged, according
to officials who were there.
On Saturday, Mr. Wen acknowledged that he did not want to discuss the issue at the summit, but added that it would
be “impolite” not to answer the concerns of his country’s neighbors, according to Xinhua. He then defended China’s
stance on the sea, according to the news service and an Obama administration official who briefed reporters on
the condition of anonymity.
The fact that Mr. Wen spoke at all, however, represented a tactical defeat in a struggle that has become a focal
point in the larger tug-of-war with the United States over influence in the region.
The United States, with an eye toward strengthening ties with China’s smaller neighbors, has backed their preference
for multinational talks, rather than one-on-one negotiations in which China would have the advantage.
The administration official’s account of the nearly two-hour session suggested a more dramatic exchange than is
typical of such gatherings. Of the 18 nations represented at the East Asia Summit, only the leaders of Cambodia
and Myanmar did not raise the issue of maritime security as the presidents and prime ministers took turns speaking,
the administration official said.
Unlike an initial session of the summit, where the leaders met in a large ballroom with retinues of aides on issues
of trade, education and multilateral responses to natural disasters, the session Saturday included only the 18
leaders and one adviser each in a smaller room — suggesting a relative intimacy that likely facilitated more candor.
The official said that Mr. Obama, who was the first American president to attend the East Asia Summit, “did
not lobby” the other leaders to speak up.
The first to speak up, the administration official said, were the leaders of Singapore, the Philippines and Vietnam
— among whom tensions with China run highest — followed by representatives of Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, India,
Russia and Indonesia, the summit host.
The leaders reiterated their insistence on a “multilateral resolution of the conflicting territorial claims,” the
official said.
Only after other leaders had spoken did Mr. Obama express his agreement with them, the official said.
Then Mr. Wen replied.
The administration official described his response as “positive in the sense that he was not on a tirade, and he
did not use many of the more assertive formulas that we frequently hear from the Chinese, particularly in public.”
Instead, the official said, Mr. Wen simply countered that the East Asia Summit was not the place to discuss the
issue, and asserted “that China goes to great pains to ensure that the shipping lanes are safe and free.”
“I would describe the overall discussion as constructive,” and not acrimonious, the official added. “The leaders
were not equivocating; they were not speaking ambiguously.”
What was interesting, the official said, was not what Mr. Wen said, but what he did not. For instance, he did not
repeat the notion that the disputes should be resolved bilaterally. But a report in Xinhua said the prime minister
“reaffirmed” China’s position, perhaps indicating that his omission did not mean any real change in thinking.
Despite the prickly response by Chinese leaders throughout the week, the backlash has been relatively muted,
at least compared to the past when such moves would have generated more critical statements and sometimes blistering
commentaries in the state-run media.
Bonnie Glaser, a senior fellow in China studies at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International
Studies, attributed the Chinese response to possible confusion over Mr. Obama’s intentions as he approaches a difficult
presidential election.
“They’re probably not too sure how much of it to attribute to the political campaign, and how much to attribute
to a shift in U.S. strategy,” Ms. Glaser said.
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In Asia, Obama
keeps focus off terrorism
As the ailing economy becomes the nation's biggest fear, China replaces Al Qaeda as a top concern, and joint efforts
on economic growth, security and other such issues take center stage.
On Asia-Pacific trip, Obama's focus is on China
By Peter Nicholas and Christi Parsons, Los Angeles Times
November 19, 2011, 10:21 p.m.
Reporting from Bali, Indonesia—
Touring the Asia Pacific region last week, President Obama appeared before cameras with one national leader after
another to praise joint efforts on economic growth, maritime security, copyright protection and other concerns.
Conspicuously absent was a buzzword of these kinds of news conferences for the last decade: terrorism.
That silence speaks volumes for the Obama administration's efforts to shift the U.S. focus away from a single-minded
battle against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Although that fight continues, it increasingly has receded
into the shadows, with wars fought by Predator drones, CIA operatives and special operations forces.
The change in the White House message stems, in part, from recognition that, barring a major domestic attack, terrorism
isn't an election issue. Fear of the economy has replaced fear of terrorism as the chief worry both in America
and around the world.
As a result, with U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan coming to a close, Washington is refocusing on the fast-growing
Pacific region to curb the influence of a rising China, an issue that does resonate with voters.
That change of focus from conflicts in the Middle East to strategic and economic interests in Asia, and from unilateralism
to a new balance-of-power diplomacy, "may be the most important shift in America's global stance since the
end of the Cold War," said David Rothkopf, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace and author of a history of the National Security Council. "It is really a new vision of America's role
in the world."
Obama never had much use for President George W. Bush's lexicon of terrorism. One of his first acts in office was
to abolish the Bush-era phrase "global war on terror," replacing it with "overseas contingency operation,"
which sounds like a banking transaction.
"It's a branding based on what they see as the failures of the Bush administration," said Mike Green,
who served as senior Asia policy advisor in the Bush White House. "The Obama critique during the election
and in office is that the Bush foreign policy was determined too much by terrorism. They argue … they had a smarter
approach."
After Navy SEALs killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May, White House aides studiously avoided saying anything
like "mission accomplished," the notorious banner that flapped behind Bush when he visited a U.S. warship
after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The last U.S. combat troops will leave Iraq next month, and no one is likely to
say it then either.
The closest Obama came last week was a single line in a lengthy speech Thursday to Australia's Parliament. Al Qaeda,
he said, is "on the path to defeat."
Territorial disputes in the resource-rich South China Sea and other security concerns were the focus when Obama
and 17 other leaders gathered at the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations summit on the island of Bali in Indonesia.
It was the final stop on his trip.
The truth about the Bali Bombings
Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation, and it has suffered horrific violence. Islamist suicide
bombers killed more than 220 people in attacks at nightclubs and hotels in Bali in 2002 and 2005. More than 20
people were killed in bombings at a hotel and the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, the capital, in 2003 and 2004.
Asked why terrorism wasn't a larger theme of the trip, national security advisor Tom Donilon said the White House
focus on Al Qaeda remains undiminished, if less public.
"Is a terrorist threat defeated? No," Donilon said Saturday in Bali before the president began the 25-hour
flight back to Washington. "Have we made a lot of progress? I think we have, frankly, in the last three years.
But it is a priority every single day of the week for all of us in the national security team and for the president,
absolutely."
But Donilon emphasized the message that Obama drove home at every stop: The U.S. is "all in" when it
comes to the Pacific Rim.
"What we've seen in this trip is the implementation of a substantial and important reorientation in American
global strategy," Donilon said. "That is, the rebalancing of our efforts towards the challenges and opportunities
in Asia on the part of the United States."
Obama flies home with several agreements that may help the U.S. exert more influence in the region.
He announced plans to station 2,500 Marines in northern Australia for regional training missions and military exercises
and to help protect vital sea lanes in the South China Sea. He also enhanced military ties with the Philippines,
which worries about China's growing claims on undersea oil and gas reserves near its archipelago.
Obama also reached out to the long-isolated nation of Myanmar, a Chinese ally that has signaled it wants closer
ties to Washington. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will meet senior leaders and opposition figures there
next month, becoming the highest-ranking American to visit the country in half a century.
The U.S. and eight other countries also negotiated the outline of a new trade alliance called the Trans-Pacific
Partnership for nations that observe strict labor and environmental standards. Japan, Canada and other nations
ultimately may join, creating a hefty counterweight to China's economic clout.
It also serves as an inducement for China to improve its trade practices if it wants to join the group.
"The Chinese are very unhappy at the prospect of a regional free-trade agreement that so clearly excludes
them," said Elizabeth Economy, director for Asia studies at the nonprofit Council on Foreign Relations in
New York. "Thus, it serves as both a challenge and an incentive to China to do more."
Early in the week, Obama sat down with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, at an economic summit in Honolulu. As
in earlier meetings, Obama argued that Beijing is stifling global growth by failing to revalue its currency, clamp
down on intellectual property crime and import more products.
Neither side budged, but they kept talking. In Bali, Obama spoke to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao at a dinner Friday
night. Wen asked to continue the discussion, so they met again privately Saturday.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, who served as President Carter's national security advisor from 1977 to 1981, says Obama must
be careful not to craft a security policy that "can be misinterpreted as pointing toward containment of China."
"Stimulating a hostile Chinese reaction could prove counterproductive," he wrote in an email. The latest
alarms about China, he warned, could spark "the beginnings of a self-fulfilling prophecy."
peter.nicholas@latimes.com
cparsons@latimes.com
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times
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Act One, in Honolulu,
where economic issues topped the agenda
Obama stirs up China's sea of troubles
18 November 2011
The past week has been a bit like watching a play in three acts.
In three different locations President Barack Obama has been delivering his lines, reasserting America's role as
an Asia-Pacific power, and clearly discomfiting China.
The result is that Beijing is bristling with irritation.
In Act One, the scene is the Apec summit in Hawaii. The themes of the week's drama begins to appear. Asia is America's
new focus, Mr Obama wants the US to re-engage, he will seek co-operation with a rising China, but not cede ground
to it.
The revelation in this act was economic. The US is moving fast to try to establish the Trans-Pacific Partnership,
a free-trade area that will unite nine nations. With Japan, Canada and Mexico all indicating they are interested
too, the TPP suddenly looked as though it could be a significant size.
The message to China was that it was welcome to join but it would have to deliver economic reforms it may find
unpalatable, by making its currency convertible, opening up its markets more to foreign firms and doing more to
protect intellectual property.
Mr Obama was openly critical, saying China was now a "grown-up" and must "play by the rules".
That's drawn an angry response in a commentary published on Friday by the state-controlled Xinhua news agency.
"For many around the world it is the United States that routinely flaunts (sic) widely accepted international
rules," the commentary said, adding: "It spoke volumes for America's arrogance towards the rules it requires
other countries to follow when it detoured around the UN Security Council in 2003 to overthrow Saddam Hussein on
the basis of flawed intelligence."
"Today, when the world is still facing many difficult global challenges, the United States needs to first
revisit its double standards on international rules and start observing them itself instead of lecturing China."
'Containing China'
Act Two - the scene is Australia. Mr Obama's revelation here was military. America will deploy 2,500 troops to
Darwin not too far from the South China Sea.
Act Two, in Darwin, where America pledged continued military commitment to the region
At the same time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in the Philippines building on its strong military ties
with the US, and offering support in its territorial disputes with China.
Act Two, in Darwin,
where America pledged continued military commitment to the region
"Disputes that exist primarily in the West Philippine Sea between the Philippines and China should be resolved
peacefully," she said, pointedly using the name the Philippines gives to the contested waters.
"Any nation with a claim has a right to exert it, but they do not have a right to pursue it through intimidation
and coercion."
China's neighbours have complained about its increasing assertiveness in staking its claims in the South China
Seas. So the US is signalling it is strengthening alliances and spreading its reach in Asia, saying it is not aimed
at countering China, but designed to preserve regional stability.
The move has caused more consternation in Beijing, where some have seen it as an attempt to "contain"
China and encircle it with US bases and alliances.
In an editorial the Global Times newspaper, produced by the Communist Party's People's Daily group, thundered that
it was "unrealistic to expect China to stand idly by and indulge Asian countries as they join the US alliance
to guard against China one by one".
'Outside forces'
And so to Act Three - the scene is Bali. Having signalled his intentions Mr Obama moved to show America will be
a player in Asia's affairs.
Act Three, in Bali, where mention of the South China Sea worried China
The US, he said, wanted to discuss the disputed South China Seas at the East Asia Summit with 18 nations including
China, and all Southeast Asian countries around the table.
Act Three, in Bali,
where mention of the South China Sea worried China
The South China Sea matters not only because it has rich oil and gas resources, and some of the world's busiest
trade routes, but also because it is where the competing interests of the US and China overlap in Asia.
And it's where the frictions between a rising China and its neighbours are most pronounced.
China claims almost all of the sea. It wants to discuss its territorial disputes individually with nations like
the Philippines and Vietnam. Their concern is that one on one it is far harder for them to resist Chinese pressure,
and they welcome the idea of the US being at the table.
China's irritation could be seen when Premier Wen Jiabao told South East Asian leaders that "outside forces
should not get involved under any excuse".
'More profitable'
In response to Mr Obama's moves China is now seeking to leverage its growing economic power, aware that
this is its most potent weapon against America.
Mr Wen told Southeast Asian leaders that China-Asean trade is expected to surpass $350bn this year. That's over
40 times the $8bn it was 20 years ago and catching up on the level of China-US trade, which stood at over $450bn
last year.
He pledged $10bn credit for infrastructure projects in the region, and promised more trade and financial co-operation.
Mr Obama is seeking to draw closer to Asian nations by highlighting common interests they share with America as
open-market democracies with concerns about a rising China.
But Mr Wen made his own appeal to those countries highlighting the fact that China and its neighbours have shared
interests as developing nations with dynamic economies, unlike the West.
"Economic recovery in some developed countries lacks momentum, and those countries are plagued by serious
financial and debt crises. Emerging and developing countries are ascending on the world stage," he said.
The Global Times went further, warning that, "any country which chooses to be a pawn in the US chess game
will lose the opportunity to benefit from China's economy".
"If an 'anti-China alliance' is really built in Asia, the US should provide more economic benefits to its
followers. It should convince those countries that joining the US is more profitable."
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Obama’s
Trip Emphasizes Role of Pacific Rim
Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
By JACKIE CALMES
Published: November 18, 2011
BALI, Indonesia — President Obama discussed maritime security, nuclear nonproliferation and disaster aid at an
Asian summit meeting on Friday, but just his presence on this resort island telegraphed his main message: that
the United States is turning its focus to the booming Asia-Pacific region after a decade of preoccupation with
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Calling the region critical to economic growth and national security, he said, “I want everyone to know from the
outset, my administration is committed to strengthening our ties with each country individually but also with the
region’s institutions.”
The American focus on Asia has been raising tensions with an ever more powerful China, which has been increasingly
assertive in the region. On Saturday morning Mr. Obama held a previously unscheduled meeting with Prime Minister
Wen Jiabao of China. Administration officials said Mr. Obama and Mr. Wen talked briefly on Friday night at a dinner
for the gathered leaders and agreed to meet the next morning. Earlier on Friday, Mr. Wen had pushed back against
the United States, saying that “outside forces should not, under any pretext” interfere in a regional fight over
the control of the South China Sea.
Mr. Obama spoke Friday at the opening of the annual meeting of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations,
which does not include China. Before that session, he met separately with the leaders of India, Indonesia, Malaysia
and the Philippines.
On Saturday, Mr. Obama became the first American president to participate at the larger East Asia Summit meeting,
which does include China as well as Russia, India and Japan, before he was scheduled to return to Washington after
eight days of Pacific Rim diplomacy.
During their Saturday meeting, Mr. Obama and Mr. Wen focused on economic issues, according to Thomas E. Donilon,
the president’s national security adviser, who added that, “It was a good engagement.” Mr. Obama pressed the same
points about China’s currency policy that he made with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Hawaii.
“It was important, I think, to continue that conversation, because, as you know, Premier Wen is the principal economic
manager in China,” Mr. Donilon said. “They briefly talked about the South China Sea and the East Asia Summit at
the end of that — because it was a short meeting.”
The summit meeting on Friday was eclipsed by news of a diplomatic opening between the United States and Myanmar
now that its military has loosened its chokehold on freedoms there. Mr. Obama said that he was sending Secretary
of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to Myanmar, also known as Burma, to test its government’s sincerity about democratic
reforms and human rights.
The countries along the South China Sea have been especially eager for the United States to increase its presence
in the region as a check on China’s ambitions.
Mr. Obama’s trip has been something of a balancing act in which he is trying to meld geopolitics and domestic concerns.
Up to the time of his departure from Washington, there was speculation that Mr. Obama would skip the Indonesia
trip, given the political risks of being away from the United States during a time of high unemployment and discontent
over the economy.
Against that backdrop, Mr. Obama has sought throughout his travels from Hawaii — where he played host to an Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation free trade forum — to Australia and Indonesia to describe his trip in terms of its potential
to create American jobs by expanding exports.
To that end, he attended a signing ceremony at which representatives of Boeing and Lion Air, Indonesia’s largest
private airline, signed a deal for Lion Air to buy 230 aircraft, an agreement worth $22 billion at current list
prices.
Mr. Obama said the deal was “a remarkable example of the trade investment and commercial opportunities that exist
in the Asia-Pacific region.”
Mr. Obama said his administration and the United States Export-Import Bank “were critical in facilitating this
deal,” which he estimated would result in more than 100,000 American jobs over a period of years.
Domestic politics also had a bit role in Mr. Obama’s meetings with Asian leaders, including President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono of Indonesia. With Mr. Yudhoyono, Mr. Obama announced the transfer and upgrade of 24 excess F-16 fighters
to the Indonesian Air Force, reflecting, he said, a commitment to the region’s security, and an expansion of Peace
Corps volunteers and exchanges for education and environmental programs.
In remarks at his separate sessions with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India and the president of the Philippines,
Benigno S. Aquino III, Mr. Obama praised the contributions of Indian-Americans and Filipino-Americans to the United
States.
After the meeting, Mr. Singh turned to Mr. Obama and called it “a privilege” to have the Obama administration so
“deeply invested in ensuring that India makes a success of its historic journey” to establish a more open society.
He added that cooperation on civilian nuclear programs, disaster response and maritime security “unite us in our
quest of a world free from the threat of war, want and exploitation.”
In Mr. Obama’s meeting with Mr. Aquino, he commended the Filipino president “for his leadership, for his reform
efforts.” Mr. Aquino said, “We look forward, in these turbulent times of ours, to really further strengthen our
relationship.”
Ian Johnson contributed reporting from Beijing.
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Obama Announces Trade Deals in Bali
By AP / ERICA WERNER
Thursday, Nov. 17, 2011
BALI, Indonesia) — Tightening ties with Asian nations as China's might rises, President Barack Obama prepared Thursday
to be the first U.S. president to take part in a summit of East Asian nations. Ahead of his diplomatic efforts
here, the White House announced trade deals to show progress on the jobs front back home.
Security issues and the U.S. vision for an increasingly robust American role in Asia are expected to be central
themes for Obama's participation in the East Asia Summit in Bali. But concerns over China may shadow the president's
meetings Friday and Saturday with leaders of smaller Asian nations increasingly alarmed over China's claims to
maritime passage and rich oil reserves in the South China Sea. (See more on host Indonesia's troubling internal
tensions.)
Obama's political priority remains creating jobs. Timed to his visit in Indonesia, the White House announced the
sale of Boeing 737s and General Electric engines to Indonesia, Boeing 777s to Singapore and Sikorsky helicopters
to Brunei. Obama officials estimated the moves would support 127,000 American jobs.
Obama's nine-day trip has focused on both expanding economic ties with the soaring Asia-Pacific market and boosting
the U.S. military posture in the region. He arrived in Bali on Thursday after stops in Hawaii and Australia.
The president will also get a chance to meet on the summit sidelines with leaders such as Indian Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh, with whom the president has an especially close personal relationship, as the U.S. looks to bulk
up regional alliances and encourage big roles for friends.
For Obama, the visit will mark a homecoming to the country where he lived for four years as a boy after his mother
married an Indonesian man and moved them to Jakarta. Obama visited Jakarta last year and spent time during that
visit reflecting on his personal ties to Indonesia, something he probably won't have as much time for on this trip.
But Obama's background as a Hawaii native partly raised in Indonesia has shown throughout his trip, which began
with an economic summit in Honolulu and ends when he departs Bali on Saturday.
While in Bali, Obama will be aiming to expand commercial ties and export opportunities with fast-growing Asia,
looking for ways to underscore the connection between his foreign travels and U.S. jobs with an election year approaching.
Nuclear nonproliferation, disaster relief and maritime security also are U.S. priorities.
Behind it all, China looms large.
The centerpiece of Obama's visit to Australia was announcement of a new military agreement that will allow more
U.S. military aircraft and a rotating presence of U.S. Marines into Australia, a move largely seen as a hedge against
China, which immediately objected.
In Bali, Obama will encounter more allies eager for U.S. support as China and its smaller neighbors argue over
the South China Sea, an area that is critical to U.S. interests as well.
His stop comes after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton earlier this week signed a declaration with her
counterpart from the Philippines calling for multilateral talks to resolve maritime disputes such as those over
the South China Sea. Six countries in the region have competing claims, but China wants them to negotiate one-to-one
— and chafes at any U.S. involvement.
Clinton said the U.S., during the East Asia Summit, "will certainly expect and participate in very open and
frank discussions," including on the maritime challenges in the region. Beijing said Tuesday it opposes bringing
up the issue at the summit.
It's not clear how much will be said publicly about the dispute, but U.S. officials are quick to note the importance
of the South China Sea, where $1.2 trillion in U.S. trade moves annually, according to Adm. Robert Willard, head
of the U.S. Pacific Command. Briefing reporters traveling with Obama this week, Willard called it "a vital
interest to the region, a national interest to the United States, an area that carries an immense amount of commerce,
and an area in which we must maintain maritime security and peace and not see disruptions as a consequence of contested
areas."
On Thursday, China was muted in its public response, saying only that more robust American ties to Australia should
not harm other countries.
"China has no opposition to the development of normal state-to-state relations," Chinese Foreign Ministry
spokesman Liu Weimin said in Beijing. "We also hope that when developing normal state-to-state relations,
one should take into consideration the interests of other countries as well as the whole region and the peace and
stability of the region."
Behind the scenes, however, the more assertive U.S. policy toward China was setting Beijing on edge. The government's
Xinhua News Agency said the U.S. feels threatened by China's rise and influence in Southeast Asia and said Obama's
goal was "pinning down and containing China and counterbalancing China's development."
AP White House Correspondent Ben Feller contributed to this report.
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Obama Asserts U.S. a Pacific Power
By AP / BEN FELLERWednesday,
Nov. 16, 2011
(CANBERRA, Australia) — Signaling a determination to counter a rising China, President Barack Obama vowed Thursday
to expand U.S. influence in the Asia-Pacific region and "project power and deter threats to peace" in
that part of the world even as he reduces defense spending and winds down two wars.
"The United States is a Pacific power, and we are here to stay," he declared in a speech to the Australian
Parliament, sending an unmistakable message to Beijing.
Obama's bullish speech came several hours after announcing he would send military aircraft and up to 2,500 Marines
to northern Australia for a training hub to help allies and protect American interests across Asia. He declared
the U.S. is not afraid of China, by far the biggest and most powerful country in the region.
China immediately questioned the U.S. move and said it deserved further scrutiny.
Emphasizing that a U.S. presence in the Asia-Pacific region is a top priority of his administration, Obama stressed
that any reductions in U.S. defense spending will not come at the expense of that goal.(Read "How Will China
Respond to a New U.S. Military Presence in Australia?")
"Let there be no doubt: in the Asia Pacific in the 21st century, the United States of America is all in,"
he said.
For Obama, Asia represents both a security challenge and an economic opportunity. Speaking in broad geopolitical
terms, the president asserted: "With most of the world's nuclear powers and some half of humanity, Asia will
largely define whether the century ahead will be marked by conflict or cooperation, needless suffering or human
progress."
Virtually everything Obama is doing on his nine-day trip across the Asia-Pacific region has a Chinese subtext,
underscoring a relationship that is at once cooperative and marked by tensions over currency, human rights and
military might.
China's military spending has increased threefold since the 1990s to about $160 billion last year, and its military
recently tested a new stealth jet fighter and launched its first aircraft carrier. A congressional advisory panel
on Wednesday urged the White House and Congress to look more closely at China's military expansion and pressed
for a tougher stance against what it called anticompetitive Chinese trade policies.
The expanded basing agreement with Australia is just one of several initiatives Obama has taken that is likely
to set Beijing on edge at a tricky time. The U.S. is China's second largest trading partner, and the economies
are deeply intertwined. Chinese leaders don't want the economy disrupted when global growth is shaky and they are
preparing to transfer power to a new leadership next year.
Over the weekend while playing host to Chinese President Hu Jintao and other Pacific rim leaders at a summit in
Hawaii, Obama said the U.S. would join a new regional free trade group that so far has excluded China. That added
an economic dimension to what some Chinese commentators have called a new U.S. containment policy that features
reinvigorated defense ties with nations along China's perimeter, from traditional allies Japan and the Philippines
to former enemy Vietnam, all of whom are anxious about growing Chinese power.
China was immediately leery of the prospect of an expanded U.S. military presence in Australia. Foreign Ministry
spokesman Liu Weimin said there should be discussion as to whether the plan was in line with the common interests
of the international community.
Responding to questions at a news conference Wednesday with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, Obama sought
to downplay tension between the world powers. "The notion that we fear China is mistaken," he said.
Obama avoided a confrontational tone with China in his speech to the Australian parliament, praising Beijing as
a partner in reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula and preventing proliferation.
"We'll seek more opportunities for cooperation with Beijing, including greater communication between our militaries
to promote understanding and avoid miscalculation," he said.
In a note of caution, however, he added: "We will do this, even as continue to speak candidly with Beijing
about the importance of upholding international norms and respecting the universal human rights of the Chinese
people."
With military bases and tens of thousands of troops in Japan and South Korea, the United States has maintained
a significant military presence in Asia for decades. Australia lies about 5,500 miles south of China, and its northern
shores would give the U.S. easier access to the South China Sea, a vital commercial route.(See photos of President
Obama visiting Asia.)
The plan outlined by Obama will allow the United States to keep a sustained force on Australian bases and position
equipment and supplies there, giving the U.S. ability to train with allies in the region and respond more quickly
to humanitarian or other crises. U.S. officials said the pact was not an attempt to create a permanent American
military presence in Australia.
About 250 U.S. Marines will begin a rotation in northern Australia starting next year, with a full force of 2,500
military personnel staffing up over the next several years. The United States will bear the cost of the deployment
and the troops will be shifted from other deployments around the world. Having ruled out military reductions in
Asia and the Pacific, the Obama administration has three main areas where it could cut troop strength: Europe,
the Middle East and the U.S.
All U.S. troops are being withdrawn from Iraq by the end of this year, and a drawdown in Afghanistan is underway.
But the Pentagon has said recently that the U.S. will maintain a major presence in the greater Middle East as a
hedge against Iranian aggression and influence. A more likely area for troop reductions is Europe, although no
decisions have been announced.
The debate over defense budgets is just one aspect of a broader political fight over fixing the nation's debt problem
during a presidential election season. Already, the Pentagon is facing $450 billion in cuts over ten years, as
part of a budget deal approved last summer. And if a special congressional committee can't agree on $1.2 trillion
in more long-term cuts or Congress rejects its plan, then cuts of $1.2 trillion kick in, with half coming from
defense.
Australia's Gillard said, "We are a region that is growing economically. But stability is important for economic
growth, too." She said that "our alliance has been a bedrock of stability in our region."
Obama's visit is intended to show the tightness of that relationship and he hailed the long ties between the United
States and Australia, two nations far away that have spilled blood together
"From the trenches of the First World War to the mountains of Afghanistan_Aussies and Americans have stood
together, fought together and given their lives together in every single major conflict of the past hundred years.
Every single one," he said.
Obama had a packed day-and-a-half in Australia, his first trip here as president after canceling two previous tries.
After addressing Parliament, Obama was flying to the northern city of Darwin, where some of the Marines deploying
to Australia next year will be based.
Associated Press writers Erica Werner and Rod McGuirk in Canberra and Robert Burns in Washington
contributed to this report.
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Obama Insists U.S. Does Not Fear China
By AP / BEN FELLERWednesday,
Nov. 16, 2011
CANBERRA, Australia) — President Barack Obama insisted Wednesday that the United States does not fear China, even
as he announced a new security agreement with Australia that is widely viewed as a response to China's growing
aggressiveness.
The agreement, announced during a joint news conference with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, will expand
the U.S. military presence in Australia, positioning more U.S. equipment there, and increasing American access
to bases. About 250 U.S. Marines with begin a rotation in northern Australia starting next year, with a full force
of 2,500 military personnel staffing up over the next several years. (See pictures of Barack Obama's nation of
hope.)
"This rotational deployment is significant because what it allows us to do is to not only build capacity and
cooperation between our two countries, but it also allows us to meet the demands of a lot of partners in the region
that want to feel that they're getting the training, they're getting the exercises, and that we have the presence
that's necessary to maintain the security architecture in the region," Obama said.
While the president sidestepped questions about whether the security agreement was aimed at containing China, he
said the U.S. would keep sending a clear message that China needs to accept the responsibilities that come with
being a world power.
"It's important for them to play by the rules of the road," he said.
And he insisted that the U.S is not fearful of China's rise.
"I think the notion that we fear China is mistaken. The notion that we're looking to exclude China is mistaken,"
he said.
The U.S. and smaller Asian nations have grown increasingly concerned about China claiming dominion over vast areas
of the Pacific that the U.S. considers international waters, and reigniting old territorial disputes, including
confrontations over the South China Sea. China's defense spending has increased threefold since the 1990s to about
$160 billion last year, and its military has recently tested a new stealth jet fighter and launched its first aircraft
carrier.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said that the goal of the new security pact is to signal that the U.S. and Australia
will stick together in face of any threats.
Obama arrived in Australia Wednesday afternoon, fresh off the Asia-Pacific economic summit he hosted in Hawaii,
where the U.S. and eight other nations reached an agreement for a transpacific trade bloc that sets standard rules
for commerce.
Obama said Wednesday that while the U.S. is not intentionally excluding China from the agreement, joining the pact
with require Beijing "to rethink some of its approaches to trade."
The U.S. has accused China of undervaluing its currency to Chinese exports cheaper and U.S. exports to China more
expensive. China had a $273 billion trade surplus with the U.S. last year and U.S. lawmakers say the imbalance
hurts American manufacturers while taking away American jobs.
U.S. officials have also pressed China to end unfair discrimination against the U.S. and other foreign countries
and to end to measures that undercut its intellectual property.
During Wednesday's brief news conference, Obama and Gillard also fielded questions on a range of issues, from U.S.
efforts to address climate change to the debt crisis in Europe.
Obama reiterated his call for urgent action by European leaders to back the euro and develop a financial firewall
to keep the threat of default facing Greece and Italy from spreading across the Eurozone.
"The problem right now is one of political will, it's not a technical problem," Obama said. "At
this point, the larger European community has to stand behind the European project."
Asked whether the U.S. would be able to lower carbon emissions through a cap-and-trade system as Australia is undertaking,
Obama conceded the U.S. has been unable to pass such a plan through Congress, but noted U.S. efforts to increase
vehicle fuel efficiency and to explore clear energy options. He said emerging economies such as India and China
must also assume responsibility for addressing climate change.
For Obama and Australia, the third time's the charm. He canceled two earlier visits, once to stay in Washington
to lobby for passage of his health care bill, and again in the wake of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
"I was determined to come for a simple reason: The United States of America has no stronger ally than Australia,"
he said.
Obama's arrival in Australia followed a 10-hour flight from Honolulu that took him across the international dateline.
The travel appeared to being taking a slight toll on the president, who admitted he was having trouble keeping
up with the time change.
"I'm trying to figure out what time zone I'm in here," he said.
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As China rises, America responds
16 November 2011
"I have said repeatedly and I will say again today that we welcome a rising, peaceful China" - the words
of America's president as he arrived in Australia.
"I think the notion that we fear China is mistaken. The notion that we're looking to exclude China is mistaken,"
Barack Obama added.
But his current trip to Asia has one overriding theme: the reassertion of American power and American influence
in Asia in the face of China's rise.
President Obama is clearly signalling to both China and its neighbours that the United States is not about to cede
ground to its new rival. China is extending its economic and military reach, and America is moving to counter that.
The US knows that China's neighbours are being drawn into deeper economic relationships with Beijing. But many
are also wary of China's growing military strength and its increasing assertiveness, whether over territorial rights
in the South China Sea, trade or other disputes.
So the US sees an opportunity to build ties with nations concerned about what sort of power China will be.
At the Apec summit in Hawaii last weekend President Obama pressed his idea of a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP),
a free trade area that will champion open markets where private and state-controlled firms compete on equal terms.
China's neighbours like Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei will be in the TPP along with other Pacific Rim states. China,
with its heavily state-controlled economy, is pointedly not a part of the plan unless it changes its ways.
Projecting power
If Hawaii showcased how the US wants to respond to the economic challenge, Australia is where Mr Obama has shown
how he wants to deal with the military challenge.
The US is deepening its alliance with Australia. Some 2,500 US marines are going to be deployed to Darwin, at Australia's
northernmost tip, and more US aircraft are going to be rotating through Australian bases.
American troops already operate in South Korea, Japan, Guam and the Philippines. Now they'll have another foothold
in Asia, spreading their reach, and positioning US forces a little further away from Chinese missiles.
The message is that America is ensuring it is strategically poised to project power over the vital trade routes
that pass through the South China Sea, and it wants to reassure its partners in Asia it is cementing that position.
At both the Apec summit and in Australia President Obama had the same message for Beijing. "With China's rise
comes increased responsibility, they have to play by the rules, in fact they have to underwrite the rules,"
he said.
"Where China is playing by those rules, recognising its role, I think this is going to be a win-win situation.
They have to respect the rules and responsibilities that come with being a world power."
Shadow boxing
The Chinese and American leaders were all smiles in Honolulu - but for how long?
The creation of the TPP and the new military ties with Australia are small but symbolic steps.
With both Mr Obama is trying to deliver the same message, that China can follow "the rules", co-operate
with regional powers and its rise will be welcome, or flout "the rules" by what he has called "gaming
the system" and find itself increasingly outside US-backed regional partnerships.
Liu Weimin, a spokesman for Beijing's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responded by saying that China stands for "peaceful
development and co-operation".
"China has its own concepts of friendly cooperation with all countries," Mr Liu said. "Put simply,
the path of peaceful development to achieve the shared aspirations of the international community."
But he questioned the new US military ties with Australia saying "whether strengthening and expanding a military
alliance is in the interests of the region or the international community is worthy of discussion," especially
at a time of global economic turmoil.
Other voices in China have been far more bellicose in their response to America's new Asian assertiveness.
The English-language Global Times, a newspaper produced by the Communist Party-controlled People's Daily group,
warned Australia about the dangers of trying to have China as its biggest trading partner but at the same time
having a military alliance with the US to keep China in check.
"One thing is certain," the paper said, "if Australia uses its military bases to help the US harm
Chinese interests, then Australia itself will be caught in the crossfire."
And Luo Yuan, a senior officer at the People's Liberation Army's Academy of Military Sciences, told the paper that
while neither the United States or China desire to start a war, "if China's core interests such as its sovereignty,
national security and unity are intruded on, a military conflict will be unavoidable".
That's tough talk, but it's exactly the sort of aggressive tone which is alarming China's neighbours and making
them more receptive to America's overtures.
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President Barack Obama, left, wore traditional Javanese attire
Friday at the East Asia Summit Gala dinner on the island of Bali, Indonesia
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Asian leaders pose for a group photo
prior to the start of ASEAN Plus Three Summit
in Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia,
Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara, Pool)
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Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (4th L, front)
poses for group photos with other leaders
before the East Asia Summit gala dinner
in Bali, Indonesia, Nov. 18, 2011.
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Obama Heading Home after Asian Tour
Posted Saturday, November 19th, 2011 at 11:00 am
U.S. President Barack Obama is on his way home Saturday, after a nine-day Asia-Pacific tour that took him to Hawaii,
Australia and Indonesia for a summit of East Asian leaders.
Just hours before Air Force One departed from Bali, Indonesia, Mr. Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao met on
the sidelines of the East Asia Summit to discuss economic issues between the two countries.
White House officials said Mr. Obama stressed the importance of China adjusting the value of its currency, which
Washington says is deeply undervalued.
The two leaders also talked about freedom of navigation and the free flow of commerce in the South China Sea, and
the peaceful resolution of disputes there. Earlier, Mr. Wen warned against what he called outside interference
in the dispute, which also involves the Philippines, Vietnam and some other Asian countries.
On Friday, President Obama met with his Indonesian counterpart, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The two announced a $600
million pact to support sustainable development, public health and improved public services in Indonesia. On Thursday,
Indonesia's Lion Air signed a deal to buy 230 Boeing 737 planes, worth close to $22 billion.
Mr. Obama also met with leaders of the Philippines and Malaysia Friday before an East Asia Summit dinner, which
he attended dressed in traditional Indonesian clothes.
His first bilateral meeting was with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Mr. Obama said both nations see the
East Asia Summit as the premier arena to work together on issues ranging from maritime security and nonproliferation
to expanded cooperation on disaster relief and humanitarian assistance.
He arrived in Indonesia Thursday, after a stop in Australia, where he signed an accord to deploy up to 2,500 U.S.
troops in the country's north to boost regional security. China promptly objected to the deal.
Mr. Obama told Australia's parliament in Canberra that developments in the Asia-Pacific region will largely define
the century ahead and that the U.S. presence there is his administration's top priority.
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Obama’s Asia Pivot Puts U.S. Approach to China on New Path
November 19, 2011, 6:32 AM EST
By Margaret Talev
Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama’s pivot toward Asia is shifting the U.S. approach to China by teaming
up with its neighbors to press the world’s second-largest economy to “play by the rules.”
During a trip that began in Hawaii Nov. 11, Obama has announced steps to expand trade and military cooperation
with Asia-Pacific nations that share U.S. concerns over China’s policies on currency valuation, intellectual property
and territorial claims. Obama met with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao today in Bali, the final leg of the journey.
“U.S. pressure on China has intensified,” said Tim Condon, Singapore-based head of Asian research at ING Groep
NV, saying the shift has “startled” the Chinese. “China can’t ignore the U.S. stance. The only question is how
they interpret it.”
The administration’s foreign policy strategy is being refocused on Asia as Obama wraps up wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq, and two and a half years after he announced an effort to step up engagement in the Muslim world and on Mideast
peace negotiations that largely have fizzled.
Obama has said repeatedly throughout the trip that he is not pursuing a containment strategy against China and
that his emphasis is on creating U.S. jobs. Even with signs that the U.S. recovery is accelerating -- the Standard
& Poor’s 500 Index has risen 11 percent since the beginning of October -- the nation’s unemployment rate has
hovered at or above 9 percent for more than two years.
Obama-Wen Meeting
Today’s meeting between Obama and Wen came at Wen’s request and they spoke about currency and business practices,
White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon told reporters in Bali. Donilon said the discussions “briefly”
touched on the South China Sea, where territorial disputes have raised tensions between China and its neighbors.
“This has nothing to do with isolating or containing anybody,” Donilon said of the U.S. strategy in Asia.
Obama has set a goal of doubling U.S. exports to $3.14 trillion a year by the end of 2014 and he said Asia is key
to that goal. The U.S. this year has exported more to the Pacific Rim than to Europe, Commerce Department figures
show.
While on the Indonesian Island of Bali, Obama took part in an event highlighting at $21.7 billion order for Boeing
Co. for 230 of its 737 aircraft from Indonesian carrier Lion Air, a record deal for the Chicago-based plane maker.
China ‘Rules’
In a news conference in Canberra, Australia, on Nov. 16, Obama said that it is “mistaken” to say the U.S.
fears China or is seeking to isolate the world’s most populous nation.
“The main message that I’ve said not only publicly but also privately to the Chinese is that with their rise comes
increased responsibilities,” he said. “It’s important for them to play by the rules of the road.”
At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Honolulu on Nov. 12, Obama announced the U.S. and eight other
countries - - not including China -- agreed to complete a Trans-Pacific Partnership trade accord within a year.
Two-way trade between the U.S. and those nations totaled $171 billion last year, compared with $457 billion with
China and $181 billion with Japan.
Obama said the U.S. welcomes additional participants as long as they commit to terms on currency, intellectual
property protections, tariffs and market access -- points of friction between the U.S. and China.
More Leverage
While Obama and his advisers say the U.S. will continuing engaging China directly on issues of concern, the president’s
strategy is aimed at increasing leverage.
“This is not simply a matter of the United States, again, raising these issues bilaterally,” Deputy National Security
Adviser Ben Rhodes said.
The U.S. also moved to increase its military footprint in the region with an announcement that as many as 2,500
Marines will be stationed in northern Australia and a promise to strengthen Philippines naval defenses.
The enhanced U.S. presence may serve as a counterweight to China as it asserts territorial rights to the oil-rich
South China Sea that are disputed by other Asian nations.
The Philippines and Vietnam, which have awarded exploration contracts in disputed areas to Exxon Mobil Corp., Talisman
Energy Inc. and Forum Energy Plc, reject China’s claims over much of the sea.
‘Stabilizing Force’
Ricky Carandang, a spokesman for Philippine President Benigno Aquino, told reporters in Bali that the U.S. presence
“bolsters our ability to assert our sovereignty over certain areas” and will serve as a “stabilizing force.”
While in Bali as the first U.S. president to participate in the East Asia Summit, Obama made an unscheduled announcement
that he’ll send Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Myanmar next month, the first visit of the chief U.S. diplomat
to that country in more than a half century.
That also puts pressure on China, said Willy Lam, an adjunct professor of history at Chinese University in Hong
Kong.
Myanmar’s government is “hedging its bets” by seeking to expand beyond Chinese patronage, Lam said.
Myanmar, an important gateway for China to the Indian Ocean, suspended China’s construction of a $3.6 billion dam
in September and its Myanmar’s new defense minister recently visited Vietnam in what Lam said was interpreted as
a “snub” for Chinese officials.
‘Very Worried’
Now China “is very worried about whether Washington might want to ‘steal’ its client,” Lam said.
The reaction of Chinese leaders to Obama’s Asia-Pacific tour has been muted. President Hu Jintao, at APEC, said
the region should be one where there is active cooperation between the world’s two biggest economies. When the
U.S.-Australia defense arrangement was unveiled, China’s foreign ministry said it needed to be studied to assess
their benefit for the region.
Obama administration officials, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity in Bali, said that the Chinese
government was supportive overall because they want stability on their borders and greater integration with the
international community.
Doug Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a policy research center
in Washington, said that “it is more in line with China’s interests to display a cool reaction” to Obama’s steps.
Paal, who served as Asia director for the White House National Security Council under President George H.W. Bush,
said the Chinese government doesn’t want to acknowledge internally or publicly that “it is facing a greater threat”
of pushback from the U.S. and other nations.
--With assistance from Julianna Goldman, Jason Scott and Daniel Ten Kate in Bali, Indonesia. Editors: Joe
Sobczyk, Patrick Harrington.
To contact the reporter on this story: Margaret Talev in Bali at mtalev@bloomberg.net; Michael Forsythe in Beijing
at mforsythe@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg at phirschberg@bloomberg.net
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Obama
Puts Pressure on China as U.S. Asserts Asia Influence
November 17, 2011, 9:52 AM EST
Nov. 13 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama used his role as host of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
summit to pressure China on currency and intellectual property rights while telling voters that nations in the
region are counting on U.S. leadership.
Obama told Chinese President Hu Jintao yesterday that the American public and businesses are growing “increasingly
impatient and frustrated” with the pace of progress in relations between the two nations, said Michael Froman,
White House deputy national security adviser. Hu told Obama that a large appreciation of the yuan won’t solve U.S.
problems, a statement on the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s website said.
Obama’s strong language came only hours after he announced the U.S. and eight other nations will join in forging
an Asia- Pacific trade accord within the next year, a move he said demonstrates that “American leadership is still
welcome.”
With the APEC summit followed by stops in Australia and Indonesia, Obama is underscoring his administration’s pivot
toward Asia after a decade in which U.S. attention was focused on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The outreach is
spurred by the rising commercial importance of the region and by China’s mounting economic and military power.
At a session yesterday morning with company executives moderated by Boeing Co. Chief Executive Officer Jim McNerney,
Obama said the U.S., the world’s biggest economy, views the Pacific rim as the driver of future economic growth
and intends to use its influence in the region.
Pacific Power
“The United States is a Pacific power and we are here to stay” Obama said. “There’s no region in the world that
we consider more vital than the Asia Pacific region.”
He repeated that theme this morning as he opened a working meeting of leaders from the 21-member forum.
“The Asia Pacific region is absolutely critical to America’s economic growth,” he said.
The U.S. this year has exported more to the Pacific Rim than to Europe, according to the Commerce Department. Last
year, exports to the region supported 850,000 U.S. jobs, the State Department says.
Obama also told the executives, representing companies in the U.S. and Asia, that he wants China to “play by the
rules” and that the U.S. “can’t be expected to stand by” without getting reciprocity from China on currency, trade
and protection of intellectual property.
Political Issue
China’s policies also have become an issue in U.S. politics. The Senate approved a bill last month that would let
manufacturers seek duties on Chinese imports if they prove they were harmed by manipulation of the yuan. Tough
talk on China has become a staple for many of the Republicans seeking their party’s nomination to run against Obama
next year.
At a debate last night in South Carolina, Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney said he would make a case against
China at the World Trade Organization for manipulating its currency in order to artificially lower prices and run
a trade surplus. The U.S. had a $273 billion trade deficit with China last year.
Still, China, which is also the biggest holder of U.S. debt, has made steps on its currency. The yuan has gained
about 8 percent against the dollar in nominal terms since the country ended a two-year peg to the U.S. currency
in June, 2010. In real terms the gain has been more than 10 percent, because inflation is higher in China than
in the U.S.
The yuan rose 0.06 percent to 6.3424 in Shanghai on Nov. 11, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System.
Business Climate
John Rice, the General Electric Co. vice chairman who oversees the company’s international operations, said in
a Nov. 10 interview in Honolulu that China is making progress improving the climate for foreign businesses such
as GE.
He cited a decision by the government to put off new rules encouraging indigenous innovation that international
companies said could shut them out of an annual state procurement market worth as much as $1.1 trillion.
“I think the playing field is improving all the time,” Hong Kong-based Rice said. “The government listens when
people recommend opportunities for improvement.”
Obama took a less confrontational public stance when he began a bilateral meeting with Hu yesterday in Honolulu.
He said Americans should be “rooting for China to grow” because it would benefit both nations, by raising living
standards in China and providing new markets for U.S. companies.
Growing Relationship
“Although there are areas where we continue to have differences, I am confident that the U.S.-China relationship
can continue to grow in a constructive way based on mutual respect and mutual interests,” Obama said.
In private, Obama “made it very clear” the U.S. wants to see greater progress and cooperation on those issues,
Froman said.
White House press secretary Jay Carney said Obama was “very direct” with Hu and told him the U.S. frustrations
exist broadly across the political spectrum.
The U.S. trade deficit and unemployment are not caused by the yuan exchange rate and a “large” appreciation in
the currency won’t solve U.S. problems, Hu told Obama, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry statement.
“China’s foreign exchange policy is a responsible one,” Hu told Obama, according to the statement. The country
will “continue reforming its exchange rate mechanism.”
Broader Concern
White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said Obama also stressed that “this is not simply a matter
of the United States” raising concerns and that China is risking the collective pushback of other countries in
the region and around the world.
In his own speech to business executives, Hu said China will seek to boost imports in part to help stimulate economies
around the world.
“We must be firmly committed to maintaining growth and promoting stability,” Hu said. China will “focus more on
increasing imports while maintaining a stable level of exports.”
--With assistance from Michael Forsythe in Honolulu, Chua Baizhen in Beijing and Peter Hirschberg in Hong Kong.
Editors: Joe Sobczyk, Peter Hirschberg
To contact the reporters on this story: Margaret Talev in Honolulu at mtalev@bloomberg.net; Julianna Goldman in
Honolulu at jgoldman6@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.
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Asia
Rise Drives Obama Message as U.S.’s First Pacific President
November 16, 2011, 1:44 PM EST
By Margaret Talev
Nov. 11 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama, who calls himself “America’s first Pacific president,” is pressing
Americans to think more about Asia -- and, in some ways, to think more like Asians do.
He’s highlighting his administration’s turn toward the Pacific by hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
Summit in Hawaii on Nov. 12-13 and visiting Indonesia on Nov. 17-19 as the first U.S. president to participate
in the East Asia Summit. In between the two meetings, he’ll visit Australia to discuss expanded military ties.
In speeches in the U.S., China, Japan, South Korea, India, Singapore and Indonesia, Obama has said his Asia focus
is driven by today’s economic and demographic trends, while his instincts about the continent are influenced by
his birth in Hawaii and four boyhood years in Indonesia.
“The Pacific Rim has helped shape my view of the world,” he said in Tokyo on Nov. 14, 2009. During his lifetime,
he said, “The fortunes of America and the Asia-Pacific have become more closely linked than ever.”
His attention to Asia also has a domestic political dimension. Since introducing his $447 billion jobs plan on
Sept. 8, Obama has emphasized spending by China, South Korea and other nations on airports, infrastructure and
teachers in an effort to build support for his own provisions, which face opposition from congressional Republicans.
Competition is ‘Real’
He has pointed to China and India to stress another priority of his: Promoting science and technology education,
to urge American parents, students, schools and companies to train more engineers.
In his Jan. 25 State of the Union address, Obama said the two nations have been “educating their children earlier
and longer” with more math and science. China, he said, houses the world’s fastest computer and largest private
solar research facility.
“The competition for jobs is real,” he said. “But this shouldn’t discourage us. It should challenge us.”
Since his first year in office, Obama has asked Americans to look beyond concerns about Chinese dominance or U.S.
job losses and see a diverse region that can be a growing market for U.S. goods and services, yield stronger foreign
policy alliances and help respond to global challenges such as climate change.
“I would never say that he’s saying America should emulate Asia,” said Satu Limaye, director of the Washington
office of the East-West Center, a Honolulu policy center that studies U.S. relations with Asia-Pacific nations.
“What he’s saying is, ‘We should take note of what is happening in other places,’ and this is a call for us to
become more competitive.”
Export Boom
American companies are already sold on the region’s importance: The U.S. exported $326.4 billion in 2010 to the
Pacific Rim in goods and services, according to U.S. Census Bureau data, up from $254.6 billion in 2009. That exceeded
American exports to the European Union or to Canada. From 2000 to 2010, exports to the Pacific Rim rose 71.5 percent.
Those include exports to Australia, Brunei, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Macao, Malaysia, New
Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore and Taiwan.
Looking at a broader swath of Asia, the U.S. in 2009 exported $414 billion in goods and services to Asian countries,
a 56 percent increase since 2001, according to the Asia 40 index of countries developed by the East-West Center’s
Asia Matters for America initiative. That index compiles data from the census, U.S. Department of Commerce and
Institute of International Education.
Supporting U.S. Jobs
That 40-country region also accounted for 30 percent of total U.S. jobs supported by exports, or almost
850,000, in 2009. Students from the Asia-Pacific contributed $9 billion a year to the U.S. economy, and there were
350,000 Asian students studying in the U.S. in the 2008-09 academic year, according to the index, which includes
countries in Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia, as well as Australia and New Zealand. And 26 percent
of the U.S.’s foreign-born population came from Asia.
Free-trade agreements among Asian nations are expanding, meanwhile, from six deals in 1995 to 70 now in force and
70 more under negotiation, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The U.S. has trade accords with Australia,
Singapore and South Korea. The U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, which Obama signed on Oct. 21, will boost American
exports by as much as $10.9 billion in its first year in full effect, the U.S. International Trade Commission says.
Obama underlined his emphasis on Asia in 2009 by advocating replacing the Group of Eight economic forum, whose
only Asian member is Japan, with the G-20, which also includes China, South Korea, India and Indonesia, as the
world’s key economic body.
State Dinners
Since then, three of Obama’s five White House state dinners have honored Asian leaders -- Chinese President Hu
Jintao, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak. He’s made a major Asia trip
each year.
“For a very long time, Asia was a region that Americans associated with outsourcing and with cheap labor and cheaper
products here at home,” White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes said.
With the growth of middle classes beyond Japan and China, in South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia, “You’re
going to increasingly see U.S. job growth supported by exports to these countries,” Rhodes said.
Obama thinks the U.S. has “an enormous stake” in the region’s future and wants to convey that “our economic growth
at home is going to be tied directly to our ability to be competitive in these markets.”
Cooperate, Don’t ‘Collide’
“More is to be gained when great powers cooperate than when they collide,” Obama told students in Shanghai
on Nov. 16, 2009. It was on that Asia trip, during the stop in Tokyo, that he declared himself “America’s first
Pacific president.”
Speaking in the native tongue to a Jakarta crowd on Nov. 10, 2010, Obama said, “Indonesia is a part of me” and
recalled running through fields with water buffalo and goats.
“A rising middle class here in Indonesia means new markets for our goods,” he said. “Emerging economies like Indonesia
have a greater voice and also bear a greater responsibility for guiding the global economy.”
At a town hall event in Mumbai on Nov. 7, 2010, he described “a tug of war within the United States” between those
threatened by globalization and those who accept a new global reality. For most of his life, he said, the U.S.
was dominant enough to meet other countries “on our terms,” and now “we’ve got to negotiate this changing relationship.”
Saving Jobs
Obama brought South Korean President Lee to Detroit on Oct. 14 to a General Motors Co. plant to promote the trade
agreement between the U.S. and South Korea. Lee told the workers the trade deal “is going to protect your jobs.”
In an Oct. 11 speech, Obama said the sort of global envy once directed at the U.S. for the Hoover Dam is now being
directed at the Chinese for the airport in Beijing.
“We can’t compete that way, playing for second or third or fourth or eighth or 15th place,” he said.
Obama’s Asia focus meshes with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, even as his domestic policies on taxes and spending
often clash with the business community.
“Asia is the fastest-growing market in the world,” said chamber spokesman J.P. Fielder.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the U.S. should turn more resources to the region. In a piece on “America’s
Pacific Century” for this month’s Foreign Policy magazine, Clinton wrote that a U.S. economic recovery “will depend
on exports and the ability of American firms to tap into the vast and growing consumer base of Asia.” The U.S.
also must be engaged in military and other issues important to the region, she said.
“In Asia, they ask whether we are really there to stay, whether we are likely to be distracted again by events
elsewhere, whether we can make -- and keep -- credible economic and strategic commitments, and whether we can back
those commitments with action,” Clinton wrote. “The answer is: We can, and we will.”
--With assistance from Alex Tanzi in Washington. Editors: John Walcott, Mark McQuillan
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